Solar-powered internet school set to benefit children in rural Africa | Global development. Their days of sitting in a ramshackle, sweltering school building, or taking lessons under the shade of a tree, could be about to change. Children in the farthest corners of rural Africa are the target of a mobile, solar-powered classroom that was launched in Johannesburg this week. The classroom, built inside a 12-metre-long shipping container by electronics firm Samsung, has an array of gadgets including laptops, a video camera and a 50-inch e-board in place of a blackboard.
According to the manufacturers, the "solar powered internet school" can easily be carried by truck to remote areas, survive harsh weather conditions and, crucially, operate where there is no electricity supply. Foldaway solar panels provide enough energy to power the classroom's equipment for up to nine hours a day, and for one and a half days without any sunlight at all. The panels are made from rubber instead of glass to ensure they are hardy enough to survive long journeys across the continent.
Palin joins Romney and Paul: You betcha corporations are people! Romney: “Corporations Are People, My Friend” — Albeit Ones That Don’t Require Clean Air or a Livable Climate. By Joe Romm on August 11, 2011 at 5:53 pm "Romney: “Corporations Are People, My Friend” — Albeit Ones That Don’t Require Clean Air or a Livable Climate" GOP Presidential front runner Mitt Romney offered his view of why corporations should not pay higher taxes at a damaging campaign stop in Iowa. His remarks open a window into his corporatist, pollutocrat worldview. As Think Progress Justice noted: Audience members responded angrily to his plans, and Romney frequently responded belligerently to their anger.
In one of the most contentious exchanges, Romney defended his belief that we “should consider a higher retirement age” for Social Security and Medicare to preserve tax breaks for corporations: ROMNEY: There’s various ways of [preserving Social Security and Medicare’s solvency]. It is also true that corporations spend money lobbying and spreading disinformation on climate science and the EPA, to preserve their ability to poison the planet and destroy a livable climate. This is easy. Bullshit Valley. In NRC Handelsblad mocht Arjen van Witteloostuijn uitvaren tegen de keuze van niet minder dan negen topsectoren die zo ongeveer alle Nederlandse multinationals bestrijken en ook nog eens een 'topondernemer' uit de sector als kwartiermaker krijgen.
Dat wordt het Innovatieplatform all over again, aldus Van Witteloostuijn. Collega Bernard van Praag mocht een paar dagen later in dezelfde krant hetzelfde punt maken: innovatiebeleid in Nederland is er voor de gevestigden, niet voor de nieuwkomers, en juist daarvan moeten 'we' het hebben. Inderdaad heeft het nieuwe 'bedrijvenbeleid', zoals Maxime Verhagen zijn industriebeleid nieuwe stijl heeft gedoopt, weinig met innovatie te maken en veel met bakkers-kinderen brood geven.
Industriepolitiek in Nederland komt al een halve eeuw neer op omgekeerde solidariteit. Tenenkrommend was wederom de reactie van de PvdA - wat is er toch met die partij aan de hand? OpenCorporates: why we're crying out for this database of companies | News. Over the past year much of the focus of open data activists like myself has been on getting data out of government and into the wider world, in part to allow us to monitor, understand and engage with the public bodies working in our name.
Government data of the people, for the people, and by the people, if you like. But there's a wider goal here, to allow the community to make connections between things, to bring together the disconnected data that we or our governments individually know, and so understand more about the world in which we live. And the world in which we live today is one where the corporate world is more important and has more power than ever (including the power to bring the world's economies to their knees, as the financial crisis has shown).
To help make sense of this world - where companies are in all countries and at the same time none - we need a simple open way of keeping track of these companies, and tying it together with other data about them. More data. Rporate lobbying is blocking food reforms, senior UN official warns | Environment. Lobbying by "powerful" big food companies is blocking reforms which would improve human health and the environment, a director of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned. Dr Samuel Jutzi's public comments in London will be welcomed by campaigners who have long complained that big agri-business and food producers have too much power over political decisions about regulation of their industry, as awareness is growing that the sector is the world's biggest user of fresh water, a major source of climate pollution, one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, and an important cause of obesity and disease.
Speaking at the Compassion in World Farming annual lecture, Jutzi, director of the animal production and health division of the FAO, said powerful lobby groups were able to delay decisions, sometimes for many years, and "water down" proposed improvements. Despite the problems, Jutzi said there was great scope for improvements.
Fedex. Wwf. Nrc.nl - Economie - Ondernemers: bedrijven beter bereikbaar. Entrepreneurs can change the world. Links. Meer dan 1 miljard kredieten via GO-regeling | Nieuwsbericht | R. Nieuwsbericht | 29-06-2010 Sinds de introductie, een jaar geleden, van de zogenoemde GO-regeling (Garantie Ondernemingsfinancieringregeling) is er door banken en financiële instellingen al voor meer dan 1 miljard euro aan kredieten verstrekt. De overheid staat voor de helft daarvan borg. Een kleine honderd bedrijven hebben inmiddels de GO regeling benut voor de financiering van hun bedrijfsactiviteiten Op 29 juni a.s. reikte minister Van der Hoeven, de GO-beschikking waarmee het miljard wordt overschreden uit aan Frank Uit den Bogaard (SIM Industries) in bijzijn van Rob ten Heggeler (NIBC).
Op 29 juni 2010 heeft minister van Economische Zaken, Maria van der Hoeven, de GO-beschikking waarmee het miljard wordt overschreden uitgereikt aan SIM Industries. Dit hightech bedrijf uit Sassenheim ontwikkelt en levert geavanceerde vliegtuigsimulatoren. Resultaten gebundeld in een boekje.