United Airlines for the summer 2025 season will add eight new destinations, the carrier announced Thursday, making it the “largest international expansion in its history.”
New destinations with direct service to and from Newark Liberty International Airport include Palermo, Italy, launching May 21 and operating three times weekly; Bilbao, Spain, launching May 31 and operating three times weekly; Nuuk, Greenland, beginning June 14 and operating two times weekly via the city’s new international airport, which is scheduled to open in November; and Faro and Madeira Island in Portugal. The former will launch May 16 and operate four times weekly; the latter will launch June 7 and operate three times weekly.
United on May 23 will begin year-round service between Washington, D.C.’s Dulles International Airport and Dakar, Senegal, operating three times weekly.
The two remaining cities being added to the United network will operate via Tokyo’s Narita International Airport and serve Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, beginning May 1 and Kaohsiung, Taiwan, beginning July 11. The latter will operate year-round.
The carrier also is adding new routes, including direct seasonal service between Dulles and each Venice, Italy, beginning May 22 and operating daily, and Nice, France, beginning May 24 and operating four times weekly. Starting May 22, United also will add new daily service between San Francisco and San Jose, Costa Rica.
A new HBO documentary has fired up fresh speculation with evidence to suggest that Canadian developer Peter Todd is the elusive Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym behind the creator of Bitcoin. The documentary claims it has identified Todd as the man behind the world’s first cryptocurrency by piecing together old and new clues.
Todd Regularly Claims He Is Satoshi
Near the documentary’s conclusion, director Cullen Hoback confronts Todd, who responds to the filmmaker’s questions by casually admitting, “Well, yeah, I’m Satoshi Nakamoto.” However, this remark is far from conclusive, as Todd, a well-known figure in the cryptocurrency space, has used “I am Satoshi” many times to defend the creator’s quest for privacy.
A former Bitcoin Core developer, Todd has been known to communicate directly with Satoshi before the mysterious figure vanished from crypto forums in 2010. Despite his commanding position in the cryptocurrency community, Todd has rarely, if ever, been touted as a notable Satoshi suspect. Speaking for CNN, he denied he was Bitcoin’s creator.
For the record, I’m not Satoshi. Cullen is grasping for straws here. He is playing up a few coincidences into something much more. That’s a hallmark of conspiracy thinking.
Peter Todd
Should the documentary’s claim prove true, it would end over a decade of speculation about who created Bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto’s innovative work paved the way for the rise of cryptocurrencies, which changed finance but also facilitated fraud, illegal gambling, and other criminal activity. The mystery around Nakamoto’s true identity has fascinated crypto insiders and the general public, spawning endless theories and debates.
Crypto Insiders Remain Unconvinced
Filmmaker Cullen Hoback noted that while digital forensics provided some direction for his investigation, the most compelling evidence came from offline sources. He commented on his findings for POLITICO, lauding Todd’s mastery of game theory. Hoback closely monitored social media shortly before the documentary’s release and was amazed that Todd’s name never came up in discussions even though the developer was in the official trailer.
Despite Hoback’s sensational claim, many industry insiders doubt his findings. Jameson Lopp, the co-founder of Bitcoin company Casa, dismissed the claim, as did Nic Carter, founding partner at Castle Island Ventures. Carter acknowledged Todd’s talents but noted the developer lacked the deep expertise in cryptography and digital cash systems required to create Bitcoin.
The fact that Satoshi successfully pulled this off — it really is magical. I personally hope we never find out who Satoshi is.
Nic Carter, founding partner at Castle Island Ventures
The HBO documentary did not significantly impact the price of Bitcoin. 1 BTC currently trades for $63,126, with the price remaining relatively stable since its rally in March 2024. As for the identity of Bitcoin’s founder, the latest revelation does more to stir questions than provide answers in the dynamic world of cryptocurrency.
September 26th marks the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Credit: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)Darren Ornitz
Opinion by Tariq Rauf (vienna, austria)
Inter Press Service
VIENNA, Austria, Oct 08 (IPS) – In recent years, the rhetoric, strategy and practice of nuclear deterrence has grown riskier, more urgent, more dangerous, less stable, and increasingly in the hands of deficient leaders and policymakers.
Playing Nuclear Games
The ten States that have manufactured and test detonated nuclear weapons since 1945, each have received and/or provided assistance to other States – no existing nuclear weapon development and acquisition programme is truly indigenous or independent.
Furthermore, all ten nuclear-armed States have in place policies to use their nuclear weapons in circumstances assessed by them as threatening their vital security interests, sovereignty and territorial integrity; and in this context, all of them at one time or another have made implicit or explicit threats to use nuclear weapons.
On 26th September this year, at the commencement of the United Nations General Assembly’s annual high-level commemoration of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Secretary-General António Guterres warned that, “We are heading in the wrong direction entirely. Not since the worst days of the cold war has the spectre of nuclear weapons cast such a dark shadow”. He noted that nuclear-armed States “must stop gambling with humanity’s future” and must honour their commitments and obligations for nuclear disarmament.
The President of the General Assembly, Philémon Yang (Cameroon), also warned that, “This is a time when nuclear blackmail has emerged, and some are recklessly threatening to unleash a nuclear catastrophe. This simply cannot continue. We must step back from the nuclear precipice, and we must act now”.
In this regard, let’s take a brief detour back into the early history of the nuclear age. Following the Trinity nuclear test detonation of 16th July 1945, nuclear scientist Leó Szilárd observed that, “Almost without exception, all the creative physicists had misgivings about the use of the bomb” and further that “Truman did not understand at all what was involved regarding nuclear weapons”.
Last year, the movie Oppenheimer had been the rage based on a noteworthy biography of Robert Oppenheimer entitled American Prometheus written by historians Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. Though the movie spared its viewers the horrors of the atomic bombing of Japan, it did reflect the warnings of the early nuclear weapon scientists about the long-term or permanent dangers of a nuclear arms race and associated risks of further nuclear weapons use.
On the other hand, the film overlooked other historical works including A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and its Legacies also by Martin Sherwin, that disputes and negates the US government’s narrative about the necessity of using nuclear weapons twice over civilian targets in Japan and suggests that the decisions were driven mainly by geostrategic and prestige considerations – criteria still in operation today to justify continuing retention of nuclear weapons.
Leó Szilárd’s observation that I have cited above that President Truman did not understand at all what was involved regarding nuclear weapons, unfortunately still rings true nearly 80 years on when it comes to the leaders of today’s nuclear-weapon possessor States as well as of most of their diplomats and those of 30-plus countries in military defence and security arrangements underpinned by nuclear weapons.
Now, why do I say this? In addition to nuclear doctrines based on nuclear weapons use, the UN nuclear disarmament system is in disarray. The Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, the single multilateral arms control negotiating forum, has been stymied since 1996, unable to agree on a sustained programme of work on any of its “decalogue” of agenda items.
The Disarmament Commission as the specialized, deliberative subsidiary body of the General Assembly that allows for in-depth deliberations on specific disarmament issues, inter alia “Recommendations for achieving the objective of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons”, also has been deadlocked.
The First Committee of the General Assembly deals with disarmament, global challenges and threats to peace that affect the international community and seeks out solutions to the challenges in the international security regime. Every year it adopts more than 60 resolutions on various aspects of disarmament, but with no practical results in recent years.
The 2015 and 2022 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conferences failed to agree on any measures to reduce the risks of nuclear weapons and their elimination. As did the 2023 and 2024 preparatory sessions for the 2026 NPT review conference.
The UN Summit of the Future, held on 22-23 September this year, agreed on a Pact for the Future that regrettably was a big disappointment as it lacked any concrete actions, even though it paid lip service to the call that the “The time for the total elimination of nuclear weapons is now”. The document failed to reaffirm commitments to existing global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation treaties, or to call for new ones to be negotiated.
