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A review of the local approaches and instruments employed by Development Finance Organizations (DFOs) The African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) is supporting the Group of 20 (G20) Compact with Africa (CwA) through a series of peer-to-peer learning engagements. The primary theme of this year’s peer learning is blended finance and a number of events are planned to share and learn from good regional and global practice. This note has been prepared as a background knowledge document to inform the peer-to-peer learning events in collaboration with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), after which it may be published as a research report or technical briefing and will be used for further CwA-related activities. In the development finance community, blended finance has emerged as a tool to more effectively mobilize commercial capital towards achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs). This can stimulate impactful investment, quality jobs creation and inclusive economic growth. With a view to promote better practices, the OECD DAC has endorsed key blended finance principles for unlocking commercial finance for the SDGs. One of the five OECD/DAC Principles for Blended Finance (OECD 2018c) relates to the need to anchor blended finance for development to local contexts. In particular, this principle indicates that development finance should be deployed to ensure that blended finance supports local development needs, priorities and capacities, in a way that is consistent with, and where possible, contributes to local financial market development. In particular, blended finance should support local development priorities; ensure consistency of blended finance with the aim of local financial markets development and should be used alongside efforts to promote a sound enabling environment. If these principles are used to guide development finance organizations’ (DFO) engagement in client countries there is a greater likelihood of significant additionality and development impact. What is Blended Finance? Blended finance is the strategic use of development finance for the mobilization of additional finance towards sustainable development in developing countries (OECD 2018). It serves to reduce perceived risks and/or improve returns, while responding to the increasing importance of working with the private sector to achieve sustainable development. Generally, it aims to mobilize additional finance primarily from commercial sources in order to increase the total volume of finance available for sustainable development, including poverty reduction, reduced inequalities, and climate action. Recommendations The research identified numerous areas where DFOs can do more to provide financing in developing countries, particularly taking into account local contexts and conditions. These recommendations are not exhaustive but point to areas where enhanced efforts can lead to greater development impact. Organizational Insights If not already in place, DFOs should make policy on local context explicit and intentional, following from good global practice. If not already the norm, DFOs should develop country or sub-regional strategies that are aligned to national development strategies and avoid adhoc investment choices. Insights on Partnering with Local Actors DFOs should deepen partnering arrangements with local DFIs, national development banks, Sovereign Investment Funds (SIFs) and local pension funds to better scale-up activities and tailor to the local context. Additional country-specific research is needed on the extent that local investors, institutional investors, financial institutions are being crowded in to blended finance operations. Where local DFIs or development banks do not exist, DFOs should explore options for providing technical know-how and financial support to create new local institutions. Blended Financing Insights There is a clear need to increase the gross and proportional amount of finance in local currency. Efforts to improve the capacity of issuing local currency securities have shown results, yet the demand for cost-effective foreign exchange (FX) solutions to mitigate foreign currency risk for international investors far exceeds the supply. More research is needed on what instruments are best suited to local approaches or which instruments are most effective at crowding in capital in local currency.

The American space agency has a new name for the rover it will be sending to the Red Planet this summer. To date, the project has been known only by its code name - Mars 2020. From now on, it will be referred to as the Perseverance rover. The name came out of a schools competition that drew 28,000 entries. The Perseverance rover will begin the process of trying to bring rocks back to Earth for study. It will trundle through an equatorial crater, looking for the best samples it can cache for retrieval by a later mission. Scientists think this will be the best approach to establishing whether or not life has ever existed on Mars. Can we finally answer the big question about Mars? Europe's Mars rover to make 'pit stop' for repair Nasa's naming competition asked children to submit their favoured name along with a supporting 150-word essay. An army of volunteers — educators, professionals and space enthusiasts — was employed to whittle down the avalanche of ideas into a more manageable shortlist of nine on which the public was then asked to vote. Nasa's director of science, Thomas Zurbuchen, announced the winner on Thursday. The name Perseverance was suggested by Alexander Mather, a 13-year-old student from Virginia.The competition follows in the tradition of previous Mars rover missions. Nasa's first wheeled robot, which landed on the planet in 1997, was called the Microrover Flight Experiment until a 12-year-old student from Connecticut suggested the name Sojourner, in honour of abolitionist and women's rights activist Sojourner Truth. The 2004 rovers Spirit and Opportunity got their names from an Arizona student, and the agency's most recent vehicle, Curiosity, received its moniker from an 11-year-old Kansas pupil. Alexander Mather, who wants to be a Nasa engineer when he grows up, had referenced some of these missions in his winning essay. He wrote: "Curiosity, Insight, Spirit, Opportunity. If you think about it, all of these names of past Mars rovers are qualities we possess as humans. "We're always curious and seek opportunity. We have the spirit and insight to explore the Moon, Mars and beyond. "But if rovers are to be the qualities of us as a race, we missed the most important thing: Perseverance. "We as humans evolved as creatures who could learn to adapt to any situation, no matter how harsh. We are a species of explorers, and we will meet many setbacks on the way to Mars. However, we can persevere. We, not as a nation, but as humans will not give up. The human race will always persevere into the future."The Perseverance rover has recently arrived at Nasa's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin its final preparations for launch. This will take place between 17 July and 5 August. It's a seven-month cruise to the Red Planet. Engineers have targeted a touchdown for shortly after 20:30 GMT on Thursday, 18 February, 2021. Lori Glaze, director of the agency's planetary science division, said: "The Perseverance rover is going to be collecting samples. It's the first leg of the first round trip from Earth to Mars and back. We're hoping in the 2030s that we will be bringing those samples back here to Earth. That'll be incredibly cool." Three other missions are due to leave for Mars this year, including a rover from China and an orbiter from the United Arab Emirates. Europe is also supposed to be sending a rover called Rosalind Franklin but there is currently significant uncertainty over whether it will be ready in time.

