September, 2022

• 7 September

  Should your buses, trams & trains be free?

  

  Like everybody I know in Germany, I bought the so-called 9-euro ticket this summer. Three, in fact — one each for June, July and August. I put the QR codes in my cell phone’s digital wallet, and was free to hop on and off all buses, trams, local and regional trains nationwide. In a country that specializes in making things ...

  Read More »
• 7 September

  How the US can make apprenticeship work

    With the US unemployment rate near a five-decade low and job vacancies close to a record high, businesses say they are scrambling to find workers. Many complain that large and growing skills mismatches prevent them from getting the staff they need. While the Biden administration has pushed for large government spending increases to support college students and former college ...

  Read More »
• 7 September

  World must lean on Putin to avert nuclear disaster

    It’s not every day the International Atomic Energy Agency dispatches monitors looking like Hollywood action heroes on a mission to save civilization. But that’s an apt description of the IAEA team now inspecting the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. It’s Europe’s largest nuclear reactor complex and sits right on the front line between the Ukrainian defenders and Russian ...

  Read More »
• 7 September

  Bankruptcy risk higher for Europe’s airlines this winter

  

    Bloomberg Europe’s weaker airlines face a heightened risk of collapse this winter as nations that rescued carriers during the Covid-19 crisis focus support elsewhere amid rising inflation, according to analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein. While the pandemic brought few airline failures in the region amid a deluge of aid payments, carriers now face a squeeze from higher fuel and ...

  Read More »
• 7 September

  Amazon grapples with more labour strife, this time in Japan

  

  Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc., which is struggling to quell workplace movements from the US to Europe, faces a growing union effort in Asia’s second largest economy. A group of 15 subcontracted drivers in the southwestern city of Nagasaki is protesting the long hours and excessive number of deliveries in the absence of overtime pay. They blamed Amazon’s vaunted artificial intelligence algorithms ...

  Read More »
• 7 September

  South Africa’s airport shuts runway after a grass fire

    Bloomberg Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport was forced to close one of its runways after dry grass caught fire and “spilled over from the adjacent community within the airport precinct,” it said via Twitter. Fire and rescue teams are onsite to extinguish the blaze, according to OR Tambo, which is the busiest airport in Africa. The runway that has ...

  Read More »
• 7 September

  Bed Bath & Beyond shares fall after CFO’s death

    Bloomberg Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. declined after Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Gustavo Arnal falls to his death from a Manhattan skyscraper. The shares of the struggling home-goods retailer slumped by as much as 25% in pre-market activity on Tuesday, the first day of trading after the US Labour Day weekend. The Union, New Jersey-based company confirmed on Sunday that ...

  Read More »
• 7 September

  Monitors demand security zone around Ukraine nuclear plant

  

  Bloomberg International monitors demanded the immediate establishment of a security zone around a Russian-occupied nuclear plant in southern Ukraine in order to reduce the potential for an atomic accident. The International Atomic Energy Agency called for a halt to shelling and the need for “the urgent establishment” of a nuclear safety and security zone around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, ...

  Read More »
• 7 September

  Russians to face higher fees, stricter rules for EU visas

  

    Bloomberg The European Union proposed to make it more expensive and harder for Russian tourists to travel to the bloc, in a move that will likely increase tensions between Moscow and Brussels. “Russian citizens should not have easy access to the EU,” Commissioner Ylva Johansson, in charge of home affairs, told reporters Tuesday. “At the moment, there is no ...

  Read More »
• 7 September

  Solomons PM blasts Australia over election offer

  

    Bloomberg The Solomon Islands accused Australia of trying to “influence” its lawmakers ahead of a vote on a constitutional amendment to delay elections until 2024, after Canberra offered to fund the Pacific nation’s next national ballot. Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s office said Australia’s offer was “inappropriate” and it would not respond until the constitutional amendment had been voted on. ...

  Read More »