Notably the late UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had referred to this state of affairs as “mutually assured paralysis“, and that the “disarmament machinery is rusting”.
It is unfortunate that the above-referenced developments and the current nuclear rhetoric demonstrates that knowledge of nuclear history is waning thin and diplomats, academics and the mainstream media pundits are caught up with the emotions, pressures and even confusion of challenging technological advances in weapons, an ongoing territorial war in the heart of Europe, a genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, along with tensions in Northeast Asia and South Asia.
In effect, those in control of nuclear weapons today, along with the echo chambers in allied States in defence arrangements underpinned by nuclear deterrence, are playing games tickling the tail of the Promethean nuclear fire dragon.
Tickling the Tail of the Promethean Nuclear Fire Dragon
All nuclear-armed States today have in place policies and doctrines to use their nuclear weapons. In order to constrain the further proliferation of nuclear-armed States, the five NPT recognized “nuclear-weapon States” each have advanced negative security assurances to non-nuclear-weapon States parties to the NPT and to nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties, on the non-use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.
China is the only nuclear-weapon State to assert that it would not use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon State. The other four nuclear-weapon States – France, Russia, UK and US – each have attached conditions to their negative security assurances to the effect that such an assurance would not be honoured were it to be attacked by a non-nuclear-weapon State in collaboration or with the assistance of another nuclear-weapon State.
The nuclear weapons employment policy of the United States clearly posits that “using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability”. For its part, Russian military doctrine envisions the threat of nuclear escalation or even first use of nuclear weapons to “de-escalate” a conflict on terms favourable to Russia.
China’s evolving nuclear doctrine envisions a “strong military dream” based on military-civil-fusion to achieve by 2049 full spectrum power projection. In South Asia, both India and Pakistan have nuclear doctrines positing use of nuclear weapons including pre-emptive nuclear strikes.
In the current heated and volatile atmosphere in central Europe in the context of the Ukraine war, it is reported that Russia is re-asserting the conditions it has traditionally laid down in its negative security assurances to States parties to the NPT and to nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZ), which essentially are similar to that of the US, to the effect that: Russia will not attack or threaten to attack a non-nuclear-weapon State party to the NPT or NWFZ treaty with nuclear weapons, unless that non-nuclear-weapon State attacks Russia in collaboration with another nuclear-weapon State.
Now, since we’re in a proxy war involving France, UK and US (all three are nuclear-weapon States) that are considering material assistance to Ukraine to attack military sites inside the territorial borders of Russia; it is not surprising that Russia has retaliated by warning Ukraine and its NATO backers that long range fires against Russia targeting its strategic military bases could trigger a nuclear response by Russia.
Strategic nuclear bases are those housing strategic nuclear delivery systems (long- and medium-range bombers, road and rail mobile ballistic missiles), command and control centres, early warning radars, naval bases for submarines, etc.
It is never a good idea for a non-nuclear-weapon State to threaten to target or to target strategic military sites in a nuclear-weapon State and it would be foolhardy to set such a precedent or to carry out military strikes that could provoke a nuclear response.
Were Ukraine to strike strategic military sites inside Russia proper, that would be the first time that a non-nuclear-weapon State would strike the continental homeland of a nuclear-armed State; though one might add that Iran’s recent missile strikes against nuclear-armed Israel fall into the same category.
Should the US/NATO allow long range fires against strategic military sites in Russia from Ukraine, that would further compound the already unacceptably high risk of a central strategic war involving four nuclear-weapon States and thus would be highly irresponsible and indefensible.
Departing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg made comments in Washington to the effect that long range fires from Ukraine into Russian territory is the only one way to hit military targets behind the Russian lines, on Russian territory.
And that NATO should not be deterred by Russia’s “nuclear threats and rhetoric”; this in a way is questioning the credibility of Russian nuclear doctrine which is tantamount to “tickling the tail of the nuclear dragon” and could result in a Promethean nuclear fire of a central strategic war.
The new NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also has claimed that “targeting Russian fighter jets and missiles before they can be used against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure can help save lives”.
A just and equitable peace arrangement must be sought urgently under UN auspices to end the Ukraine war with the restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territory; and all sides must strive to avoid any further escalatory moves that could trigger a central strategic war.
Seek Peace, Not War!
It is highly reprehensible that these days the voices of war are prevalent over the voices seeking peace. The UN disarmament machinery has failed as has the Summit of the Future to curb nuclear risks. The architecture of nuclear disarmament and arms control is steadily crumbing with our eyes wide shut!
Unless we can mend our ways, it might be too late to avert a Promethean nuclear fire that consumes us all. We urgently must rethink how we manage nuclear risks; security based on nuclear deterrence is inherently flawed and risky and cannot continue on a long term basis.
A new international security system must be envisaged on the basic design principle that the effects of system failure cannot result to fundamentally disrupt or end civilization. We urgently need a new international security paradigm that can prevent an existential global nuclear catastrophe and keep the Promethean nuclear fire dragon firmly bottled up.
The views expressed in this article are personal comments by Tariq Rauf, former Head of Verification and Security Policy at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Airlines Reporting Corp. has implemented Oman Air’s New Distribution Capability offering in the ARC Direct Connect program, ARC announced Tuesday.
The partnership “allows us to expand our global footprint by offering NDC-enabled transactions beyond our existing network, providing great accessibility, choice and flexibility to travelers across the United States,” Oman Air chief commercial officer Mike Rutter said in a statement.
Rivalry, a next-gen sports betting and media company, announced that it has laid off 28 employees, including its global marketing director. The new redundancies are a part of a company restructuring, according to EGR.
Another Few Dozen Employees Have Been Dismissed
As reported, the restructuring comes amid Rivalry’s shift toward the crypto betting sector. Earlier this year, Rivalry confirmed that it plans to focus on blockchain opportunities and high-value customers. To that end, the operator is now undergoing major changes that will help it achieve its new goals.
In its financial report for the second quarter of the year, Rivalry announced that it plans to double down on the VIP sector and capitalize on high-value customers. This report also confirmed the company’s cryptocurrency ambitions, which it announced earlier this year.
Rivalry told EGR that it has laid off 28 workers, including Britt Doll, the company’s global marketing director. Doll was promoted to the position in December 2023 and had previously served as the company marketing director for Canada.
The layoffs mirror an earlier round of redundancies that saw the betting company part ways with another 29 employees.
CEO Salz Wants Rivalry to Become a Category Definer
Rivalry’s chief executive officer, Steven Salz, spoke with EGR on the matter, saying that the new round of redundancies aligns with the company’s ongoing refocus on the crypto frontier and new business strategy.
Salz also told the news outlet that his team is already finding leverage, product-market fit and return on investment from its expansion into the world of crypto and the VIP sector. The CEO concluded that these opportunities are great but also mean that the company must rethink its strategy and restructure its team.
Salz is optimistic that despite impacting 28 of his talented team members, the redundancies will ultimately allow the company to build on the momentum it is experiencing and become a ”category-defining” betting brand.
Rivalry was originally an esports-focused betting brand but eventually expanded its business by launching retro-style iGaming products and a cryptocurrency product. The Rivalry Token has so far been very successful and praised as one of the company’s best ventures.
The lawsuit between two leading providers of gaming solutions, Light & Wonder (L&W) and Aristocrat Technologies, continues. In the legal battle, the latter company argued that the former misappropriated trade secrets and engaged in intellectual property theft when developing its Dragon Train game.