To that end, the Grenadier is a purpose-built, utilitarian off-roader that Ineos says has a clear, unambiguous purpose. The beltline features rubber trim for protection. The rear features offset side-opening barn doors, with a small door on the left for accessing smaller items. With both doors open, Ineos says the Grenadier can carry a European-sized pallet inside. Speaking of inside, we have absolutely no information to share at this time. The same goes for the Grenadier’s powertrain, though some of the press photos above show what appears to be solid axles front and rear. A pair of bright exhaust tips suggests it will have at least modest horsepower under the hood. From here, Ineos will take Grenadier test vehicles on and off the road for a year-long development program. The goal is to accumulate 1.8 million kilometers (1,118,468 miles) while sussing out any areas of improvement. As such, no official on-sale date or expected price range is available. At this point – like Heilmann said previously – we’re just along for the journey.Unfortunately, it means there’s very little information available about the Grenadier at this time. The design obviously pays homage to the old Defender, but that’s where the similarity ends. Ineos has designed and built the Grenadier from the ground up as its own vehicle, utilizing cost-saving measures like identical round headlight and taillight designs. It is also designed to be highly customizable, with personalization being a key component of the Grenadier ownership experience. That goes for factory options as well as factory-built and third-party add-ons. It seems Ineos is well aware of how 4x4 owners love to customize their rigs.Don’t call it a Defender. Yes, that was the original intent of Sir James Arthur Ratcliffe, a British billionaire who tried to purchase the rights to the old Defender from Land Rover. That endeavor failed, so he put together a team and created this, the Ineos Grenadier. There’s certainly a resemblance to the much-loved Defender of yore, but this off-roader is its own animal from the ground up. Before you start gathering your down payment, there is something you should know. While this does mark the debut of the Grenadier's design, it’s still an in-development project. Instead of keeping prototypes under wraps with camouflage, Ineos took the road less traveled by revealing the design early. According to Ineos Automotive CEO Dirk Heilmann, this was done because Ineos is “a new business, building a new brand, and we want to take people with us on this exciting journey.” Honestly, it’s hard to argue with a simple, refreshing concept like that.

One of the least surprising things Coco Gauff can tell you is that she started to learn to drive at 13. Of course she did. After all, this is the American teenager who last year stunned five-time champion Venus Williams in the first round of Wimbledon - and then astounded the public by taking all the hype in her stride. By the time she turned 16 in March this year, Gauff had won her first tour-level singles title, knocked defending champion Naomi Osaka out of the Australian Open, broken into the top 50 and become a powerful voice speaking against racial inequality. Her poise, eloquence and maturity beyond her years have won many admirers. And you really don't need to look too far to see where she has got it from. Short presentational grey line On 1 July, 2019, a 15-year-old American stepped out on Court One to face her idol Venus Williams at Wimbledon. Those who follow the stats might have noticed Gauff had become the youngest player to qualify for the main Wimbledon draw since the Open era began in 1968. Others were asking the press office whether to pronounce her name 'Gawf' or 'Goff' - it's the latter - and no matter how they were pronouncing her surname, they were still calling the teenager by her given name, Cori. But a 6-4 6-4 win over a player who had won four Grand Slam titles before she was even born changed everything - Coco had arrived. She became the hot ticket as she progressed through the rounds, saving two match points against Polona Hercog to reach the last 16. There she lost to eventual champion Simona Halep, leaving to a standing ovation from a crowd who had been well and truly charmed. Gauff made a lasting impression, not only with the pundits who predicted a trophy-laden future, but also with the public who saw a humble teenager who was "thankful for the experience" and planned to merely buy a new hoodie with her £176,000 prize money. Her profile rocketed."I went from probably 30,000 followers [on social media] to 500,000 overnight, and definitely got a lot of recognition from really famous people all around the world," she tells BBC Sport. "It's something I'm still not used to but definitely wasn't used to then." Yet she handled the media spotlight like an old hand, unfazed by her 'promotion' to the biggest news conference room, usually reserved for the top names, and not intimidated by her billing on the show courts or the players she faced. At least that's what it looked like from outside. She tells it slightly differently. "I was really nervous - don't get me wrong - I didn't look nervous but I was nervous inside," she says of the victory over Williams. "My parents always taught me to be calm in those moments and remember that pressure is a privilege. That's what I remembered during those moments." Gauff's parents Corey and Candi were seen cheering wildly from their seats as they watched their daughter's big moments. Her mum's celebrations even went viral. They had given up a lot, in a family gamble along the lines of the Richard Williams model, whose daughters Venus and Serena's training was kept in-house amid his certainty they were destined for huge success. Gauff's dad - a former college basketball player - quit his job as a healthcare executive to become his daughter's head coach, while her mum - a former college athlete - has overseen her home schooling. It is her family that is keeping her grounded and motivated. "My determination to win is one thing that always drives me, and also my brothers - to inspire them to get up and work hard. I know they look up to me so I try to be a good example," she says. She then lost to eventual champion Sofia Kenin in three sets having