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Coronavirus Could Cost Global Economy $8.8 Trillion

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Sourced from Finance Monthly. The coronavirus pandemic could cost the global economy between $5.8-trillion and $8.8-trillion, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The BBC reports that this is more than double last month’s prediction and equates to 6.4%-9.7% of the world’s economic output. This comes as measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 continue to paralyse economic activity around the world. Globally, authorities have taken aggressive action to cushion their economies from the outbreak’s impact. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_160.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_160.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } “This new analysis presents a broad picture of the very significant potential economic impact of Covid-19,” the ADB’s chief economist Yasuyuki Sawada says. “It also highli...

Politics

Telkom Cuts Uncapped Data Prices

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Image sourced from My Broadband In response to the increased demand for home connectivity during the COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa, Telkom has reduced prices and removed caps on its copper-based DSL broadband portfolio to new customers. Telkom’s new promotional prices start from R199 ($10.72) for an initial 6-month period for a 4 Mbps line, with the company hoping to enable access for those who currently do not have fixed broadband. This pricing of the uncapped data is part of Telkom’s COVID-19 relief efforts to enable access to education, work, and entertainment platforms. “Telkom already has copper access technology which can provide cost-effective home connectivity. During the lockdown we decided to use all the infrastructure available to us to provide good,  affordable quality...

Politics

Twitter Allows Staff to Work from Home Indefinitely

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Image sourced from Mission Statement Academy Yesterday, CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey sent an email to Twitter staff, notifying employees that they will able to continue working from home as long as they see fit. Dorsey notes in the same email that Twitter was an early adopter of a work-from-home model, however – much like the rest of the world – that has only been accelerated by COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. Twitter confirmed this decision in an email to Tech Crunch: “We were uniquely positioned to respond quickly and allow folks to work from home given our emphasis on decentralization and supporting a distributed workforce capable of working from anywhere. The past few months have proven we can make that work. So if our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from ho...

Politics

COVID-19: TransUnion Provides Key Info to Kenya’s Financial Services Providers

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Global information and insights company TransUnion says Kenya’s financial services providers and consumer credit market will have to drive a robust, proactive response to the COVID-19 crisis if they are to manage the risks to the industry, with the pandemic expected to have a major impact on the country’s economy and the consumer landscape. Past crises and initial data suggest there will be ‘a significant reduction’ in the quality and volume of credit in Kenya as consumers and businesses grapple with lower income. What will define the COVID-19 pandemic for the consumer credit market is how banks and lenders respond to the challenges it presents, says Billy Owino, CEO of TransUnion Kenya. To help the consumer credit market respond to the crisis, TransUnion this morning launched its COVID-19...

Politics

3 Key Trends for the FMCG Sector Post-Pandemic

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Sourced from Footstuffs SA. It’s clear that the Coronavirus has changed the landscape for FMCGs (Fast-moving consumer goods) – in some ways permanently. However, despite its similarities, the impact has not been the same across its subsectors and through the supply chain. Itumeleng Merafe, Head of Interest Rate Structuring at Investec says that “the lockdown has hit the economy hard and despite efforts by the government and Reserve Bank to mitigate the effects, ultimately only a medical solution is likely to provide lasting relief to consumers and businesses servicing those consumers.” The market for fast-moving consumer goods faces considerable changes – impacted by the demand for consumer-packaged goods, changes in household spending, increase in e-commerce and frequency of shop visits. ...

Politics

How COVID-19 Misinformation Continues to Go Viral

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Sourced from Speechling. Despite pledges from massive social media companies to remove dangerous instances of coronavirus misinformation – from false causes to false cures – Silicon Valley and fact-checkers around the world are struggling to stem the flow of fake news about the pandemic. Last week, a video titled “Plandemic” went viral, clocking up millions of views and clicks across Facebook and YouTube before the companies took action. “I’ve not seen a video of this type gain this kind of viral traction so quickly,” Alan Duke, the editor in chief of Lead Stories, a fact-checking group that works with Facebook told CNN. As of last-week Thursday afternoon, a book that features the subject of “Plandemic” has rocketed to number 1 on Amazon’s Best Seller’s List, where it remained over the wee...