The New Version of the Game Seeks to Ensure Compliance with a Court Order
Amid the ongoing legal dispute, L&W released a recorded video statement where the company’s CEO, Matt Wilson, addresses a range of concerns. Notably, the executive confirmed that the company is currently working on a new version of Dragon Train. Recognized as v2.0 of Dragon Train, the new game seeks to ensure compliance with a recently issued court order. The announcement comes after Aristocrat seized the initiative in its lawsuit against L&W.
Confirmed late in September, the court order saw Judge Gloria M. Navarro with the US District Court for the District of Nevada side with Aristocrat, effectively preventing L&W from “continued or planned sale, leasing, or other commercialization of Dragon Train.” Moreover, the Judge explained that Aristocrat may succeed in proving that L&W “misappropriated Aristocrat’s trade secrets,” when developing Dragon Train.
According to Wilson, the development of the new version of Dragon Train that addresses the issues outlined by the court is a “high priority.” He revealed that L&W anticipates retaining the game as a part of its portfolio.
Additionally, Wilson explained that the litigation involving Dragon Train targets only a “small portion of the overall game.” He added that only “certain aspects of the map are being challenged,” while pointing to the unique features of the game, as well as its art, sounds and animations. “These things are not affected by the (court) order,” said Wilson.
The Company Reaffirmed Its Financial Targets
Last week, analysts with Truist Securities, quoted by NEXT.io, suggested that the creator of Dragon Train, Emma Charles, is no longer a part of L&W. In the latest statement, L&W’s CEO confirmed the departure of the game’s lead designer. Although Wilson confirmed that the game’s lead designer was terminated, no further details were disclosed.
“You might have already seen the news of the departure of Dragon Train’s designer from Light & Wonder. Though we don’t discuss specifics or personal matters, I can confirm the designer was terminated earlier this week.“
Matt Wilson, CEO at Light & Wonder
Focusing on the court order’s impact on company business, Wilson said that L&W remains dedicated to delivering its 2025 consolidated AEBITDA target of $1.4 billion. At the same time, he said L&W will maintain its focus on sustainable growth.
Speaking about the court order and its impact on the North American market, the executive said that L&W has a total of 33,000 lease units installed. According to Wilson, Dragon Train “represented a mid-single-digit percentage” of that total or approximately 2,200 units. The CEO said that so far, L&W hasn’t received a single removal request, and it is working hard to convert the installed units in compliance with the court’s request.
NEW YORK, Oct 04 (IPS) – Khalid Saifullah, Fellow, Save Bangladesh USA Inc.The commonly used Bangla phrase for siphoning off money out of the country – “taka pachar” – is rather misleading. Because taka, the Bangladeshi currency, is never taken out of Bangladesh. It’s not useful anywhere else. What goes out is its equivalence in foreign currencies, especially, US dollars. The technical term for such criminal act is Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs). Mistakenly, sometimes IFFs are referred to as money laundering – a processing of criminal proceeds to disguise their illegal origin.
Money laundering and illicit transfers of funds
Although there are some links between money laundering and IFFs, they are not the same activity. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime defines money laundering as “the conversion or transfer of property, knowing that such property is derived from any offense(s), for the purpose of concealing or disguising the illicit origin of the property or of assisting any person who is involved in such offense(s) to evade the legal consequences of his actions”.
On the other hand, Illicit financial flows (IFFs) refer to illegal movements or transfers of money or capital from one country to another. However, sources of such funds may not be illegal (e.g., corruption, smuggling).
In practice, IFFs can also involve ill-gotten money – the worst case as in Bangladesh. The billions of dollars that were taken out of the country were mostly obtained through corruption and stealing of public funds.
How do illegal fund transfers happen?
Nearly US$3.15 billion flows out illicitly from Bangladesh annually. If a common person wants to travel abroad with a few hundred of thousand dollars, they can simply slip it in their pocket and catch a flight which is perfectly legal if that amount is within the legal limit of a country. For example, one can legally take out a maximum of AUD10,000 out of Australia (or bring in) without having to make declaration. For Bangladesh, it is only USD5,000.
But cronies of the Hasina’s kleptocratic regime robbed and transferred millions and billions of dollars. According to a recent report, close to US$150 billion was siphoned off the country during 15 years of kleptocratic Hasina regime’s mis-rule. So, they must have carried out these very illegal activities through legal channels. How did it work though?
Well, it’s very difficult to know for sure, but it is believed that most IFFs happen through trade mis-invoicing or trade-based money laundering. Let’s try to understand the design with an example.
Let’s say, you want to launder one million dollars. Either you or your accomplice have an export-import business. Let’s say you need to import 10,000 units of a product each costing $50. But instead of $50, you declare that their unit value was $150. By “securing” assistance from some key people within the authorities, you get Bangladesh Bank to transmit one and half million dollars as the payment for your grossly over-declared imports to a foreign company you set up for this purpose. You pay the exporter half a million dollars for your legitimate imports, and in the process, you have succeeded in laundering the one million dollars you wanted to get out of Bangladesh. The same can be done for exports but in reverse. This is of course a simplistic example and there can be many creative variations of this menace.
There are reasons to believe that this happened a lot in the case of Bangladesh. Why? Well, to begin with, Bangladesh does have a vibrant export-import sector which can make trade-based money laundering accessible and difficult to trace. Secondly, many of Hasina’s cronies themselves were involved in international trading. Thirdly – and I don’t think many people know this – Bangladesh stopped sharing detailed international trade data with the UN after 2015. There can of course be other explanations for this, but the timing nevertheless raises questions. UN Comtrade, world’s largest source of international trade data, has data on most countries in the world but not Bangladesh, world’s eighth largest population and thirty-fifth largest economy.
We need detailed trade data
International trade data has the special characteristic that it’s a two-sided account. Bangladesh’s export of cotton T-shirts to US is also US’ import of cotton T-shirts from Bangladesh. In practice, there are some other factors at play but overall, this is how it is. Users can easily compare international trade data and any glaring disparities become immediately apparent.
One could argue that this still could be done since Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), Exports Promotion Bureau (EPB) and Bangladesh Bank (BB) all publish external trade data. It would seem so but that’s not really the case. Without going into much details, the data published by these agencies lack the necessary details to be comparable. Their data is at an aggregated level and not disseminated in a comparable manner. EPB doesn’t even publish imports data (it’s probably not in their mandate).
Then, there’s the issue of accuracy. Weeks before Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, BB revised exports data stating that EPB’s figure was 10 billion USD higher than actual exports. The Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus in his most recent address to the public promised to publish accurate trade data. It is a very necessary and welcome step. However, it is not sufficient. We need the necessary details in the data to allow for comparison with our trading partner countries’ data. In particular, we need:
Data by calendar year (Jan-Dec) and not only fiscal year.
Data by monthly frequency.
Breakdown by commodity codes up to at least HS (Harmonized System) 6-digits level. There are around 6,000 HS 6-digits codes available from the World Customs Organization (WCO). These codes can specify a commodity with sufficient details.
Commodity descriptions.
Breakdown by trading partner (ISO codes for country of origin for imports, country of last known destination for exports).
Breakdown by country of consignment (ISO codes for any third country the commodities may have passed through).
Mode of transport (sea, air, road, rail, etc.).
Breakdown by customs procedure codes (for what purpose the commodity was imported or exported).
Breakdown by trade flow (exports, imports, re-exports, etc.)
Value (free-on-board basis for exports; cost, insurance, and freight basis for imports), net weight and quantity.
Towards modernization and automation of financial intelligence
Accurate, timely and detailed trade data is important for analyses of possible trade mis-invoicing but it’s not sufficient in preventing money laundering altogether. What we need is an overhaul and automation of financial intelligence itself.
