MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian court on Friday ordered that access to the Telegram messenger service be blocked in Russia, heralding possible communication disruption for millions of users in the latest clash between global technology firms and Russian authorities.
FILE PHOTO: The Telegram app logo is seen on a smartphone in this picture illustration taken September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
The decision came a week after state communication watchdog, Roskomnadzor, filed a lawsuit to limit access to Telegram following the company’s repeated refusal to give Russian state security services access to its users’ secret messages.
As part of its services, Telegram allows its more than 200 million global users, including senior Russian government officials, to communicate via encrypted messages which cannot be read by third parties.
But Russia’s FSB Federal Security service has said it needs access to some of those messages for its work that includes guarding against terrorist attacks. Telegram has refused to comply with the demands, citing respect for user privacy.
“The court decided to meet the requirements of Roskomnadzor, impose restrictions on access to Telegram messenger and stop providing technical conditions for the exchange of messages,” the TASS news agency quoted judge Yulia Smolina as saying.
Roskomnadzor head Alexander Zharov said the ban would be enforced soon but would not say exactly when, TASS reported. Roskomnadzor later added Telegram to its register of banned websites, paving the way for it to be blocked.
Russia’s top network providers, Megafon and MTS, declined to comment on the ban. Competitor Beeline said it would “act within the framework of the law.”
Telegram founder and CEO, Pavel Durov, said the app will use built-in systems to circumnavigate the ban but could not guarantee 100 percent access without the use of a virtual private network, or VPN.
Pavel Chikov, a lawyer representing Telegram, said the court decision was warning to global technology firms of the dangers of operating in Russia.
“They have demonstrated again and again that the court system is devoted to serving the interests of the authorities. They no longer even care about basic external appearances,” he said on his Telegram channel.
Fallout from the court decision will also be closely watched by investors as Telegram is undertaking the world’s biggest initial coin offering - a private sale of tokens which can be traded as an alternative currency, similar to Bitcoin or Ethereum.
The company has so far raised $1.7 billion in pre-sales via the offering, according to media reports.
KREMLIN USERS
Ranked as the world’s ninth most popular mobile messaging app, Telegram is widely used in countries across the former Soviet Union and Middle East.
As well as being popular with journalists and members of Russia’s political opposition, Telegram is also used by the Kremlin to communicate with reporters and arrange regular conference calls with President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call on Friday, organized using Telegram, that his office would soon move to another messaging service.
“Limiting access was not the goal in and of itself,” he said. “There is the legal position, which requires the provision of data to certain Russian state bodies. Meetings this condition would have allowed for a consensus. But unfortunately this consensus was not reached.”
Telegram is the second global network to be blocked in Russia after LinkedIn was banned in 2016 for failing to comply with a law that requires companies holding Russian citizens’ data to store it on servers on Russian soil.
Other international technology companies, such as Facebook (FB.O) and Alphabet Inc’s Google GOOG.L, have also clashed recently with Russian regulators.
Roskomnadzor asked Facebook earlier this week about the steps it was taking to meet its requirements under the data law and has said it will carry out an audit of Facebook’s compliance with Russian legislation in the second half of 2018.
Durov himself left Russia in 2014 after selling the country’s biggest social media network, VK, to a businessman close to the Kremlin after coming under pressure from Russian authorities.
Russian users will still be able to access Telegram’s services by using VPNs, which allow people to bypass internet restrictions imposed by authorities.
When Reuters asked a person in the Russian government how they would operate without access to Telegram, the person, who asked not be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue, replied by sending a screenshot of his mobile phone with an open VPN app.
Russia’s deputy communications minister, Alexei Volin, said VPNs and other ways of circumnavigating the ban meant Telegram users would not be greatly inconvenienced.
“Many Telegram users have already adopted different messengers, and those who want to stay with this product know a lot of ways to get round the ban and continue using the services they are used to,” Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Friday, headed for their largest weekly gain since July on support from concerns about geopolitical risk after and reports of dwindling global oil stocks.
Oil barrels are pictured at the site of Canadian group Vermilion Energy in Parentis-en-Born, France, October 13, 2017. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau/Files
The prospect of Western military action in Syria that could lead to confrontation with Russia hung over the Middle East but there was no clear sign that a U.S.-led attack was imminent. Traders sought to lock in long crude positions ahead of the weekend, said John Kilduff, Partner at hedge fund Again Capital Management.