taken the opener but had once more proved she could stand toe-to-toe with players she had looked up to for years. She has a photo of herself as a youngster going to the US Open as a fan, where Venus Williams is playing in the background on Arthur Ashe Stadium, while she also has a signed tennis ball from Serena. Now she's the one being mobbed for autographs and interviews. "I just be myself, I don't really focus on the cameras. I just be myself and hope that works out," she says. It is not just on the court where Gauff is coming face to face with her heroes. One of her favourite people to meet was Michelle Obama. "She gave me really good advice," she says. "She's a big inspiration to everyone across the world, not just because she was the First Lady. She continues to push boundaries for women of colour." A lot of those words could apply to Gauff herself.Earlier this month she made headlines with an emotional speech at a Black Lives Matter protest in her home town of Delray Beach, Florida, saying "we need to take action" and that it is "sad" she was protesting against the "same thing" her grandmother did "50-plus years ago". She even appeared to challenge Roger Federer to do more when, in a response to the 20-time Grand Slam champion's 'Blackout Tuesday' black square social media post marking George Floyd's death in police custody in the United States, she shared a link with him on 'Ways to Help'. A powerful video she posted about the killings of African-Americans asks "Am I next?" and on her Twitter feed she says: "I promise to always use my platform to help make the world a better place." She is not even old enough to vote yet. None of this has come as any surprise to her mentor, Serena Williams' coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who first met Gauff when she was 10 and who believes she is "different" to other players. "At 14 she was more mature than women on tour who are 25," he told the Guardian earlier this month. "That's incredible. She has an inner strength that is completely unusual."There is still a reassuring reminder from Gauff that she does nevertheless still know how to be a teenager. She has been enjoying making TikTok videos during lockdown and getting her parents to join in with the dances. She has also been learning French and reading a lot of books. And while she has enjoyed the extra time at home she is now ready for the WTA Tour to resume in August after it was suspended in March because of the coronavirus pandemic. "I'm ready to get back on court and travel again - I like travelling more than I like staying home," she says. The first Grand Slam after the restart will be the US Open, followed just a fortnight later by the rescheduled French Open. Many people will be wondering just how far she will go this time. "She has the ability to be the greatest player ever, even better than Serena and I never thought I'd say that," BBC presenter and former French Open champion Sue Barker says. "Serena is without question the best so far. Coco has all the attributes, physically, mentally, she has the game, she's going to be superstar, with the press she is so engaging, she has just got absolutely everything. "If she can start winning Grand Slams by 18 then who knows how many she could win. We're seeing Serena desperately trying to equal Margaret Court's record [of 24 Grand Slam singles titles] - Coco could outdo that and I never thought that would happen." Venus Williams declared "the sky is the limit" for the young American, while former Wimbledon champion John McEnroe said last year he would be "absolutely shocked" if she was not number one in the world by the time she is 20. Gauff, who won her maiden WTA title in Linz in October, does not talk in those terms though. "I definitely feel pressure but not so much because of my past results, just because I always put pressure on myself on the court. Lately it's not been pressure to win but just pressure to have fun and make sure I play the right way," she says. That is because she knows how damaging the wrong kind of pressure can be, having admitted earlier this year to feeling "depressed" because of the "pressure that she needed to do well". "I was experiencing this maybe just before Wimbledon happened because that's when I first transitioned onto the pro tour," she says now. "I didn't really know what to expect or what to do, juniors and pros to me was a completely different experience, because you go from being number one junior to being not even ranked in the pros. And it takes a lot to build your ranking up. "When I let all of that go and didn't focus too much on numbers that was when Wimbledon happened and my results really went up. I think that time and that moment in my life definitely prepared me to have that breakout at Wimbledon." It could also be that she finds herself more prepared than many players to deal with what will be a very different-looking tennis tour when it resumes - but for different reasons.The US Open will be taking place behind closed doors, meaning no raucous home crowds cheering her on. "It will be easier for me to address," she says. "I've only been on tour a year so I will just go back to my junior years when we didn't have much of a crowd - when there's only your parents at the tournament, I'll just go back to my - I guess - my home." She's also got an added incentive to do well in these events as she will finally get her driving licence in November. She may want to upgrade from a hoodie to a car with any prize money. Apart from chasing Grand Slam titles, she has just one more little thing to sort out: "Once I learn It seems her younger siblings are as switched on as she is."Every time I go to a tournament I ask them what they want. From Australia my youngest brother Cameron said he wanted a shark tooth necklace and my other brother Cody, he's 12, asked for 1% - or it may have been 10% - of my prize money. He is so money-orientated, which is not a good thing! "He would probably start at 50% and bargain his way down to 10%! But he still hasn't got any yet." That 10% would amount to 30,000 Australian dollars (£17,000) after Gauff reached the fourth round in Melbourne. She knocked out defending champion Osaka in straight sets in the third round having again beaten Venus Williams in round one.