Politics

Workplace Health Surveillance Tool Launched in South Africa

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Sourced from ISHN.com As more South Africans return to work in May, workplaces are re-designing to combat COVID-19 infection, while simultaneously reassuring workers are the new priority. Fortunately, South African innovation is rising to the challenge of reimagining shared workspaces in the COVID-19 era and a timely example of this is HealthID. Launched this week by a group of Cape Town-based entrepreneurs, HealthID helps employers comply with new government regulations that stipulate they should not only screen employees for signs of COVID-19 infection, but they must specifically create and maintain a database outlining the health status of individual workers. “It’s doubtful any reputable employer would want to incur the wrath of the Department of Labour inspectors by recording something...

Politics

A Future Reimagined for Africa Post-Pandemic

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Sourced from Redbubble and iStock. In a rare television broadcast Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, described the COVID-19 pandemic as “Germany’s biggest challenge since the Second World War”. It has indeed proved to be a crisis of global proportion with material implications for the economies and livelihoods of all. Governments across the globe have locked down cities, towns, villages and townships to curb the spread of the virus. Massive fiscal stimuli have been enacted to cushion the economic and humanitarian impact of the pandemic. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund have set aside a large quantum of emergency financial support for countries to tap into. African countries have implemented strong containment measures to avoid further spread of COVID-19. For countries in W...

Politics

Tokyo Game Show 2020 Cancelled due to COVID-19

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The organisers of the Tokyo Game Show have announced that this year’s event has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. TGS 2020 was scheduled to take place from 24 to 27 September at the Makuhari Messe convention centre just outside of Tokyo, Japan. Now, the organisers are planning to host an online event instead. The Verge reports that this is the first-ever time TGS has faced cancellation since the convention began in 1996. Sadly, this news won’t come as a surprise to anyone. Almost every in-person gaming event this year has been struck from the calendar, including E3 and Gamescom, the biggest shows in the US and Europe respectively. TGS 2020 was likely to have gained a great deal of attention this year in comparison to an average year because of its status as the last major trade ...

Doing Business in a Post-Lockdown World Doing Business in a Post-Lockdown World
Business / Politics

Doing Business in a Post-Lockdown World

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Sourced from Business News Daily At the beginning of March, few anticipated the significant impact the COVID-19 pandemic would have on the lives of all South Africans. As the gradual easing of the strict lockdown conditions continues, thoughts turn to how companies will begin their recovery. Ian McAlister, GM of CRS Technologies, looks at what to expect. From Friday 1 May, South Africa transitioned to Level 4 lockdown conditions which will result in several more industries resuming operations, albeit in a limited capacity. And while all the details around operational issues are still to be confirmed, expectations are that at least 1.5 million South Africans will be returning to work. In part, this is designed to get the economy back up and running following several weeks of virtual non-act...

Politics

‘Animal Crossing’ Boosts Nintendo’s Profits as Videogame Demand Soars

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Sourced from WccfTech. The success of the Nintendo Switch during the worldwide pandemic has propelled Japanese entertainment company to a stand-out year. Nintendo says that it had made 352-billion yen ($3.3-billion) in operating profit for the fiscal year ending in March – a 41% surge from a year ago. Profit in the three months leading to March more than tripled compared with the previous quarter. Sales were driven in a large part to the massive success of the Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons – a game set on an island utopia where players can interact online and visit each other’s island. During the first six weeks of the game’s release, the company sold more than 12-million units of the game. Animal Crossing and the hardware it runs on, the Nintendo Switch game console, have been ...

Politics

Children’s Internet Activity Increases by 200% During Lockdown

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South African children have become more active on the Internet as the national lockdown progresses. Comparing their activity in the first week of January and the last week of March, the overall number of website visits grew by 200%. This became evident from the analysis of Kaspersky Safe Kids parental control module of Q1 2020. Children’s activity on the Internet is as important nowadays as their behaviour and social environment outside. This is why it is crucial to help a child to navigate through the information that surrounds them on the web, making sure that the experience is positive. During the worldwide lockdown, children are prone to look for entertainment online more than ever, so this period has shown some important changes in their behaviour that correlated with the increase in ...