“The geopolitical jitters just keep getting priced in here more and more, as we get closer to the moment of the strikes, if there are any,” Kilduff said. He noted that Syria poses a large risk to global stability because of its relationship with other powerful oil producers.
“Syria is a client state of both Russia and Iran and the risk for escalation is quite high and I think that is what the market is worried about.”
Brent crude recovered from losses early in the session and was up 50 cents at $72.52 a barrel by 11:12 a.m. EST (15:12 GMT), set for about a $5 weekly gain, or almost 8 percent.
U.S. crude for May delivery rose 28 cents to $67.35, up more than 8 percent for the week.
On Wednesday, both oil benchmarks hit their highest since late 2014 after U.S. President Donald Trump warned missiles “will be coming” in response to a suspected gas attack in Syria and after Saudi Arabia said it intercepted missiles over Riyadh.
On Thursday, Trump tweeted that an attack on Syria “could be very soon or not so soon at all.”
“The Syrian escalation risk cannot be fully written off, but we view that it deserves less of a premium than three days ago,” Petromatrix said in a note.
A global oil stocks surplus is close to evaporating, OPEC said on Thursday, adding that its collective output fell to 31.96 million barrels per day (bpd) in March, down 201,000 bpd from February.
Vienna-based OPEC and its oil producer allies are poised to extend their supply reduction pact into 2019 even as the global glut of crude looks set to be eradicated by September, OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo told Reuters.
The International Energy Agency (IEA), which coordinates the energy policies of industrialized nations, signalled on Friday that markets could become too tight if supply remains restrained.
“It is not for us to declare on behalf of the Vienna agreement countries that it is ‘mission accomplished’, but if our outlook is accurate, it certainly looks very much like it,” the IEA said.
A oil pump is seen at sunset outside Scheibenhard, near Strasbourg, France, October 6, 2017 . REUTERS/Christian Hartmann/Files
Meanwhile China’s March crude oil imports climbed to the second-highest level on record
HONG KONG (Reuters) - China’s rising investment in research and expansion of its higher education system mean that it is fast closing the gap with the United States in intellectual property and the struggle to be the No.1 global technology power, according to patent experts.
FILE PHOTO: A Chinese national flag flutters at the headquarters of a commercial bank on a financial street in central Beijing, China November 24, 2014. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
While U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of punitive tariffs on high-tech U.S. exports could slow Beijing’s momentum, it won’t turn back the tide, they say. Washington’s allegation that the Chinese have engaged in intellectual property theft over many years - which is denied by Beijing - is a central reason for the worsening trade conflict between the U.S. and China.
Forecasts for how long it will take for Beijing to close the technological gap vary - though several patent specialists say it could happen in the next decade. And China is already leapfrogging ahead in a couple of areas.
“With the number of scientists China is training every year it will eventually catch up, regardless of what the U.S. does,” said David Shen, head of IP for China at global law firm Allen & Overy.
Indeed, IP lawyers now see President Xi Jinping’s pledge earlier this week to protect foreign IP rights as projecting confidence in China’s position as a leading innovator in sectors such as telecommunications and online payments, as well as its ability to catch up in other areas.
Last year, China overtook Japan as the No. 2 patent filer in the world, with 13.4 percent annual growth, according to the World Intellectual Property Organisation. If maintained, the pace will take it above the United States in just over a year, a strong indication of its ambitions.
That progress has been built on foundations which are likely to strengthen further.
China now spends 2.1 percent of its gross domestic product on research and development, not yet matching U.S. levels of 2.75 percent, but a remarkable increase from just 0.7 percent in the 1990s and nearing the 2.35 percent average among members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
World Bank data shows China now produces 1,177 R&D researchers per million of its population, three times the level in the 1990s and in line with the world average. The U.S. produces many more researchers per million - at 4,321 - but that is more than offset by China’s population being about four times the size.
And the number of Chinese researchers is only going to increase.
According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, China now enrols more than 40 percent of its students in tertiary education, half the U.S. percentage, but a staggering rise from 0.1 percent in the 1970s.
“If you’re looking out 5-10 years you’ll see a much more level playing field in terms of innovation, especially around online platforms, digital innovation, machine learning and artificial intelligence,” said Richard Titherington, chief investment officer for Asian emerging markets at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, who overseas $80 billion in assets.