With most of us stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic, our eating habits have had to change. Meals out have been impossible, and we've all been having to eat from home. So what have we been eating and which firms have been benefiting? Barry Smith may be a natural optimist with a market-leading product but as the lockdown loomed, the founder of food probiotic supplement, Symprove, was forced to look at worst-case scenarios. "If production had to shut down completely and we had zero sales we may have survived for about six months, perhaps a little longer with a government grant," says the Surrey-based entrepreneur, who doubled supply routes and stocked up on core ingredients including barley in preparation. "It was very scary to think about, and a huge relief that the complete opposite happened and we had a record 50% new business in May."Indeed, with customers flocking online to buy his fermented grain product to boost their general gut health and well-being, Symprove is one of the food supplement and food products enjoying strong sales - boosted by customers changing their behaviour during the outbreak. For Mr Smith, the pandemic accelerated an existing move towards proactive health management. There's been a spike in online searches for "probiotics" and "immunity function", according to industry watchers, Lumina Intelligence. There have also been studies published exploring a possible link between Covid-19 and a lack of diversity in the gut microbiome, says Mr Smith. Whether eventually proven or not, this "may have got more people thinking about the importance of gut health", he says. But besides many of us looking for health supplements, at the other end of the spectrum there has also been a rise in demand for products combining an indulgent fix with a way to pass time in lockdown - notably snacking and baking. One of these is "gourmet popcorn", which retail intelligence specialists, Stackline, say is one of the fastest growing trends among snacks. For London-based Popcorn Shed, which adds flavours such as cherry Bakewell and sundried tomato and goats cheese to the humble corn kernel, its sales to consumers in March and April were 12 times higher than the same period last year. Is my constant lockdown snacking normal? Meanwhile, figures from market researchers Nielsen show that sales of baking products were up by almost two-thirds over the same period when compared with 2019. With a lot of us turning to home baking, flour has become hard to find and has often been sold out. So many of us have been using flourless recipes - joining those who always preferred them anyway.Julianne Ponan, owner of Creative Nature Superfoods, whose range includes flourless baking kits, had to move to a larger manufacturing facility and put in 18-hour days to accommodate the rapid increase in demand from consumers and supermarkets for her products. "Home baking has gone through the roof," she says, acknowledging that the shortage of flour during the lockdown period also worked in her favour. "As an allergen-free brand, it was hard to source some of the ingredients like banana chips as there was a lockdown from our supplier in Sri Lanka, but because you can add milk and vegetable oil to our mix rather than flour, it does offer a way of baking without the usual commodities." Ms Ponan says 70% of the 1,800 people her firm surveyed were now baking weekly rather than monthly. What's more, during the lockdown more of us seem to have been experimenting with going meat-free.Some one in five Brits says they have reduced their meat consumption during the pandemic. An additional 1.8 million households have been buying meat-free products - and it has been tofu that has become the go-to meat-free food. The UK's tofu market is now worth £32m, says Nielsen. While most businesses were fearful of the unknown at the start of the crisis, the main concern for David Knibbs, managing director of Yorkshire-based The Tofoo Co, was how to meet any additional demand with an already booming business. The Tofoo Co has a 46% share of the tofu market, and has seen its monthly turnover double to £1m since the crisis began. It has extended production to Sundays and is employing more workers at its recently expanded factory. "We knew straight away with more people cooking and eating at home that it would go bananas, and May was our biggest month ever," says Mr Knibbs, who bought the brand four years ago.In a range that includes chilli-infused and crispy-coated variants, it is the simple plain block of tofu, known as Naked Tofoo, that has been the company's biggest seller during this period, which he credits to people being more experimental in the kitchen. "Many people got their [culinary] inspiration out in restaurants rather than the home, but lockdown stopped all of that so people are expanding their repertoire. "I think the meat-free market was getting a little processed, with lots of ready meals and [meat-free] sausage rolls, but Covid has encouraged more cooking from scratch and trying new recipes. That's where the opportunity is now - people taking something plain and simple and trying to transform it." Not that the real meat is being neglected entirely. Sausages have been eaten in six million more weekly meals, says research firm Kantar, partly due to a surge in barbecues and also a return to comfort food favourites toad-in-the-hole and bangers and mash."With so many meals being consumed at home it has unlocked many more occasions for consumption bringing families together at mealtimes," says Alexandra Byrne, brand manager at Kerry Foods, which manufactures Richmond Sausages. So what of the long-term prospects for these foods that are doing well at the moment? Mark Artus, the chief executive of brand agency 1HQ, says that retailers and food brands will have been watching closely to see whether these changes in our behaviour are lasting, or whether we will revert to old patterns once the immediate crisis has passed. For those firms that have benefited, he says: "The challenge will be to double-down on the opportunity and retain the new consumers they have attracted."

