In his address to delegates, the FIFA President Gianni Infantino stressed his belief in African football: “Our objective must be to project African football to the top of the world,” he said. “We have been talking about the development of African football for many years. Pelé once said that an African team would win the FIFA World Cup, but this hasn’t happened and it seems we are not making progress. Today must be the day we turn that page.” The FIFA President then unveiled a joint FIFA/CAF strategy for the elevation of African football focused on three key pillars: Refereeing, investment mobilisation and competition development.
We get more and more suspicous about everything and everyone. But we have to admit there is nothing bad about a guy like George Soros that announced that he will create a new university network to better prepare students for current and future global challenges with an investment of one billion dollars. The network, which will operate throughout the world, is named the Open Society University Network (OSUN).
But of course we wonder what ideology and moral mindset he wants to teach there. It will still be “old school” or will it teach a new Economic system. For the moment we know that it will offer simultaneously taught network courses and joint degree programs and regularly bring students and faculty from different countries together with in-person and online discussions.
Germany’s Mercedes is the most valuable brand in Europe according to Brand Finance Global 500 ranking to exceed US$200 billion value mark and retains title of world’s most valuable brand for third consecutive year. Mercedes speeds ahead as most valuable brand in Europe, narrowly missing out on entering global top 10. Twenty other German brands make ranking, including Volkswagen (25th, US$44.9 billion), BMW (30th, US$40.5 billion), Deutsche Telekom (31st, US$40.0 billion), and new entrant Munich Re (449th, US$4.7 billion).
The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), in association with Globalia, the leading tourism group in Spain and Latin America, has selected the finalists of the 2nd Global Tourism Startup Competition, an initiative that the two entities have been working on since 2018 when its first edition was held. The countries with the highest number of projects submitted have been Spain, followed by India, the United States, Portugal, Nigeria and Colombia.
This annual competition is one of the flagship projects of Wakalua, the tourism innovation hub. Solutions that combine location data with artificial intelligence can be used to identify tourism regions, associate them with nearby airports, optimize, and offer opinion mining, among others.
S&P Global Ratings said that the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani by the U.S. and its ongoing fallout has rapidly escalated event risk in the Gulf region. For now, this development does not alter the base-case assumption that any military action by either side will not lead to a fully fledged direct military confrontation. S&P continues to believe that any escalation will remain contained given that a direct conflict would be economically, socially, and politically destabilizing for the entire region, including U.S.-Gulf allies. We consider that a potential intensification of proxy conflicts will further undermine confidence and investment in the region. Our ratings on Gulf sovereigns already take into account a certain level of regional geopolitical volatility.
We talk to Patricia Parosselló Palmer, a Senior Travel Industry Professional. She has worked in the travel industry for over 20 years and is founder of several companies. She is for instance the founder of Hoppa.com (former Resorthoppa), an online transfer business that was sold to Albion Ventures and the Lowcosttravel Group in 2008. She tells us about how the bankruptcy of Thomas Cooks has changed the whole travel industry.