Seoul, May 21 (IANS) South Korea needs to modify regulations to accelerate its transition to renewable energy sources, enabling the sector to compete on a level playing field with traditional fossil fuels, the head of a renewable energy advocacy group said on Tuesday.

“Technology is moving very fast. And somehow regulation has to keep up,” Helen Clarkson, who heads the London-based Climate Group, said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency, noting that South Korea should seek to “level the playing field” with the fossil fuel sector.

Clarkson was visiting South Korea to take part in the Asia Renewables Growth Forum 2024 to promote the RE100, a global initiative aimed at shifting to 100 per cent renewable power to tackle climate change, reports Yonhap.

For example, she noted that solar panels are more widely used in Britain compared with Asia’s No. 4 economy, including on rooftops or parking lots, even though South Korea receives more sunshine.

“So what is the barrier to Korea doing that? It’s actually regulations. So there’s a lot of regulations, and over half of Korean districts have a regulation that says you can’t put solar on domestic settings or near roads,” Clarkson said.

“We know how markets work, supply and demand. So it’s just getting those market dynamics moving,” she added.

“I think it’s slowing things down. Maybe a bit in Korea is picking one problem with renewable energy and focusing on that, and we need to kind of take a step back and understand the whole energy.”

Touching on nuclear energy, Clarkson mentioned that the Climate Group is not advocating for shutting down nuclear plants and acknowledges that the sector will continue to play a global role. However, the official emphasised that countries need to recognize that nuclear energy is “not an easy solution to the carbon problem”.

“There’s other technologies which are much easier to deploy, you can get them out there now,” she said.

“And essentially what you need to do is to minimise the amount of nuclear power that you might need in the future by deploying all the technologies. It’s really understanding the energy mix. It’s about understanding energy demand and how the system needs to operate, and then getting as much carbon reduction done as quickly,” Clarkson added.

Clarkson noted that addressing climate change is an issue that needs to be addressed jointly by advanced and developing countries.

–IANS

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New Delhi, May 21 (IANS) After seeing its net profit drop by almost 35 per cent in 2022 due to inflation and advertisers’ pullbacks, Google’s parent, Alphabet, has been on a trajectory of growth for the past year and a half, earning $3,042 (nearly Rs 2,53,444) per second in the year’s first quarter (Q1), or 43 per cent more than in 2023, as per a report on Tuesday.

According to data presented by AltIndex.com, Google’s parent firm net income soared by 615 per cent in a decade, 8 times more than Apple’s and twice as much as Microsoft’s.

“In 2023 alone, Google laid off around 12,000 people or 6 per cent of its global workforce, and the layoffs continued this year. Although the company spent over $2.1 billion on severance and other expenses caused by the massive wave of job cuts, its revenue, and net income still significantly increased and hit an all-time high this year,” the report noted.

As per Statista and the official company data, Alphabet’s net income for the three months ending March 31, 2024, was $23.6 billion, 57 per cent more than in the same period a year before.

In addition to witnessing its net income hit an all-time high, Google’s parent company added $430 billion to its stock value year-to-date, the report mentioned.

Alphabet’s market cap in January was $1.76 trillion. Since then, the figure has increased by 24 per cent and reached $2.19 trillion last week, which is 2 per cent more than Amazon’s stock price growth, twice as much as Microsoft’s growth, and only 5 per cent less than Meta’s growth over this period, according to the report.

–IANS

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New Delhi, May 21 (IANS) Amid the global furore over the alleged presence of a “cancer-causing substance” in certain spices from India, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has cleared more than a dozen samples of spices from MDH and Everest brands.

According to the analysis report, the extensive testing found no traces of ethylene oxide (ETO) in the samples collected from several states.

The rigorous process of testing for ethylene oxide was performed at NABL-accredited laboratories notified by the FSSAI.

The food regulator also picked up 300 spice samples of other brands for testing and found “no presence of ETO”.

The testing process began after several countries started monitoring spice products manufactured by Indian spice giants MDH and Everest over the alleged presence of a ‘cancer-causing’ agent. Food regulators in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand warned against using certain products from MDH and Everest over the presence of ethylene oxide at “

levels exceeding the permissible limit”.

The Spices Board, under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, had said that all spice consignments would be accompanied by a cleared analytical report for ETO issued by the Spices Board.

Both MDH and Everest have said their products are safe for consumption.

–IANS

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New Delhi, May 21 (IANS) Major tech companies across social media, dating apps, financial institutions and crypto on Tuesday announced a new coalition — Tech Against Scams, to help prevent online fraud and financial schemes that target consumers across industries.

The coalition includes Meta (formerly Facebook), Coinbase, Match Group, the parent company of Tinder and Hinge, Kraken, Ripple and Gemini, as well as the Global Anti-Scam Organisation.

“We hope that this coalition will serve as a force multiplier for security teams at tech companies to share threat insights and trends to enable more impactful disruptions of scam networks around the world,” said Guy Rosen, Chief Information Security Officer at Meta.

Under this coalition, the participating tech companies will work together to take action against the tools used by scammers. The companies will also educate and protect consumers and disrupt rapidly evolving financial scams.

This work will include sharing best practices, threat intelligence, and other tips and information to help keep users safe and protected before they become victims of an online fraud scheme such as romance scams or crypto scams like ‘pig butchering’.

“Tech companies across industries collaborating with each other is essential for preventing criminal activity, and ultimately helps online platforms stay ahead of, and develop effective solutions for, various types of financial crimes,” said Yoel Roth, VP, Trust & Safety at Match Group.

Beginning last summer, Match Group, Coinbase and Meta started a first-of-its-kind partnership in the tech industry to understand cross-platform threats, including pig butchering and recognised an opportunity to better disrupt these crimes by bringing additional companies into the conversation.

“Fraud schemes are becoming increasingly sophisticated, underscoring a greater emphasis on the importance of industry leaders coming together to tackle fraud and secure a safer digital environment for users,” said Philip Martin, Chief Security Officer at Coinbase.

–IANS

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New Delhi, May 21 (IANS) Embattled edtech company Byju’s said on Tuesday that it has started batches for the 2024-25 academic session at 240 out of its 296 tuition centres, as it struggles to pay salaries to its employees.

Byju’s tuition centres provide classroom-based programmes for K-12 students.

For the current academic year, the company said it has dropped the annual fees to Rs 36,000.

The edtech company said that it has also seen an inbound interest in the role of teachers, receiving nearly 1,200 applications per day over the last two months.

On May 19, Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO of the company, addressed the tuition centre heads, saying, “I want you to see yourselves as part-owners of these centres, not just managers.”

Under this model, the heads will receive a share of profits from their centre’s operations, provided they meet the minimum thresholds for admissions and quality over one year.

“We have invested crores of rupees in each centre. And you get to part-own it, free of cost. There is a floor we have prepared for you. But there is no ceiling. How much you want to grow is up to you,” Raveendran told them.

The 240 hybrid learning centres of Byju’s, along with over 300 centres of Aakash, make it one of the largest networks of learning centres across the country.

Earlier this month, Raveendran told the staff not to sell courses but to counsel parents.

Facing a severe liquidity crisis, the company managed to pay full salary for April to employees, except sales staff. It is yet to pay the remaining part of the salaries for February and March.

–IANS

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