The backbone of such an automated system should be a Business Register (BR). A BR is exactly what it sounds like – it’s a register of all businesses in a country. A key component of the BR is the unique identifier. Each business or enterprise is assigned a unique ID. Once set up, businesses must be required to use this ID in all types of activities, from setting up bank accounts to trading.
The BR can contain many other information on the businesses including size, sector, economic activities and so on. Thanks to the unique identifier, BR can be used to link data from different domains, e.g., linking trade data with businesses and their banking activities.
Given the treasure trove of linked data available from customs declarations, banks and other sources – much of which cannot be published for public use due to confidentiality- the information can nevertheless be used to build very intelligent and sophisticated systems thanks to statistical modelling, machine learning and artificial intelligence which can flag any suspicious activities in real time. I mean, something has to be “off” in a transaction involving money laundering and the technology is out there to detect it.
The existence of such a system itself could lessen the problem of money laundering to a great extent because it will serve as a strong deterrent. Building this level of data capacity will of course take investment. But looking at the estimated 150 billion dollars laundered by Sheikh Hasina’s kleptocratic regime, it seems the return on investment is very enticing.
Khalid Saifullah is a trained statistician with 14 years of experience working in international organizations.
SAS and Virgin Atlantic have entered into a codeshare agreement, scheduled to take effect Oct. 7, the carriers announced Friday.
Virgin Atlantic customers traveling from the U.S. and Canada can purchase onward connections through London Heathrow and Manchester onto SAS services to Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Oslo, Stavanger and Bergen in Norway. SAS customers through Heathrow will be able to connect to additional Virgin Atlantic destinations.
Each airline now is part of the SkyTeam alliance, as SAS joined Sept. 1. SAS EuroBonus loyalty members and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club members each will be able to earn and redeem points across the carriers.
The World Poker Tour (WPT) has announced its upcoming lineup of high-profile events that will capture the attention of poker pros and fans worldwide. With event stops in Paris, Montreal, Las Vegas, and Cambodia, WPT is preparing for an action-packed few months of tournaments. While fans in some regions may be disappointed, the championship has reaffirmed its intention to visit as many diverse destinations as possible.
Paris, Montreal, and Vegas Will Host Exciting Events
Kicking off in October, WPT will host simultaneous series in both Paris and Montreal. From 14 to 19 October, the WPT Prime Paris Championship at Club Circus Paris will offer many thrilling events. These include the €500 WPT Opener and the marquee €1,100 WPT Prime Paris Championship running from 23 to 28 October. The championship sports an almost 30-event schedule catering to all kinds of players.
Meanwhile, WPT heads out to Playground Poker in Montreal for its parallel championship series, starting with the WPT 500 event featuring a CAD 400,000 ($295,000) guarantee. The six consecutive starting flights will run from 14-19 October, culminating with the finale on 21 October.
Next in line is the WPT Prime Playground Championship, with a CAD 800,000 ($590,420) guarantee from 20-25 October, while the headline event, the CAD 3,500 buy-in WPT Playground Championship, with a CAD 1.5 million ($1.11 million) guarantee, runs from 24-30 October.
December will see WPT return to Las Vegas for the highly-anticipated WPT World Championship at the Wynn from 3-23 December. The series will feature a record-breaking $5 million freeroll as part of a promotional campaign for WPT’s soon-to-launch online poker suite. The highlight, the $10,400 World Championship, kicks off on 14 December with many other events on the packed schedule.
2025 Kicks Off with the WPT Cambodia Championship
The WPT’s plans are not limited to 2024. The second WPT Cambodia Championship will occur from 6-24 February, with tournament guarantees exceeding $3 million. The premier $3,500 WPT Cambodia Championship will run from 19-24 February, offering a $1.5 million guarantee, up $500,000 from last year’s event.
Other key Cambodia events include the $1,100 buy-in WPT Prime Cambodia with its $750,000 guarantee (14-18 February) and the $600 Championship Warm Up with a $150,000 guarantee (7-10 February). WPT CEO Adam Pliska was excited about the upcoming festivals and was particularly optimistic about Cambodia’s status as a rising poker destination.
“Our festivals in Cambodia at NagaWorld have immortalized some amazing moments from record-breaking fields to the Sexton Cup’s first appearance in Southeast Asia.”
Adam Pliska, WPT CEO
These coming events more than compensate for the organization’s decision earlier this year to cancel its WPT Macau event, which was scrapped in May. Despite the cancellation, the brand still promised to hold future world-class events in the Asia-Pacific region. With high-stakes tournaments across iconic poker destinations, WPT is once again setting the stage for memorable moments and intense competition.
Virgin Atlantic beginning Oct. 30 will allow Flying Club loyalty program members to pay for any seat with Virgin Points, the carrier announced Monday, among other changes to the program.
The carrier also said it would launch what it called “saver reward seats,” a tier offered “from prices even lower than reward seats today,” and will increase point-earning rates in Premium and Upper Class cabins.
Flying Club members will be able to use Virgin Points to pay for any seat on any date. The price of the seats will vary in line with demand, according to the carrier.
In addition, members will be able to use their points to upgrade to any available Premium or Upper Class seat from standard or reward tickets, and be able to use their companion or upgrade vouchers on any seat.
Further, the amount of Virgin Points earned on Upper Class tickets will increase by up to 50 percent and Premium tickets will increase by up to 75 precent, according to the carrier.
Delta Air Lines on June 12, 2025, will launch its first nonstop route between Salt Lake City and Seoul, South Korea, the carrier announced Friday. The daily service will operate year-round with Airbus A350-900 aircraft configured with four cabins: Delta One Suites, Premium Select, Comfort Plus and Main Cabin.
The new flights will be Delta’s fifth direct U.S. route to Seoul, joining Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Seattle. Together with partner Korean Air, Delta with the new flights will offer access to Seoul from 14 U.S. gateways, according to the carrier.
The panel for the session on “Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Imagining a World without Nuclear Weapons.” Credit: AD McKenzie/IPS
by AD McKenzie (paris)
Inter Press Service
PARIS, Sep 27 (IPS) – In any discussion of world peace and the future of humanity, the issue of nuclear arms must be addressed, and now.
That was the message from a range of delegates at the “Imaginer la Paix / Imagine Peace” conference, held in Paris September 22 to 24, and organized by the Sant’Egidio Community, a Christian organization founded in Rome in 1968 and now based in 70 countries.
Describing its tenets as “Prayer, service to the Poor and work for Peace,” the community has hosted 38 international, multi-faith peace meetings, bringing together activists from around the world. This is the first time the conference has been held in Paris, with hundreds traveling to France, itself a nuclear-weapon state.
Occurring against the backdrop of brutal, on-going conflicts in different regions and a new race by some countries to “upgrade” their arsenal, the gathering had a sense of urgency, with growing fears that nuclear weapons might be used by warlords. Participants highlighted current and past atrocities and called upon world leaders to learn from the past.
“After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have been blessed with many who have said ‘no’—’no’ a million times, creating movements and treaties, (and) awareness… that the only reasonable insight to learn from the conception and use of nuclear weapons is to say ‘no’,” said Andrea Bartoli, president of the Sant’Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue, based in New York.
Participating in a conference forum Monday titled “Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Imagining a World Without Nuclear Weapons,” Bartoli and other speakers drew stark pictures of what living in a world with nuclear weapons entails, and they highlighted developments since World War II.
“After the two bombs were used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humans built more than 70,000 nuclear weapons and performed more than 2,000 tests. Still today we have more than 12,500, each of them with power greatly superior to the two used in August 1945,” Bartoli said.
Despite awareness of the catastrophic potential of these weapons and despite a UN treaty prohibiting their use, some governments argue that possessing nuclear arms is a deterrent—an argument that is deceptive, according to the forum speakers.