HONG KONG — A new strain of the H1N1 swine flu virus is spreading silently in workers on pig farms in China and should be “urgently” controlled to avoid another pandemic, a team of scientists says in a new study. H1N1 is highly transmissible and spread around the world in 2009, killing about 285,000 people and morphing into seasonal flu. The newer strain, known as G4 EA H1N1, has been common on China’s pig farms since 2016 and replicates efficiently in human airways, according to the study published on Monday. So far, it has infected some people without causing disease, but health experts fear that could change without warning. “G4 viruses have all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus,” the study said, adding that controlling the spread in pigs and closely monitoring human po[CENSORED]tions “should be urgently implemented.”The study, published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is based on the surveillance of pigs in 10 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2018. In the last three years of the study, researchers collected 338 blood samples from workers on 15 pig farms and 230 from people in nearby households. The study found that 10.4 percent of the workers and 4.4 percent of the others tested positive for antibodies to G4 EA H1N1, and that workers between the ages of 18 and 35 tested positive at a higher rate: 20.5 percent.Predicting risk is not a precise science, but close attention to the virus would be advisable, said Ian H. Brown, the head of the virology department at Britain’s Animal and Plant Health Agency and one of two scientists who reviewed the paper before it was published. “It may be that with further change in the virus it could become more aggressive in people much as SARS-CoV-2 has done,” Dr. Brown said in an email on Tuesday, referring to the new coronavirus. The study was sent for review in early December, weeks before the coronavirus outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan began making global headlines.Li-Min Huang, director of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at National Taiwan University Hospital, said that a crucial next step would be finding out whether any of the infected workers at the pig farms had contracted the virus from humans, as well as whether any had spread the virus to their families. “It’s a very important study, and the virus looks quite dangerous,” Dr. Huang said. “We need to be worried about any disease with the potential to spread human to human.” Eurasian variations of H1N1 have been circulating in pigs in Europe and Asia for decades, the study said, but the incidence of G4 viruses in farmed Chinese pigs with respiratory symptoms began rising sharply after 2014. Recent evidence “indicates that G4 EA H1N1 virus is a growing problem in pig farms, and the widespread circulation of G4 viruses in pigs inevitably increases their exposure to humans,” it said. Asked about the new strain at a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said that it was not an “immediate threat” but “something we need to keep our eye on the just the way we did with in 2009 with the emergence of the swine flu.” The study was a collaboration among government agencies in China, including the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the World Health Organization, scientists from several universities in China and the University of Nottingham in Britain. Dr. Brown teaches at the University of Nottingham but was not involved in the research. The H1N1 virus that caused a pandemic in 2009 had a relatively low fatality rate, estimated at 0.02 percent. By contrast, the fatality rate of the 1918 flu pandemic was about 2.5 percent of its victims. But that virus killed an estimated 50 million, perhaps more, because it infected so many people and spread at a time when medical care was cruder.