Titherington says online payments is the clearest example where China has leapfrogged the United States, with mobile phones replacing credit cards almost entirely as a form of payment in major Chinese cities, while “many Americans still use cheques.”
He said that stock markets provide one sign of Chinese progress - at least in the eyes of investors. The total returns on Facebook Inc stock since its listing in 2012 were 373 percent, versus 883 percent for its Chinese social media rival Tencent Holdings. In microblogging, Twitter Inc returned a 28 percent loss since its 2014 listing, while Weibo Corp a whopping 656 percent gain.
IP experts, however, say China is still behind in areas such as semiconductors, robotics, and biotech.
QUALITY GAP
Patent numbers also do not tell the whole story. There is a perceived gap in quality, which suggests China will take a while longer to catch up.
Smartphone maker Huawei Technologies is the only Chinese company that made it into Clarivate Analytics’ top 100 innovators last year, a ranking based not only on patent volumes, but also on their influence on other organizations.
In 2016, China produced almost 500,000 scientific papers according to data from global information analytics firm Elsevier, taking the No.2 spot globally and closing in on America’s 600,000. The gap has halved in five years.
But on average, a Chinese paper gets 0.93 citations, versus 1.23 for U.S. documents. Citations are an indication of how valuable a researcher’s work is seen by his or her peers.
On that metric, China is 11 places behind the United States in 33rd, with only countries that published more than 10,000 papers included. Gabriela Kennedy, head of Asia IP at global law firm Mayer Brown JSM, says that could be a proxy for the quality of each country’s research work.
“(The Chinese) are very successful in what they’re doing in some large companies, but if you look beyond that they’re not particularly innovative,” Kennedy said. “But I don’t think it’s going to take them long.”
If Washington wants to slow China’s technological advance, it might consider measures that further restrict what products U.S. companies license to Chinese firms and broaden definitions of trade secrets, lawyers say.
But they also warn tougher rules could be counterproductive as firms can find ways around them, including by setting up entities in non-U.S. jurisdictions to maintain access to the vast Chinese market.
“If the U.S. government were to go to the extreme of not allowing U.S. companies to disclose their IP in China, that could hurt the U.S. companies as well,” said Ling Ho, a partner with law firm Clifford Chance, and a specialist in IP disputes.
POLITICAL WILL
Xi pledged on Tuesday China will protect the intellectual property of foreign firms, saying he hoped foreign countries did the same.
Lawyers say Chinese IP protection laws are comparable to U.S. and European legal standards. The fault is in implementation, with high levels of bureaucracy, court decisions applying on a provincial level rather than nationally and judges often having different interpretations of the laws.
The recent creation of a State Intellectual Property Office, however, shows political intent and should lead to more uniform enforcement, said Loke-Khoon Tan, head of the IP Practice Group in Hong Kong and China at Baker McKenzie and author of the book “Pirates in the Middle Kingdom: The Art of Trademark War”.
“The political will is articulated in a very powerful way and once it’s communicated to each of the bureaucracies lower down I expect very positive things,” he said. “Our clients would be more encouraged and incentivised to test their cases.”
(Reuters Health) - People who eat lots of processed and red meat are at increased risk of developing chronic liver disease and insulin resistance, a diabetes risk factor - especially if they like their steak well done, an Israeli study suggests.
Researchers focused on what’s known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which is associated with obesity and certain eating habits. While red and processed meat has long been linked to an increased risk of diabetes, certain cancers and heart disease, evidence to date has been mixed about its connection to liver disease.
The study team examined data on 789 adults who completed questionnaires about their eating and cooking habits and also underwent liver ultrasound scans as well as lab tests for insulin resistance.
Overall, 39 percent of the participants were found to have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and 31 percent had insulin resistance, which happens when the body is less effective at using the hormone insulin to convert sugars in the blood into energy for cells.
People who ate more processed and red meat than at least half of the other participants were 47 percent more likely to have liver disease and 55 percent more likely to have insulin resistance, researchers report in the Journal of Hepatology.
Both NAFLD and insulin resistance are among the suite of symptoms and traits that make up so-called metabolic syndrome, which raises risk for both heart disease and diabetes, the authors note.
“Evidence is mounting with regard to the harmful effect of over-consumption of red and processed meat,” said lead study author Shira Zelber-Sagi, a nutrition researcher at the University of Haifa.