Anna Ikeda, program coordinator for disarmament at the UN Office of Soka Gakkai International. Credit: AD McKenzie/IPS
Jean-Marie Collin, director of ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a movement launched in the early 2000s in Australia and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017), said that leaders who cite deterrence “accept the possibility of violating” international human rights.
“Nuclear weapons are designed to destroy cities and kill and maim entire populations, which means that all presidents and heads of government who implement a defense policy based on nuclear deterrence and who are therefore responsible for giving this order, are aware of this,” Collin told the forum.
ICAN campaigned for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that was adopted at the United Nations in 2017, entering into force in 2021. The adoption came nearly five decades after the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which entered into force in 1970.
The terms of the NPT consider five countries to be nuclear weapons states: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China. Four other countries also possess nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel.
According to a 2024 ICAN report, these nine states jointly spent €85 billion (USD 94,6 billion) on their atomic weapon arsenals last year, an expenditure ICAN has called “obscene” and “unacceptable.” France, whose president Emmanuel Macron spoke about peace in broad, general terms at the opening of the conference, spent around €5,3 billion (about USD 5,9 billion) in 2023 on its nuclear weapons, said the report.
The policy of “deterrence” and “reciprocity,” which essentially means “we’ll get rid of our weapons if you get rid of yours,” has been slammed by ICAN and fellow disarmament activists.
“With the constant flow of information, we often tend to lose sight of the reality of figures,” Collin said at the peace conference. “I hope this one will hold your attention: it is estimated that more than 38,000 children were killed in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Children!”
All those killed—an estimated 210,000 people by the end of 1945—died in horrific ways, as survivors and others have testified. Delegates said that this knowledge should be the real “deterrent.”
At the forum, Anna Ikeda, program coordinator for disarmament at the UN Office of Soka Gakkai International, a global Buddhist movement, described testimony from a Hiroshima a-bomb survivor, Reiko Yamada, as one she would never forget.
“She (Yamada) stated, ‘A good friend of mine in the neighbourhood was waiting for her mother to return home with her four brothers and sisters. Later, she told me that on the second day after the bombing, a moving black lump crawled into the house. They first thought it was a black dog, but they soon realized it was their mother; she collapsed and died when she finally got to her children. They cremated her body in the yard,” Ikeda told the audience with emotion.
“Who deserves to die such a death? Nobody!” she continued. “Yet our world continues to spend billions of dollars to upkeep our nuclear arsenals, and our leaders at times imply readiness to use them. It is utterly unacceptable.”
Ikeda said that survivors, known as the “hibakusha” in Japan, have a fundamental answer to why nuclear weapons must be abolished—it is that “no one else should ever suffer what we did.”
Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.
Achieving the goal of tripling renewables generation capacity by 2030, and more broadly decarbonizing the global electricity system, requires active SPCU involvement. Credit: Bigstock.
Opinion by Leonardo Beltran, Philippe Benoit (washington dc)
Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON DC, Sep 25 (IPS) – The climate community, meeting this week once again on the margins of the UN General Assembly, is continuing to explore ways to triple the world’s installed renewable generation capacity by 2030, a target agreed at last year’s COP 28 international climate negotiations. Much of this discussion has been about mobilizing finance and otherwise getting the private sector, with its massive resources and competence, to step up to the challenge … and what government policies and incentives are needed to spur more investment.
Significantly, most EMDE governments favor state ownership and control over the strategic electricity sector. When this EMDE preference is coupled with the projected dominance of these countries in the future growth of global electricity demand (85% of the expected worldwide increase from 2022 to 2026), the already substantiial weight of government-owned power assets within the global electricity system can be expected to increase over time.
Why are these elements significant? They point to the need for SPCU action in any effort to triple installed renewables capacity globally by 2030.
How can this be accomplished? There are several key ways.
SPCU action should also target joint ventures with private investors. This could take various forms, such as co-investments in new renewables capacity or new government-owned plants operated by the private sector.
SPCUs are in many systems the purchasers of electricity produced by private independent power producers (IPPs). So even if it doesn’t own the power plant, an SPCU can help to promote new renewables generation by providing prospective private investors with a commercially reliable counterparty to buy the IPP’s electricity, as well as supporting robust and transparent competitive bidding processes and other tools to encourage private investment in clean energy.
SPCUs can provide critical complementary/associated infrastructure and systems to back private sector investment in the plants themselves. This might include building a dedicated transmission line to connect a large but remotely situated renewables IPP to the grid. It should also include, at a much smaller scale, SPCU support to households interested in rooftop solar systems which are frequently managed in cooperation with a local publicly-owned utility.
Increasing generation capacity, however, is just a means to an end. Rather, the key is translating additional generation capacity into clean electrons flowing through to users. And here, SPCUs have a critical role to play in two additional dimensions.
First, activating additional renewables capacity requires massive investments in the grid to link that new production to actual consumers. In order to transform investments in renewables generation into a greener electricity system, grid investments need to double by 2030 to over $600 billion.
This was a lesson learned in part from the experience in China where new renewables generation outpaced network expansion, a shortcoming that required investment in specifically the grid to overcome. Because in many, if not most, countries worldwide, the grid is government-owned, SPCUs will be key to expanding the electricity network to enable the integration of larger amounts of renewables generation.
A second dimension often overlooked is that usually even in power systems where there is significant renewables generation, there are also fossil fuel plants. The decision as to which plants are called upon at any moment to produce electricity is often made by a grid system operator.
In many countries — from Mexico to China and more — that entity is once again government-owned and controlled. Ensuring that additional renewables capacity actually translates into a decarbonized electricity supply will require complementary and supportive action by the government-owned grid operator to dispatch that renewable power into the network to serve customers.
For all these reasons, achieving the goal of tripling renewables generation capacity by 2030, and more broadly decarbonizing the global electricity system, requires active SPCU involvement.
This is particularly true in emerging economies and other developing countries whose electricity sector emissions are projected to grow absent robust decarbonization actions. But it is also true in the United States and other advanced economies. More attention needs to be given to SPCUs, key players in achieving global climate goals.
Philippe Benoit is managing director for Global Infrastructure Advisory Services 2050. He previously held management positions at the International Energy Agency and World Bank, and worked as adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University-SIPA’s Center on Global Energy Policy and an investment banker. He is currently a visiting professor at the University of SciencesPo-Paris.
Leonardo Beltran is a senior advisor at Iniciativa Climática de México. He was Mexico´s Deputy Secretary of Energy in charge of the Energy Transition (2012- 2018), and member of the board of directors of Pemex and CFE. He currently holds fellowships at the Institute of the Americas and the School of Public Policy of the University of Calgary.
Dr. Tshilidzi Marwala, USG and Rector of the United Nations University, and Ms. Kaoru Nemeto, Director of the United Nations Information Centre during a discussion ‘Building the Future: Synergetic Collaboration on Nuclear and Climate Crises.’ Credit: Naureen Hossain/IPS
by Naureen Hossain (united nations)
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 23 (IPS) – Driving the Summit of the Future’s core messages of international solidarity and decisive action are young people who are determined to address the intersecting issues that the world contends with today.
During the Summit’s Action Days (20-21 September), it was young people who led the conversations of increasing and defining meaningful engagement, both on- and off-site from the United Nations Headquarters.
Not only are they driving the conversation, but in the Pact for the Future adopted by world leaders at the United Nations on Sunday (September 22), youth and future generations are at the forefront of global leaders’ concerns, and their role was clearly defined with the first ever Declaration on Future Generations, with concrete steps to take account of future generations in our decision-making, including a possible envoy for future generations.
This includes a commitment to more “meaningful opportunities for young people to participate in the decisions that shape their lives, especially at the global level.”