Citroën boss Vincent Cobée believes the impact of the coronavirus pandemic could lead to a sharp rise in demand for electric cars in the near future. Several major governments, including those in France and Germany, have unveiled substantial financial recovery packages to help boost industry following Covid-19 lockdowns. They include incentives to increase new car sales - with many tied to the purchase of electric and low-emission cars as part of efforts to cut carbon emissions.OPEN GALLERY Citroen e-C4 2020 static rear Citroen e-C4 2020 static charging Citroen e-C4 2020 static rear Citroen e-C4 2020 static charging James Attwood, digital editor by James Attwood 30 June 2020 Citroën boss Vincent Cobée believes the impact of the coronavirus pandemic could lead to a sharp rise in demand for electric cars in the near future. Several major governments, including those in France and Germany, have unveiled substantial financial recovery packages to help boost industry following Covid-19 lockdowns. They include incentives to increase new car sales - with many tied to the purchase of electric and low-emission cars as part of efforts to cut carbon emissions. Speaking at a launch event for the new C4, which includes a fully electric e-C4 variant, Cobée said that low-emission vehicles – including plug-in hybrids and EVs – currently make up around 6% of the sales mix of Citroën parent firm PSA Group, but he expects that figure to rise sharply. Asked what percentage of sales the e-C4 will account for, Cobée said: “In the C-segment, we hope the percentage for the C4 will be higher, maybe 8-10%. Because of customer sentiment, the increasing development of infrastructure and new [emissions] regulations, we think that can grow quite fast. “The last four months have seen a transformation of society and one of the ways out [in terms of economic recovery] is the transformation of regulations, with a push towards low-carbon vehicles. “So we are expecting that the unexpected could happen and I wouldn’t be surprised if the market share of EVs moves towards 20% very, very rapidly, especially with a car like the C4.There is demand to enter the world of clean mobility. It’s not a tree-hugger statement. It’s that I never have to go to a petrol station any more and can charge my car at home. But if you answer this only with city hatchbacks, then the ability for this to spread is limited.” Cobée noted that the higher purchase price of EVs is still a deterrent to potential buyers. He said: “Anyone who’s worked in the car industry in the last 10 years will know the huge challenges EVs present in terms of battery and development costs. But as citizens, we know that if an EV costs roughly the same as an internal combustion engine car, we would shift.Back to top “At Citroén, we are making a statement: with AMI, we’ve shown than an EV can be affordable, and with the C4, we’re saying that it’s not true an EV can only be a city car, but a family hatch with a range of more than 200 miles.” Although EVs remain more expensive to buy than combustion-engined cars, Cobée said: “If you consider not just purchase price but running price and residual value, it’s already extremely similar, and especially with the addition of incentives following the coronavirus crisis, the pricing of EVs is extremely competitive.”

The Premier League will consider postponing Leicester’s remaining home matches after the city was put back into lockdown. There was uncertainty on Tuesday as to what would happen to Leicester’s game against Crystal Palace on Saturday after the health secretary, Matt Hancock, told Sky News it would go ahead as planned. The league’s chief executive, Richard Masters, however, told the culture and sport department select committee he was “waiting to hear” a decision and the club were in talks over how to progress. Asked about contingency plans in the event of a rise in Covid-19 cases, as has happened in Leicester, Masters told the committee: “I would say just about every eventuality has been discussed by ourselves and DCMS officials at some point. We have had huge discussions about the use of neutral venues“We are waiting to hear but if what is happening in Leicester does affect their ability to host home games, either the match on Saturday against Crystal Palace at 3pm or subsequent matches, we have the opportunity to put them elsewhere or postpone the matches until it is safe to [play them]. Contingency plans are part of our overall planning.” Masters went on to say the league could “clearly” cope with localised outbreaks of Covid-19 as it continues attempts to complete the season, with 27 of the remaining 92 games having been played. If several locations were forced to return into lockdown, Masters admitted the season could be curtailed. “There’s always a possibility of the season not being completed,” he said. “It’s dependent on the course of the virus and the government’s response. “We’re responding to Leicester now and planning to adapt to the neutral venues model if necessary. We can clearly cope with the situation in Leicester, we can adapt to that. If it were to happen in multiple areas there is that risk we cannot complete the season.” As part of the restart process the league’s 20 clubs agreed to defer discussions on the details of curtailment until it became a likely possibility. Leicester were conducting meetings at the club on Tuesday. They were also believed to be seeking further guidance from government as they coordinated a response to the local lockdown announced by Hancock at 9pm on Monday. Speaking to Sky News, Hancock had said the match would go ahead as planned but added: “We’re recommending against all but essential travel both to and from and within Leicester. And as we saw during the peak, the vast majority of people will abide by these rules. As well as Palace, Leicester are due to play two other teams at the King Power Stadium: Sheffield United in the week beginning Monday 13 July and a final fixture against Manchester United on Sunday 26 July.

I’d had enough. It was October 2017, and I’d been wondering what the point of my job was for far too long, and while I’m sure there was something meaningful somewhere and to someone in what I was doing day-to-day, it had certainly lost meaning for me. For all the good that writing another academic research paper would do, I thought I might as well be cycling to Bhutan. The idea of cycling to this small country nestled in the Himalayan foothills is one I’d had for many years. Bhutan is famous for deciding to value its po[CENSORED]tion’s happiness and wellbeing over economic growth. As an academic researcher focused on understanding happiness and well-being, the journey looked to me to be something of a pilgrimage. Before I quit, I’d spent more than ten years at different universities, trying to understand what the most important contributors were to well-being. But what I found was that I was burnt out. Given the nature of my research, the irony of this was not lost on me. I needed to do something different. I wanted to travel; to explore and understand happiness through a non-academic lens. But I wanted to connect the research I’d been doing over the years with what was happening, or indeed not happening, in the world. When I began my research, I was motivated by the importance of the subject. Most people I knew wanted to be happy and so, I thought, my research might help people to do that. I did what academics are incentivised to do: publish in the best peer-reviewed journals (indexed by academic readership and citation counts), as well as bring in research funds. I also did things such as engage with people outside of academia that might not ordinarily read my research – the public, the media, governments, policymakers – things I wasn’t always incentivised to do, but nevertheless did because they contributed to a personal sense of purpose and meaning. When it comes to living happy and fulfilled lives, we humans need meaning, we need purpose. People who feel there is a deeper purpose and meaning in what they are doing in their day-to-day lives tend to be happier, healthier, and more satisfied. Research shows, for example, that a life orientated towards meaning brings greater satisfaction than a life oriented toward hedonic pleasure. Those that have a strong sense of purpose in life live longer, and having a strong sense of purpose may be just as good for your health as engaging in regular exercise. Some would even conceive that purpose is, by definition, a key aspect of happiness itself.

