Unemployment is biggest risk for business: World Economic Forum survey

LONDON: Unemployment is the biggest risk for businesses globally, according to a World Economic Forum survey of business leaders published on Wednesday.

The company executives put unemployment or underemployment as the top risk over the next 10 years, followed by fiscal crises and the failure of national governance, data from the WEF’s Executive Opinion Survey showed.The survey of 12,411 executives across 136 countries provides a backdrop for the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks report published shortly before its annual January meeting in Davos, Switzerland, according to a spokesman for insurance broker Marsh. Marsh is part of Marsh & McLennan (MMC.N), which published the data together with Zurich Insurance (ZURN.S).

“Geopolitical risks and events have led to uncertainties which raise questions about how to manage resilience in uncertain times,” said John Scott, chief risk officer, commercial insurance, at Zurich.

For businesses in the North America, East Asia and Pacific regions, the biggest risks were considered to be cyber attacks and asset bubbles.

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Acharya appointed to NOC’s top post

The government has given the responsibility of the executive director of Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) to Joint Secretary at Ministry of Supplies (MoS), Prem Prasad Acharya.A ministerial-level meeting at MoS today decided to give the responsibility of NOC’s top post to Acharya until further notice, according to Urmila KC, undersecretary at MoS. The post of executive director at NOC had become vacant after the government, on Monday, sacked the then executive director of the corporation Gopal Bahadur Khadka for his alleged involvement in financial irregularities while procuring land for the development of petroleum infrastructure.

‘Clean India’ mission not ending manual scavenging, activists say

MUMBAI: A flagship government program to modernise India’s sanitation has failed to tackle the practice of low caste women clearing faeces by hand, and has even exacerbated the problem by building toilets not connected to water supplies, campaigners say. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or Clean India Mission, with much fanfare after he took office in 2014, sweeping a Delhi street with a broom. Since then, thousands of toilets have been built across the country.But Dalit communities, especially women, are still forced to be manual scavengers, a euphemism for clearing faeces from dry toilets and open drains by hand, despite laws to end the practice. The workers have it harder now, activists said. “Swachh Bharat has diverted attention from ending manual scavenging, and makes it seem like the whole country is cleaning. But if that’s the case, then why are people still dying in septic tanks,” said activist Bezwada Wilson. “There is also no dis...

US trio win Nobel for finding Einstein’s gravitational waves

STOCKHOLM/LONDON: Three US scientists won the 2017 Nobel prize for physics on Tuesday for opening up a new era of astronomy by detecting gravitational waves, ripples in space and time foreseen by Albert Einstein a century ago. The work of Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne crowned half a century of experimental efforts by scientists and engineers.Measuring gravitational waves offers a new way to observe the cosmos, helping scientists explore the nature of mysterious objects including black holes and neutron stars. It may also provide insight into the universe’s very earliest moments. The first detection of the waves created a scientific sensation when it was announced early last year and the teams involved in the discovery had been widely seen as favourites for Tuesday’s prize. “We now witness the dawn of a new field: gravitational wave astronomy,” Nils Martensson, acting chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics, told reporters. “This will teach us about the ...

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