Building the Future: Synergetic Collaboration on Nuclear and Climate Crises, a side event whose co-organizers included Soka Gakkai International (SGI) and the Future Action Festival Organizing Committee, with the support of the United Nations University (UNU) and the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC), brought together young activists to discuss the intersection between two different crises and what will define meaningful youth engagement.
Kaoru Nemoto, the Director General of UNIC in Tokyo, observed that it was “ground-breaking” to see the agenda of the Summit’s Action Days largely led and organized by youth participants, as signified by the majority of seats in the General Assembly Hall being filled by young activists.
“There is an undercurrent, a common message, that the youth can make this world a better place to live,” said Nemoto. “No matter what agenda you are working on, be it climate change, nuclear disarmament, fighting inequality… youth issues are cross-cutting, very strong cross-cutting issues across the board.”
Nemoto further added that the United Nations needs to do much more to engage youth for meaningful participation. This would mean allowing youth to consult in decision-making and to be in positions of leadership. Youth presence cannot be reduced to tokenism.
The climate and nuclear crises are existential threats that are deeply connected, said Dr. Tshilidzi Marwala, the rector of the United Nations University. Climate instability fuels the factors that lead to conflict and displacement. Conflict, such as what is happening in Sudan, Israel, Palestine, and Ukraine, increases the risk of nuclear escalation. As leaders in the present day tackle the issues, Marwala called on the youth to continue raising their voices and to hold those powers accountable.
Marwala noted that the United Nations University would be committed to “realizing meaningful participation” in all parties. For young people, while they are motivated and demonstrate a care for deeper social issues, they face challenges in having their voices heard or in feeling galvanized to take action. Marwala noted that it was important to reach out to those young people who are either not involved or feel discouraged from getting involved in political work and activism.
Chief among the Summit of the Future’s agenda is increasing youth participation in decision-making processes. It has long been acknowledged that young activists and civil society actors drive greater societal change and are motivated to act towards complex issues. Yet they frequently face challenges in participating in policymaking that would shape their countries’ positions.
Among these challenges are representation in political spaces. Within the context of Japan, young people are underrepresented in local and national politics. As Luna Serigano, an advocate from the Japan Youth Council, shared during the event, there is a wider belief among young voters in Japan that their voices will go unheard by authorities.
This is indicated in voter turnout, which shows that only 37 percent of voters are in their 20s, and only 54 percent of voters believe that their votes matter. By contrast, 71 percent of people in their 70s voted in elections. People in their 30s or younger account for just 1 percent of professionals serving in government councils and forums. The Japan Youth Council is currently advocating for active youth participation in the country’s climate change policy by calling for young people to be directly involved as committee members to work on a new energy plan for the coming year.
Yuuki Tokuda, a co-founder of GeNuine, a Japan-based NGO that explores nuclear issues through a gender perspective, shared that young people are out of decision-making spaces. Although their voices may be heard, it is not enough. As she told IPS, the climate and nuclear crises are on the minds of young people in Japan. And while they have ideas on what could be done, they are not informed on how to act.
There is some hope for increasing participation. Tokuda shared within policymakers on nuclear issues, of which 30 percent include women, have begun to engage with young people in these discussions.
“It is time to reconstruct systems so that youth can meaningfully participate in these processes,” said Tokuda. “We need more intergenerational participation in order to work towards the ban of nuclear weapons and the climate crisis.”
During the event, what meaningful youth engagement should look like was discussed. It was acknowledged that efforts have gone towards giving a space to the perspectives of young people. Including young people in the discussions is a critical step. It was suggested that direction should shift towards ensuring that young people have the authority to take the action needed to resolve intersecting, complex issues. Otherwise, the inclusion is meaningless.
“The future-oriented youth is more needed than ever to tackle the challenges in building and maintaining peace,” said Mitsuo Nishikata of SGI.
“As a youth-driven initiative such as what the Future Action Festival demonstrates, youth solidarity can stand as a starting point for resolving and passing issues.”
Next year (2025) will mark 80 years since the end of World War II and the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombings. Nishikata pointed out that this will be a time for crucial opportunities to advance the discussions on nuclear disarmament and climate action, ahead of the Third Meeting of State Parties on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the 30th UN Climate Conference (COP30).
“We will continue to unite in our desire for peace, sharing the responsibility for future generations and expanding grassroots actions in Japan and globally.
Other commitments for the Pact for the Future included the first multilateral recommitment to nuclear disarmament in more than a decade, with a clear commitment to the goal of totally eliminating nuclear weapons.
It also pledged reform of the United Nations Security Council since the 1960s, with plans to improve the effectiveness and representativeness of the Council, including by redressing the historical underrepresentation of Africa as a priority.
The pact has at its core a commitment to “turbo-charge” implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including the reform of the international financial architecture so that it better represents and serves developing countries.
“We cannot build a future that is suitable for our grandchildren with a system that our grandparents created,” as the Secretary-General António Guterres stated.
This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.
Turkish Airlines beginning Dec. 18 will launch flights between Istanbul and Santiago, Chile, with a stopover in São Paulo in both directions, the carrier announced Friday. The route will operate four times weekly and will bring the total number of destinations in the Americas served by Turkish Airlines to 26, according to the carrier.
Students interact with ECW’s Executive Director, Yasmine Sherif, as they participate in an art therapy session at an ECW-supported school in Kyiv, Ukraine. In partnership with UNICEF Ukraine and Caritas Ukraine, the school offers vital mental health and psychosocial support. Credit: ECW
by IPS Correspondent (united nations)
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 17 (IPS) – Education Cannot Wait (ECW) has delivered quality education to children in crisis “against all odds,” ECW Executive Director Yasmine Sherif said at the United Nations today. “And you can imagine the odds. We are seeing more armed conflict, a growth of climate-induced disasters and the biggest refugee movement since World War 2.”
Education Cannot Wait’s ‘Results Against All Odds: 2023 Annual Results Report‘ launched today (September 17, 2024) gives details of the dire need for additional funding because, while the number of children in urgent need of education support has nearly tripled since 2016, for the first time in a decade funding for funding for education in emergencies and protracted crises dropped.
The global community is falling behind on its promise to ensure ‘quality education for all‘ by 2030, the report says, as armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate change, and other emergencies and protracted crises have left more than 224 million crisis-affected children in urgent need of education support, a sharp rise from 75 million in 2016.
Overall humanitarian funding for education decreased by 3% last year, from US$1.2 billion in 2022 to US$1.17 billion in 2023, according to the report.
Despite this, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises within the United Nations, and its strategic partners continue to deliver life-saving, life-sustaining and multi-year investments in education to the world’s most vulnerable children and adolescents.
Sherif thanked ECW’s partners and the global community that supports education for children in crisis.
“Mostofall,wehavetothankthechildrenwhoareclingingontohopedespitethedarknessandtheoddsagainstthem,stillwantingtogotoschool,wantingtolearnandwantingtochangetheirlives.Now,despiteallthesealarmingtrendsandrealities,educationcannotwait,” Sherif said, noting that this report gave details of many children that had been reached sinceECWbecameoperationalin2017.
“That’ssixyears,11millionwithaholisticqualityeducation,aneducationthatischild-centeredandthatentitlestheentirespectrumofschoolmeansacademictraining,artsandmentalhealthandpsychosocialservices,protection,teachertrainingandteachersupport,amongstsomanyotherthings.” In 2023 alone, 5.6 million girls and boys were reached, she noted.
More Funding Needed to Meet 2026 Goal
To date, the fund has mobilized more than US$1.6 billion from public and private donors. However, US$600 million is urgently needed in donor contributions for ECW and its strategic partners to reach a total of 20 million children and adolescents with inclusive, quality education by the end of its 2023-2026 strategic plan period.
