For 50 years, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has offered the world a way forward "based on a vision for a better, healthier Earth built on the pillars of international cooperation," Secretary-General António Guterres told a landmark special session on Thursday, commemorating the agency's golden anniversary in Kenyan capital Nairobi.

"The planet was already showing signs of buckling under the weight of humanity" back in 1972 when the agency was founded, he explained to the event in Nairobi via video message.
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"In the following decades, UNEP and its partners would work with Member States to combat air pollution, restore the ozone layer, protect the world's seas, promote a green and inclusive economy and raise the alarm about biodiversity loss and climate change."
Mr. Guterres lauded UNEP as illustrating that multilateralism works and can deliver solutions for people and the planet.

​UNEP's science, policy work, coordination and advocacy has helped to right environmental wrongs around the world and raise awareness of the critical role that the environment plays in sustainable development.

Singapore will be represented at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, which kicked off on Sunday (Oct 31), by a contingent of government officials, business leaders, academics and young activists.
The governmental delegation, led by Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu, will be involved in negotiations spanning a broad range of topics, including carbon markets, technology, international transport emissions, as well as land use and agriculture.

SINGAPORE - While many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) here have strategies in place to go digital, the take-up rate has been slow, with firms blaming Covid-19 for causing delays in their digitalisation plans.
This is in stark contrast to the belief that the outbreak has fast-tracked digitalisation for many companies, a study by the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (ASME) and tech giant Microsoft showed.
The SME Digital Transformation Study involved a poll of 400 SME owners and key IT decision-makers here from March to June.

SINGAPORE'S third-quarter economic growth staged a rebound from the deep contraction seen during its "circuit-breaker" period but has continued to stay in negative territory, according to advance estimates released by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) on Wednesday.
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Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 7.9 per cent in Q3, on a quarter-on-quarter seasonally-adjusted basis, a stark reversal of the 13.2 per cent contraction clocked in Q2, when Singapore was on a partial economic shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Alibaba Group Holding's cloud services business will turn a profit for the first time this year thanks to work-from-home demand driven by the coronavirus pandemic, according to Daniel Zhang, the group's chairman and chief executive.

​He made the announcement during an investor briefing on Wednesday, hours ahead of Alibaba's annual general meeting where Jack Ma, Zhang's predecessor, will officially exit the board of the company he started in a small Hangzhou apartment in 1999.

The pandemic recession plunged dozens of large American companies into bankruptcy this summer. Countless more are on their way.
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Brooks Brothers, Hertz (HTZ), California Pizza Kitchen and Chuck E. Cheese are among the mounting number of corporate casualties during the health crisis. And that's just a sampling of Chapter 11 filings since the start of summer.

​Despite unparalleled aid from the Federal Reserve and Congress, large company bankruptcies spiked 244% in July and August from the same period of 2019, according to research from investment bank Jefferies.

​Eight stadiums will host matches during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™. Three of those venues – Khalifa International, Al Janoub and Education City – have already been unveiled, with the remaining five set to be completed long before the tournament kicks off on 21 November 2022.

[AMSTERDAM] ABN Amro is to end all trade and commodity financing after a series of losses, shedding 800 jobs as it joins a growing list of banks restructuring or reducing their commodities business to cut risk.
Global banks were shocked by a series of commodity trader collapses after instances of fraud were laid bare by the coronavirus crisis. Many put their trade finance divisions under review as they scrambled to recoup billions of dollars in debt.
"We are over-exposed to global sectors and we had more than our fair share of exceptional client files", Robert Swaak, who became chief executive of the 56 per cent Dutch state-owned bank in April, told reporters on Wednesday.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos added a record $13 billion to his fortune on Monday amid a coronavirus-fueled boom for his e-commerce empire.

​A 7.9 percent jump in Amazon’s stock price helped the world’s richest man notch the largest one-day increase to any individual’s net worth in the history of Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, which tracks the fortunes of the wealthiest people on Earth.

​JOHOR BARU (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - News about the reopening of the Malaysia and Singapore border beginning Aug 10 has been received with sighs of relief from citizens of both countries.
However, many have expressed concern about the imposition of a three-month stay in Singapore during each trip for those holding long-term immigration passes for business and work.
The people are also hoping that both sides will implement clear and practical standard operating procedures (SOPs) to avoid issues at the two border crossings of the Causeway and the Second Link.

SINGAPORE - Integrated resort operator Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) is laying off a significant number of employees as it grapples with the “devastating impact” the coronavirus pandemic has had on the tourism industry.
RWS said on Wednesday (July 15) the retrenchment exercise was a “one-off workplace rationalisation” and that the company has managed to retain the vast majority of its local staff.
It is understood that about 2,000 employees were laid off, but when asked, RWS did not want to confirm any figure.

Business travellers took to the skies in numbers after the Government loosened travel restrictions this month, early indications suggest.

​Data from a number of Travel Management Companies last week reveals that 85 per cent booked flights in the week of June 29 – July 3. Marine/offshore and energy was the sector travelling the most,  with 23 per cent booking. This was followed closely by construction and engineering.

Singapore's TraceTogether Tokens are the latest effort to tackle Covid-19 with tech. But they have also reignited a privacy debate.

The wearable devices complement the island's existing contact-tracing app, to identify people who might have been infected by those who have tested positive for the virus.

All users have to do is carry one, and the battery lasts up to nine months without needing a recharge - something one expert said had "stunned" him.

​The government agency which developed the devices acknowledges that the Tokens - and technology in general - aren't "a silver bullet", but should augment human contact-tracers' efforts.

On the first day of this summer, temperatures reached 100 degrees in the Arctic Circle. It's an easy thing to forget about these days, what with a pandemic going on, a presidential election looming, and a new civil rights movement emerging across the nation. But climate change isn't going anywhere. And every day, our window for mitigating the catastrophic effects prophesied by scientists gets a little bit smaller.

China's second-biggest airline is to launch a new carrier despite a severe global downturn in passengers caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 
China Eastern has joined forces with a range of partners including China's biggest online travel agency Trip.com.
The new airline will be focused on the island destination of Hainan, home to eight million and a free-trade hub.
Some have questioned the timing of the launch which comes as the airline industry struggles to survive.
​Government-backed China Eastern will own a majority 51% share in the new carrier, which will be called Sanya International Airlines. 

Solar dominated again the annual green energy addition charts of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) last year, with Asian and European countries among the growth hotspots.
Figures released by the global body this week suggest 176GW was installed across all renewable technologies worldwide in 2019. The figure, a slight drop on the 179GW recorded in 2018, means nonetheless that 72% of all global energy additions last year were renewable, IRENA said.

Montréal, 13 March 2020 – The ICAO Council approved the eligible emissions units for the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) today, reaching another important milestone toward CORSIA global implementation supporting worldwide efforts against climate change. 

The coronavirus outbreak has sent the aviation industry reeling from one of its biggest economic shocks in recent years.
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But the virus is also putting the finger on one of the industry’s most difficult challenges: curbing the sector’s increasing greenhouse gas emissions from a baseline of 2019 and 2020.