Cooking meat at high temperatures for longer periods of time until it’s “well done” was also associated with a higher risk of liver disease and insulin resistance than eating meat more “rare” or cooked more briefly, the study also found.
Preparing meat “well done” forms compounds known as heterocyclic amines (HCAs) that are tied to both liver disease and insulin resistance, Zelber-Sagi said.
“In order to prevent insulin resistance and NAFLD, (people should consider) choosing fish, turkey or chicken as an animal protein source,” she said in an email. “In addition, steaming or boiling food (is better than) grilling or frying meat at a high temperature until it is very well done.”
Most people have a little bit of fat in their liver. Fatty liver disease can occur when more than 5 percent of the liver by weight is made up of fat. Excessive drinking can damage the liver and cause fat to accumulate, a condition known as alcoholic fatty liver, but even when people don’t drink much, they can still develop non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
The study participants were 59 years old on average and typically were overweight. About 15 percent had diabetes.
High consumption of red and processed meat was associated independently with liver disease and with insulin resistance regardless of saturated fat and cholesterol intake and other risk factors such as obesity, exercise, smoking and alcohol consumption.
The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how red or processed meat might directly cause liver damage or insulin resistance.
Researchers also relied on participants to accurately recall and report how much meat they ate and how it was prepared, which might not always be an accurate picture of their eating habits.
Still, the results add to a large and growing body of evidence suggesting that people should limit how much red and processed meat they eat, said Dr. Jeffrey Schwimmer, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the Fatty Liver Clinic at Rady Children’s Hospital.
“Dietary recommendations are too complicated to develop from any one study,” Schwimmer, who wasn’t involved in the current research, said by email.
“However, there is not a need for red meat, so one could choose to avoid it all together,” Schwimmer said. “Based upon this and other studies, for those that do eat meat, it would be reasonable to limit red meat to once a week and to limit processed meat to occasional use only.”
SOURCE: bit.ly/2EFAxEx Journal of Hepatology, online March 19, 2018.
The Cambodian village of Kbal Romeas is slowly vanishing beneath the rising waters of a lake formed by the Lower Sesan II (LS2) dam. Credit: Pascal Laureyn/IPS
KBAL ROMEAS, Cambodia, Apr 10 2018 (IPS) - Suddenly the road ends. The cart track disappears under the water. A vast lake stretches out in front of me. I have to transfer from a motorbike to a canoe. “Tuk laang,” my guide says coolly. “The water is rising.”
This started eight months ago, when the hydroelectric power station closed its gates for the first time. Ever since, the road to Kbal Romeas sinks a little deeper under the slow waves every day.
"Beware of the branches above your head," the guide says. "The pythons and the cobras have climbed into the trees."
According to the level gauge on the road, the water behind the concrete barrage has risen up to 75 meters, higher than the intended 68 meters. Nobody knows why, and the government doesn’t provide any information.
Three sturdy men are unloading planks from a canoe. The houses of flood refugees are being dismantled in order to sell the wood.
The village is a world away from Phnom Penh. In Cambodia’s capital, saffron-robed monks are tapping on their smartphones and purple Rolls Royces are negotiating hectic traffic. But 450 kilometers to the north, Kbal Romeas is hidden deeply in the jungle. Here no shops, restaurants or traffic lights are to be found. And for a few months now, no roads either.
I’m undertaking the journey with Vibol. He is studying in the provincial capital and returns home often. “My parents are having a hard time since our village is flooded. The government wants us to leave, but we will never do that,” he says.
The expansive forests of Stung Treng – a province as large as Lebanon with barely 120,000 inhabitants – are the home of the Bunong, the ethnic minority to which Vibol belongs. Their way of life has been in sync with nature for 2,000 years, while they’ve been fiercely resisting modern influences from outside. But the small community now risks being washed away, quite literally.
Concrete vs. water
A few kilometers from the village, a gigantic wall towers over the trees. The ‘Lower Sesan II’ (LS2) dam is a powerful symbol for the economic growth of Southeast Asia, but also for man-made disasters. In September the gates were closed, thus creating a lake that soon will expand over 360 square kilometers, the size of Dublin. The livelihood of a unique culture will be wiped out.
The ten-year-old son of my guide navigates the canoe that will bring me to Kbal Romeas. Skillfully, he avoids crashing into the trees of the submerged forest. “Beware of the branches above your head,” his father says. “The pythons and the cobras have climbed into the trees.” There’s a shorter way to get to to the village, via dry land, but that’s not an option for a foreign journalist. The army closed off the whole area. No snoopers allowed.