The accretion of new material during Pluto's formation may have generated enough heat to create a liquid ocean that has persisted beneath an icy crust to the present day, despite the dwarf planet's orbit far from the sun in the cold outer reaches of the solar system. This "hot start" scenario, presented in a paper published June 22 in Nature Geoscience, contrasts with the traditional view of Pluto's origins as a ball of frozen ice and rock in which radioactive decay could have eventually generated enough heat to melt the ice and form a subsurface ocean. "For a long time people have thought about the thermal evolution of Pluto and the ability of an ocean to survive to the present day," said coauthor Francis Nimmo, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz. "Now that we have images of Pluto's surface from NASA's New Horizons mission, we can compare what we see with the predictions of different thermal evolution models." Because water expands when it freezes and contracts when it melts, the hot-start and cold-start scenarios have different implications for the tectonics and resulting surface features of Pluto, explained first author and UCSC graduate student Carver Bierson. "If it started cold and the ice melted internally, Pluto would have contracted and we should see compression features on its surface, whereas if it started hot it should have expanded as the ocean froze and we should see extension features on the surface," Bierson said. "We see lots of evidence of expansion, but we don't see any evidence of compression, so the observations are more consistent with Pluto starting with a liquid ocean." The thermal and tectonic evolution of a cold-start Pluto is actually a bit complicated, because after an initial period of gradual melting the subsurface ocean would begin to refreeze. So compression of the surface would occur early on, followed by more recent extension. With a hot start, extension would occur throughout Pluto's history. "The oldest surface features on Pluto are harder to figure out, but it looks like there was both ancient and modern extension of the surface," Nimmo said. The next question was whether enough energy was available to give Pluto a hot start. The two main energy sources would be heat released by the decay of radioactive elements in the rock and gravitational energy released as new material bombarded the surface of the growing protoplanet. Bierson's calculations showed that if all of the gravitational energy was retained as heat, it would inevitably create an initial liquid ocean. In practice, however, much of that energy would radiate away from the surface, especially if the accretion of new material occurred slowly. "How Pluto was put together in the first place matters a lot for its thermal evolution," Nimmo said. "If it builds up too slowly, the hot material at the surface radiates energy into space, but if it builds up fast enough the heat gets trapped inside." The researchers calculated that if Pluto formed over a period of less that 30,000 years, then it would have started out hot. If, instead, accretion took place over a few million years, a hot start would only be possible if large impactors buried their energy deep beneath the surface. The new findings imply that other large Kuiper belt objects probably also started out hot and could have had early oceans. These oceans could persist to the present day in the largest objects, such as the dwarf planets Eris and Makemake. "Even in this cold environment so far from the sun, all these worlds might have formed fast and hot, with liquid oceans," Bierson said. In addition to Bierson and Nimmo, the paper was coauthored by Alan Stern at the Southwest Research Institute, the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission.

Counter Strike 1.6 and FREE FIRE

Game informations Developer: Croteam Series: Serious Sam Genre :First-person shooter Platforms : Microsoft Windows, Xbox Publishers: 2K games When Serious Sam: The First Encounter quietly appeared in 2001, it was a real breath of fresh air. The game delivered fantastic-looking, incredibly intense first-person-shooting action without any of the genre's pretenses of grandiose storytelling, all with its own unique style and for a bargain price of $20 at that. Serious Sam has made appearances a handful of other times since then, but only now has a full-fledged sequel finally arrived. The good news is that this is Serious Sam all right, packing in all the silly humor and massive shooting-gallery-style levels you'd expect from the previous games. The bad news is something's been lost in translation, perhaps due to the passing of time or due to the new 3D graphics engine, or--more likely--because of a combination of each. Serious Sam II has a lot of levels and a few good laughs, but its simple shooting action is less likely to get your adrenaline pumping "Serious" Sam Stone, casually dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, has been summoned to rid the universe of Mental and his nefarious forces. To do this, he'll need to travel to different worlds to collect medallion pieces from their oppressors. . The game's weapons look big and bulky onscreen, but the interaction between your firepower and your enemies' bodies feels rather hollow. Enemies just kind of break apart into bits, then quickly fade away. So despite the high volume of enemy casualties, you just don't get that sense of wreaking massive havoc and carnage with your ridiculously oversized guns. The weapons don't behave as you'd expect them to in other ways, as well. The very first weapon you find, a multibarreled