“For our 25 strategic donor partners, these transformative investments deliver a quality child-centered and holistic education, and thus represent a commitment to sustainable development, human rights, economic resilience and global security,” said Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of ECW’s High-Level Steering Group.
“Education is the most powerful tool to restore hope in a world marred by brutal conflicts, human rights violations and inequality. It is our investment in a new generation of leaders.”
From Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gaza, the West Bank, to Haiti, the Sahel, Sudan, Ukraine and other hotspots around the globe, ECW’s report highlights the profound impact of education in crisis settings.
Funding Education: A Moral Choice
“Girls and boys in crises are enduring the worst impacts of brutal man-made conflicts, forced displacement, climate change and other disasters. Our new report proves that despite these challenges, it is possible to provide them with the protection, hope and life-changing opportunity of a quality holistic education. To do this, we urgently call for US$600 million to meet our strategic plan targets and ensure a better future for 20 million girls and boys by the end of 2026,” said ECW Executive Director Yasmine Sherif. “This is the time to make a moral choice that is aligned with political action.”
The new report shows ECW’s strong focus on the world’s most vulnerable and at-risk children: of the children reached in 2023, more than half were girls (51%), 17% were internally displaced and 22% were refugees.
The quality and impact of the education delivered—even in the most difficult of circumstances—are also improving. In all, 9 out of 10 programmes reported improved school enrollment and 72% showed gender-equitable progress. ECW reported that, among programmes able to monitor learning outcomes, 80% of its investments demonstrated academic improvements and 72% showed improvements in children’s social and emotional learning and well-being.
ECW investments also improved the continuity of learning, with notable increases in the number of girls and boys reached through the Fund’s investments in early childhood education and secondary school, disability inclusion, gender-transformative approaches, mental health support, and agile, holistic solutions that address whole-child needs.
The climate crisis is an education crisis. The number of children reached through First Emergency Responses resulting from climate-induced hazards nearly doubled from 14% in 2022 to 27% in 2023.
The report lays out ECW’s distinct approach and results in improving coordination at the humanitarian-development nexus, joint programming, increasing localization and community engagement, and building stronger data and evidence systems.
It demonstrates ECW’s efforts with partners to deliver on key United Nations initiatives and reforms, including the Grand Bargain agreement, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Secretary-General UN reform. The report shows that the systems are in place and that Education Cannot Wait has brought a revival through bold support to make the systems work at its best. But funding is required to achieve the goals.
“Education is a public good and a fundamental right. To achieve our goals, global leaders must align policies, funding and humanitarian principles. Multilateral aid funding must immediately be increased to reverse the current downward trend, and partnerships and collaboration must be strengthened across humanitarian, development and peace efforts. Education Cannot Wait has shown us that the seemingly ‘impossible’ is indeed possible—provided that the funding is made available,” said Brown.
Airlines Reporting Corp. has implemented Turkish Airways’ New Distribution Capability offering into the ARC Direct Connect program, ARC announced Tuesday.
The partnership enables Turkish Airlines to deliver “a more personalized traveler experience while giving agencies and corporate buyers more options to manage transactions, minimize risk and track data within ARC’s settlement platform,” according to ARC.
Concurrently, Turkish Airlines, as it readies to roll out on Oct. 1 TKConnect, its new NDC distribution channel, announced that beginning on that date, it will charge a fee of $24 per ticket to all reservations made via global distribution system EDIFACT channels, which include Amadeus, Travelport, Hitit, Travelsky, Infini and Sirena. Turkish Airlines content in Sabre went dark on Sept. 1 after the companies have yet to come to a renewal agreement.
Earlier this month, Turkish Airlines also named its aggregator partners for its NDC expansion.
Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
Inter Press Service
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sep 11 (IPS) – Marginalised and dominated economically by the Global North, developing countries must urgently cooperate to better strive for their shared interests in achieving world peace and sustainable development.
Jomo Kwame SundaramCold War rivalry
During the first Cold War between the US, NATO, and other allies, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and its allies, the former prided itself on sustaining economic growth, especially during the post-war Golden Age.
Since the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), successive governments – led by Obama, Trump and Biden – have all strived to sustain full employment in the US. However, real wages and working conditions for most have suffered.
Exceptionally among monetary authorities, the US Fed’s mandate includes ensuring full employment. However, without the US-Soviet rivalry of the first Cold War, Washington no longer seeks a buoyant, growing world economy.
This has affected US relations with its NATO and other allies, most of which have been hit by worldwide economic stagnation since the GFC. Instead of ensuring worldwide recovery, ‘unconventional monetary policies’ addressing the ensuing Great Recession have enabled further financialisation.
Interest rate hikes slow growth
Since early 2022, the US has raised interest rates unnecessarily. Stanley Fischer, later IMF Deputy Managing Director and US Federal Reserve Bank Vice Chair, and colleague Rudiger Dornbusch found low double-digit inflation acceptable, even desirable for growth.
Before the fetishisation of the 2% inflation target, other mainstream economists reached similar conclusions in the late 20th century. Since then, the US Fed and most other Western central banks have been fixated on inflation targeting, which has no theoretical or empirical justification.
Fiscal austerity policies have complemented such monetary priorities, compounding contractionary macroeconomic policy pressures. Many governments are being ‘persuaded’ that fiscal policy is too important to be left to finance ministers.
Instead, independent fiscal boards are setting acceptable public debt and deficit levels. Hence, macroeconomic policies are inducing stagnation everywhere.
While Europe has primarily embraced such policies, Japan has not subscribed to them. Nevertheless, this new Western policy dogma invokes economic theory and policy experience when, in fact, neither supports it.
The US Fed’s raising interest rates since early 2022 has triggered capital flight from developing economies, leaving the poorest countries worse off. Earlier financial inflows into low-income countries have since left in great haste.
New Cold War contractionary
The new Cold War has worsened the macroeconomic situation, further depressing the world economy. Meanwhile, geopolitical considerations increasingly trump developmental and other priorities.
The growing imposition of illegal sanctions has reduced investment and technology flows to the Global South. Meanwhile, the weaponisation of economic policy is fast spreading and becoming normalised.
After the Iraq invasion fiasco, the US, NATO and others often do not seek UN Security Council to endorse sanctions. Hence, their sanctions contravene the UN Charter and international law. Nonetheless, such illegal sanctions have been imposed with impunity.
With most of Europe now in NATO, the OECD, G7 and other US-led Western institutions have increasingly undermined UN-led multilateralism, which they had set up and still dominate but no longer control.
Inconvenient international law provisions are ignored or only invoked when useful. The first Cold War ended with a unipolar moment, but this did not stop new challenges to US power, typically in response to its assertions of authority.
Such unilateral sanctions have compounded other supply-side disruptions, such as the pandemic, and exacerbated recent contractionary and inflationary pressures.
In response, Western powers raised interest rates in concert, worsening the ongoing economic stagnation by reducing demand without effectively addressing supply-side inflation.
The internationally agreed sustainable development and climate targets have thus become more unattainable. Poverty, inequality and precariousness have worsened, especially for the most needy and vulnerable.
Limited options for South
Due to its diversity, the Global South faces various constraints. The problems faced by the poorest low-income countries are quite different from those in East Asia, where foreign exchange constraints are less of a problem.
IMF First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath has argued that developing countries should not be aligned in the new Cold War.
This suggests that even those walking the corridors of power in Washington recognise the new Cold War is exacerbating the protracted stagnation since the 2008 global financial crisis.