I have to take the long detour over water, a surreal two-hour trip through a drowned jungle.
“The trees still bear fruit, but soon they will die,” the guide says. There is also less fish and the water has become undrinkable. Since the dam unhinged their lives, the Bunong have to pay for water and fish. But money is an alien concept for animist forest dwellers who are used to living in complete harmony with nature.
My canoe floats gently into the main street of the village. Thanks to their stilts, the typical Cambodian dwellings are still dry, even if the road lays one meter beneath the water’s surface. It is dead quiet. Until some children appear in doorways. “Soë-se-dei!” “Hello!”
A villager from Kbal Romeas paddles between two partly submerged houses. Credit: Pascal Laureyn/IPS
About 250 people still live in the flooded village of Kbal Romeas; about half of the original population. I clamber from the canoe into a house. The lady of the house offers me some rice and spiced pork.
“We used to have everything we need here. But since the water started rising, we have to go to the market,” says Srang Lanh, 49. She has the face of someone who has lived a hard life.
“During the dry season it takes us about three hours to get there. In the rainy season we can’t use the road at all.”
The government has built a new village, on higher ground. “But we do not intend to move,” says Vibol. “The Buddhist Cambodians don’t understand our religion. We can’t leave our cemetery.” He wants to show me the graveyard. Small corrugated iron roofs are barely above the water. They used to give shade to the late loved ones.
I ask the former cemetery supervisor how many people are buried here beneath the flood tide. His reacts emotionally. “Thousands! Everyone who has ever lived in Kbal Romeas is buried here.”
Every day another grave disappears into the tidal wave of progress coming from this Chinese dam. “The spirits of our ancestors can’t leave here. To abandon them would be a disgrace,” says Vibol. The Bunong believe they are protected by the ancestors. Leaving means disaster.
In Kbal Romeas, the cursed dam is called ‘Kromhun’, the Company. The Chinese group Hydrolancang invested 800 million dollars in the LS2 dam and will be operating it for the next 30 years. Theoretically speaking, a dam producing 400 megawatts might seem a good idea, as this country lives in the dark. Three quarters of the Cambodian villages are not connected to the electrical grid.
However, Kbal Romeas will never see one single watt of the Kromhun. Ninety percent of the electricity in Cambodia goes to capital city Phnom Penh and is used for air conditioners, neon publicity signs and garment factories.
Noah’s Ark
There’s a little ceremony for the visitor, the first foreigner since the army shut this area down in July. Ta Uot is the most important guardian spirit of Kbal Romeas. His temple is nothing more than a hut on poles, now surrounded by water. But since the patriarch told the Bunong through his visions where his shrine has to be put, it cannot be moved.
In the temple are some holy branches and rocks; from their canoes the attendees throw grains of rice towards them while they say prayers in the old Bunong language. They inform Ta Uot about the visit of a foreigner. They also mention the latest water level. A newly born child is being blessed. In spite of the upcoming flood, this is a lively village with a simple shed as a spiritual Noah’s ark.
Set Nhal, 89, has been living here his whole life. He remembers the French colonists, the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese soldiers who came to chase away the genocidal regime. And now the Chinese. “We were always confident that the French and the communists would leave one day. But the Chinese will never go away; this dam will stay where it is,” he says.
Meng Heng, an activist of the outlawed NGO Mother Nature, knows Kbal Romeas very well. “The government succeeded in hiding a catastrophe,” he says. “As a result of the LS2-dam, one tenth of the fish population will disappear. The dam disrupts critical breeding migration routes for fish and the fish will become extinct.”
Not just a trifle, as 70 million people depend on the Mekong for their daily needs. As we speak, 200 dams are in use, being built or in preparation. LS2-dam is only one of them.
For the Bunong, a day in ancient times is as important as yesterday. But their days are numbered. Once the rainy season will start, in June, Kbal Romeas will be history.
After dark, a motorbike takes me back to the rest of the world, using a last scrap of dry land. The jungle is black as soot and the bouncing moto passes by a deserted army checkpoint, unmanned at night.
I’m dropped off at a gas station, an oasis of neon lights where they promise me there will be a bus soon. I ask Vibol if I can do something for him when I’m back in Phnom Penh.
“No one knows what’s happening here,” he says. “Tell our story.
