Upper-intermediate

Wars have many impacts not only on the countries involved but also on regions and even the whole world. In our globalized world, countries rely on each other for imports and exports. The global supply and demand chain has many steps in it. Disruptions in even one of these steps can lead to severe consequences, such as increased production and transportation costs and a lack of products. It can lead regions to economic crisis, food insecurity and famine. 

Please, look at these two graphs and discuss them with your teacher.

To prosper in the digital age, companies must undergo two types of digital transformation. Firstly, they need to become digitized. Secondly, they have to become digital.

Though both transformations depend on new technologies, they require different strategies and rules to implement. Digitization requires companies to update their operational backbones. In the past, core operations, such as delivering goods and services, maintaining accounts, and completing back-office processes, were handled by people. These days, however, they can be enabled by software-as-a-service. In addition to digitizing themselves, companies also need to become digital, which means creating a digital platform for the company’s digital offerings. Not only does this facilitate business development and connection with partners and customers, it also allows companies to better target revenue growth.

It is not a secret that our world is constantly changing, business strategies are continually developing, and technologies are evolving. So how can your employees keep up with all new knowledge and skills? Here are the ways a few big businesses are doing that:

School for employees at DBS bank 

DBS Bank, a multinational company with headquarters in Singapore, ensures that all 26,000 employees are encouraged to keep learning, no matter their age or seniority. 

DBS launched the “Back to School” program. It is a week-long program full of classes that employees teach. The decision not to hire professional teachers was based on research. It showed that people want to learn from their colleagues.

In addition to “Back to School”, the company launched a program that gives the employees a chance to do a different job. For example, a project manager can become a salesperson for a period of time and develop a very different set of skills.

The whole world has been shocked by the recent events in Europe. Russia waged war against Ukraine—a dramatic escalation of 8 year long tensions between the countries. 

The conflict started in 2014 during the Ukrainian revolution when Russia annexed Crimea and the Donbas region claimed its independence from Ukraine. However, the international community and Ukraine did not agree to recognize these territories as parts of Russia. One of the reasons is that The Russian Federation has been sponsoring anti-Ukrainian groups in the Donbas region, making it difficult for people there to express what they actually wanted. 

Since the beginning of 2021, Russia has been gathering forces on the Ukrainian borders. On 24 February 2022, Russian armies attacked. Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, claimed that his nation could not be "safe, develop and exist" next to modern Ukraine and announced his goal of "demilitarization and de-Nazification" of Ukraine. 

Recently a 57-year-old man received a breakthrough operation. He was bedridden for several months and desperately needed a heart transplant. However, he had several health conditions which made him not suitable for the operation. In a last attempt to save the patient’s life, the Food and Drug Administration gave permission to attempt a genetically modified pig heart transplant for the first time in history. 

The operation was successful. Not only was the patient saved, but the medicine came closer to solving the problem of organ shortages. Unfortunately, the story is not as happy as it might seem.

In 1991, researchers at Berkeley Lab invented a triple-glazed window they hoped would revolutionise the building industry. Though windows with three panes had existed for years, what distinguished Berkley’s design from precursors was the presence of a centralised, thin layer of glass. This made the window lighter, as less material could be used to make the external panes. It also made the window more energy efficient, as compartments either side of the central layer could be filled with insulating gas. On paper, the window had the potential to cut annual heating bills by 39 percent and reduce air conditioning costs by 28 percent. The only problem was that it was prohibitively expensive to manufacture.

According to CNN, young people across China are getting tired of the fierce competition for college and jobs, and the relentless rat race once they get hired. They are now embracing a new philosophy they've called "tang ping," or "lying flat," which emphasizes the pursuit of a simple life.

Talk of "lying flat" has spread rapidly throughout China as young people contend with intense competition for the most attractive jobs, especially in tech and other white-collar fields. The public has grown wary of what many see as a grueling work culture.

This type of phenomenon, though, is not limited to China. Across East Asia, young people say they have become exhausted by the prospect of working hard for seemingly little reward.

How diverse is your workplace? And how inclusive is it? While many organizations may feel prepared to answer the first question, the second often causes a bit of confusion. Isn’t it just the same question rephrased?

Rita Mitjans, ADP’s chief diversity and social responsibility officer, explains.

Diversity is the “what”; inclusion is the “how”. Diversity focuses on the makeup of your workforce—demographics such as gender, race/ethnicity, age, etc.—and inclusion is a measure of culture that enables diversity to thrive. People sometimes use these terms interchangeably, but they are quite distinctly different.

So, why is it important to focus on both diversity and inclusion? Again, Rita Mitjans:

According to NPR, around the year 70,000 B.C., a volcano called Toba on Sumatra Island in Indonesia, erupted, blowing about a thousand kilometres of vaporized rock into the air. It is by far the largest volcanic eruption we know of.

That eruption dropped roughly six centimeters of ash over all of South Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Arabian and South China Sea. With so much ash, dust and vapor in the air, science writer Sam Kean says Toba "dimmed the sun for six years, disrupted seasonal rains, choked off streams and scattered whole cubic miles of hot ash (imagine wading through a giant ashtray) across acres and acres of plants." Berries, fruits, trees, African game became rare. Early humans, living in East Africa just across the Indian Ocean from Mount Toba, probably starved, or at least, he says, "It's not hard to imagine the population plummeting."