Josep Borrell – the second most important European Commission official, in charge of international affairs – sees Europe as a garden facing invasion by the surrounding jungle. To protect itself, he wants Europe to attack the jungle first.
Meanwhile, many – including some foreign ministers of leading non-aligned nations – argue that non-alignment is irrelevant after the end of the first Cold War.
Non-alignment of the old type – a la Bandung in 1955 and Belgrade in 1961 – may be less relevant, but a new non-alignment is needed for our times. Today’s non-alignment should include firm commitments to sustainable development and peace.
BRICS’s origins are quite different, excluding less economically significant developing countries. Although not representative of the Global South, it has quickly become important.
Meanwhile, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) remains marginalised. The Global South urgently needs to get its act together despite the limited options available to it.
Finastra director of global travel management and workplaces Mauro Ruggiero knew that the financial software company had a well-developed travel risk management program, but an independent assessment revealed some gaps.
With employees traveling in high-risk locations including Iraq, Pakistan, Israel and Lebanon and given the general responsibility as a corporation to protect employees, Finastra already had numerous risk management best practices in place. It was working with International SOS and monitoring its employee travel, ready to follow up and chase down employees if something happened in the area in which they were traveling.
“I was confident to say we had a very mature approach in how we protect our travelers when they are out and about,” Ruggiero said.
Assessing the Program
At the suggestion of Advito, the consultancy of BCD Travel, Finastra’s travel management company, Finastra’s travel and security teams worked with BCD and Advito to analyze their travel risk management program, seeing how well it aligned with ISO standards on risk management.
“They could come in, take a look at that as a third party, 10,000 feet above, and give us an unbiased view, tell us where we could improve and score us,” Ruggiero said.
FINASTRA PROGRAM SNAPSHOT
Annual revenue: Approximately $1.9 billion
Annual travel spend: Approximately $20 million
Headcount: Approximately 8,000 employees worldwide
Global headquarters: London
U.S. headquarters: Lake Mary, Fla.
As Ruggiero had assessed, the analysis showed Finastra’s risk management program was “well-managed” in “several areas.” However, there were others where “we needed to do a better job,” he said.
One major gap was that Finastra lacked a separate travel risk policy, which “was not something that was even on our radar,” according to Ruggiero. The company now is putting that together, with hopes that will be approved by its policy committee in a month or so, he said.
The assessment also showed a need for Finastra to improve its communication around its travel risk management program, Ruggiero said. That new communication effort will kick off once the new policy is approved.
“We already have the traveler intranet page that houses a lot of the traveler risk components that we offer, such as International SOS link and a list of cities that are high-risk,” he said. “We have it all, but we learned we need to tie it together better.”
Part of the communication strategy will be a form for travelers to acknowledge they understand the risk management resources that are available to them, Ruggiero said. Travelers going to high-risk areas will have a separate, more detailed acknowledgement document. Ruggiero said he is hopeful that will also drive higher use of ISOS by travelers, which currently has “very low utilization.”
Keeping it Fresh
Ruggiero said communication would be an ongoing process, which also was a recurring theme at the annual Global Travel Risk Summit in Houston earlier this summer, co-produced by HospitalityLawyer.com and The BTN Group. Several speakers highlighted how business travelers often remain unaware of resources available to them.
For example, Jason Selvon, co-founder of risk and crisis management firm RISRR Global, said 60 percent of travelers are not using the U.S. State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program to stay updated on destination-specific safety information. At the same time, Selvon said information—particularly on the legal and medical side—from embassies often can be out of date, as many work with small staffs with limited resources, so effective communication must be backed up by a company’s own efforts.
“You have to take that as face value and do your own research, build your own logistical pipeline and support network in those countries,” Selvon said. “If you’re traveling down to Colombia often because there’s a huge client out there, send someone out to ensure you know what car rental organization you want to use, what hotels you want to use and how far you should stay from the embassy.”
Ross Pratt, SVP and managing director of the Americas for TMC Wings Global Travel, recommended random testing of travelers who frequent high-risk destinations. That can help ensure they remain aware of related risks and that they are not falling into patterns that could put them in danger.
“Maybe the person goes on rotation and has been on the same rotation for 10 years and keeps going to the same place over and over again,” Pratt said. “Do you just forget about them and think they know what they’re doing?”
Avoiding Complacency
Duty of care remains the top priority of BCD clients, and risk management figures in the other top priorities per the TMC’s most recent annual client survey, BCD Travel Global Crisis Management senior program manager Christine Connolley said. As such, she’s “definitely seeing a demand” for travel security program assessments to align with the ISO 31030 standards published a few years ago.
“It’s so exciting to have this real framework and approach to risk management,” she said. “We can really go in and fine tune with clients their programs to make sure their employees are really traveling safely and they’re really fulfilling their duty-of-care obligations.”
One of the most frequently identified need for improvement is establishing internal stakeholders rather than having the majority of the responsibility fall on the travel manager, who is “rarely equipped to handle an emergency” such as a traveler needing medical assistance, Connolley said. The assessment can help build a “cooperative endeavor” between security, HR, finance, legal and executive management for risk management.
“If they don’t have that, all the dominoes fall, and it just goes back to the travel manager, who is almost powerless,” she said. “And they can’t be available 24 hours a day.”
Beyond the assessment, Connolley said it’s also critical for traveler feedback to gauge risk management, which can be accomplished by adding security questions to post-trip feedback surveys. For example, she recalled a recent trip where she arrived at a hotel to find the door to the connecting room had been left unlocked.
“If my employer asks me, ‘How was your trip; did you feel safe?’ and I can report that back to my employer, they can go back to the preferred hotel and address it,” Connolley said. “The traveler is on that front end and is going to be your best testament to that experience.”
Even when it seems like all the best practices are in place, however, maintaining a risk management program is a never-ending job.
“Any company that doesn’t do an assessment is sorely missing the boat on a great opportunity to improve,” Ruggiero said. “Even if it’s 99 percent there, there’s still that 1 percent you can improve, and that shouldn’t be looked at as a negative.”
Business travel in the second quarter continued “incremental growth” and was set to continue to increase for the balance of 2024, according to FCM Consulting’s Global Quarterly Trend Report, released Thursday. Meanwhile, most average airfares throughout the world rose year over year, according to the travel management company.
Economy airfares in 2024 through May on average increased about 15 percent year over year globally, about $65, according to the report, which is based on FCM’s corporate booking data. Business-class airfares, meanwhile, increased about 11 percent year over year, about $209, in that same January-May timeframe.
Some pockets of pricing softness emerged: second-quarter international economy fares from the U.S. declined an average of 8.8 percent year over year, “a welcome sign for corporate travelers that often do business overseas,” according to FCM.
The average daily hotel room rate logged by FCM’s corporate clients in the first half of 2024 in most global regions declined year over year, including by $13 in North America to $237 and by $11 in Europe to $180. Overall, the first-half average room rate across FCM’s top 100 corporate cities reported by FCM Consulting’s business analytics team was $182, down $5 year over year.
Generally speaking, business air and lodging demand remained solid in Q2, according to FCM.
“It’s encouraging to see the steady upward trajectory for business travel and the way the industry continues to demonstrate consistent and positive growth throughout the year,” said Ashley Gutermuth, Head of FCM Consulting, Americas. “This trend signifies the increased demand we are seeing for in-person meetings and events and the ongoing commitment to foster and build strong, meaningful relationships through business travel.”
Still, the report, while projecting further business travel growth, highlighted the uncertainty of future pricing projections, noting that “geopolitical unrest” and “economic uncertainty” would “continue to impact travel industry forecasts through the rest of 2024.”
“This Q2-2024 report represents six months of positive travel industry momentum, which is somewhat difficult to forecast for H2-2024,” according to the report.