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 2018 (IPS) - As global citizens face an array of issues from unemployment to discrimination, affecting their livelihoods and potential, a UN agency called upon businesses to employ a new, sustainable, and inclusive model that benefits all.
2018 ECOSOC Partnership Forum. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe
Business leaders from around the world convened at the United Nation’s 2018 Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) partnership forum to hear how the private sector can work with governments to improve global economic opportunities.
“The private sector is an indisputable partner in reducing global inequalities and improving employment opportunities for all” the UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told the audience.
Mohammed stressed that the private sectors contribution to development was essential if the world is to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
However, in order for this to happen Mohammed said that “business as usual simply won’t work.”
Instead, leaders were challenged to commit to align their business goals with the SDGs by investing in sustainable business models.
“I would also like to take the opportunity to challenge the business leaders present here today to make bold commitments to a more inclusive future for all,” said Marie Chatardova, president of the ECOSOC.
Chatardova reminded the leaders of the UN’s Business and Sustainable Development Commissions recent research that found that investment in sustainable models could create some $12 trillion dollars in economic opportunities by 2030.
“Investing in sustainable development goals – it’s a ‘win-win partnership,” she said.
Calling for Inclusion
Today, 192 million people are unemployed. Eight per cent of the global population live in poverty. There is a mounting youth unemployment crisis. Women, indigenous and disabled persons continue to face barriers to equitable and meaningful employment.
Attendees highlighted the importance of sustainable business models that prioritize diversity and inclusivity by getting women, youth, indigenous and disabled persons into the workforce.
In panel discussions, many business leaders spoke of their companies’ ongoing diversity programs.
Sara Enright, director of the Global Impact Sourcing Coalition (GISC), pointed to Impact Sourcing – an example of inclusive business practice.
Impact sourcing, Ms Enright told the forum is: “when a company prioritises suppliers who are hiring and providing career development to people who otherwise have limited prospects of formal employment.”
The GISC is a global network of 40 business that include – Google, Microsoft, Aegis, and Bloomberg – that have committed to impact sourcing.
In March, GISC members were challenged to hire and provide training to over 100,000 new workers by 2020. Enright said so far ten companies have responded to the challenge, pledging to hire over 12,000 workers across Kenya, Nepal, Cambodia and the United States.
Enright said she expected many more companies to sign up and stressed that the GISC would monitor and measure the outcomes.
The UN applauded GISC’s work as an inspiring example of the private sector working collaboratively and inclusively to meet the SDGs vision.
Curb Your Corruption
Another issue that arose during the forum was corruption in development.
Last year global development funding reached $143 trillion dollars, of which the UN estimates that over 30 percent of funds failed to reach their intended destinations.
The UN told business leaders that if they commit to using technology that better tracks where money goes in development, then it will help curb corruption.
Bob Wigley, chairman of UK Finance, encouraged businesses to invest in technologies like ‘Block Chain’.
Block-chain, or Distributed Ledger Technology, is a digitized public record book of online transactions that was developed in 2008 with the rise of online currency ‘bitcoin’.
It is an entirely decentralized means of record keeping, meaning it is operated on a peer-to-peer basis rather than one central authority.
Wigley said the technology allows the direct tracking of online payments, ensuring that it is delivered correctly.
“If I was the recipient of state aid or wanting to know where my funds are going exactly then I’d be using block-chain systems, not the antiquated bookkeeping that gives rise to potential corruption every time a payment trickles from one set of hands to another,” he said.
“Think of how embracing and enhancing block chain technology could ensure accountability and transparency – things that are critical to meeting the SDGs,” Wigley continued. A Race to the Top
Whilst many businesses are committing to the SDGs and implementing sustainable initiatives, more still needs to be done to unlock the full potential of the sector.
Kristine Cooper from United Kingdom insurance company Avia said it is a question of creating ‘competition’ between business by tracking them in their commitment and delivery.
“Lots of companies are doing great things in diversity and SDG commitments and how they do business to meet these goals, but it’s hard to know who’s doing really well, there is no consistency with reporting,” Cooper said.
“The system lacks the incentives to make right decisions and make organizations live up their responsibility.”
Ranking companies and holding them accountable, Cooper said, would create a “race to the top” and in the process, truly unleash “the power of the corporate and private sector in meeting development goals”. Discussion points from this meeting will be further discussed in ECOSOC meetings held in May 2018, as well as at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in July 2018