shotgun that looks far too much like a toy, turns out to be perfectly accurate at extreme ranges, contrary to first-person-shooter canon, which sti[CENSORED]tes shotguns should only be effective up close. So this boring gun actually becomes your mainstay throughout most of the game. Using a shotgun to snipe aerial targets from miles away just feels silly, but it's not the same "silly" that Serious Sam II is going for. The rest of the weapons are pretty straightforward. You never have to reload, but just keep an eye on your ammo count. Serious Sam II doesn't do much with the original game's formula, but it introduces some vehicle-driving and turret-gun sequences into the mix. These aren't anything you haven't seen in numerous other shooters prior to this one, but they help alleviate Serious Sam II from what's a very monotonous level design overall. While the worlds you'll visit have their own unique visual style and enemies, the underlying level design and enemy behavior doesn't change much from one level to the next, and the game's challenge doesn't really escalate all that much either. In fact, at the default difficulty, most of the game is fairly easy, though certain end-of-level sequences will probably take you a few tries, at least until you figure out where all the enemies are coming from. Many of the game's levels end with an anticlimax. You battle waves and waves of foes until they simply stop coming, and then the level ends. Some decent boss fights are thrown in, but it's all been downhill for Serious Sam's boss fights since the jaw-dropping battle at the end of the first game. All the game's levels are bookended by little comedic cutscenes, some of which are absurdly amusing. However, just as often the humor falls flat. The same can be said for Sam's various one-liners during the course of the gameplay. Later on in the game, Sam even starts recycling his material, as if The differences between the PC and Xbox versions of Serious Sam II may seem purely cosmetic, but they add up to a lot in practice. Specifically, the Xbox version looks worse, and the auto-aim feature that's enabled by default to compensate for having to use a gamepad instead of a mouse and keyboard sucks away some of the game's challenge. The auto-aim feature makes it laughably easy to hit your mark, though it's necessary in the many instances when you're shooting at targets from very far away, where the rate conspire to make it difficult to line up your shots. Also, the PC version supports online cooperative gameplay for up to 16 players, while the Xbox limits you to four (though we had a lot of problems getting into a stable co-op match on the PC). The Xbox version also retails for more than the PC version, neither of which, incidentally, is coming out of the gate for the budget price of the original. So, yeah, don't spring for the Xbox version unless you haven't upgraded your PC since the first Serious On a nicely equipped PC, Serious Sam II does look great. It's now got a physics engine like pretty much every other shooter, so expect to see some boxes flipping around from explosions, and that kind of stuff. Some aspects of the game's environments blow up good, and there's another neat effect in how trees shake wildly, shedding their leaves from the violent impact of nearby blasts. The levels look pretty, though the designs aren't very imaginative, for the most part (a giant-sized level filled with giant-sized stomped-out cigarette butts stands out), and the enemies look purposely absurd. The game's grainy cutscenes seem like they could have easily been rendered in real time using the game's engines, but they probably weren't to cut back on loading times, which aren't bad. As for the audio in Serious Sam II, it tries too hard to be silly. Some of it's great. Sam's guns are plenty loud, and his gruff voice is perfect for a generic action hero. But the nonstop babble of the occasional friendly villagers you'll run into, as well as some other specific sounds (like a gratingly unfunny voice that announces when you've earned an extra life, which is often), can be annoying. The music matches the game's lighthearted theme well but picks up A cooperative mode is the only multiplayer option available in Serious Sam II, and while games like this can certainly be more fun if you play them with friends, the co-op mode doesn't do anything to fix Serious Sam II's shortcomings. Fans of Serious Sam will enjoy some aspects of being in Sam's red sneakers again, and the game's goofy humor and corny references to other first-person shooters do give this game a distinct personality. But while the action will keep you on edge, it rarely achieves the sort of teeth-grinding, fist-clenching intensity that you'd expect if you played the original Serious Sam games or are otherwise looking for a totally satisfying no-nonsense shooter. Serious Sam 2 System Requirements (Minimum) CPU: Pentium 4 or Athlon XP CPU SPEED: 2 GHz RAM: 256 MB OS: Windows 2000/XP VIDEO CARD: DirectX 8.0 compliant video card with Pixel Shader support (NVIDIA GeForce3+ / ATI Radeon 7000+ / Intel 915g+) TOTAL VIDEO RAM: 32 MB 3D: Yes PIXEL SHADER: 1.0 DIRECTX VERSION: 9.0c SOUND CARD: Yes Serious Sam II Recommended Requirements CPU: Pentium 4 or Athlon XP CPU SPEED: 2.6 GHz RAM: 512 MB OS: Windows 2000/XP VIDEO CARD: DirectX 9.0 compliant video card with Pixel Shader support (NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900+ / ATI Radeon 9500+ / Intel 915g+) TOTAL VIDEO RAM: 64 MB 3D: Yes PIXEL SHADER: 2.0 DIRECTX VERSION: 9.0c SOUND CARD: Yes

• Your Nickname ( Must be same like teamspeak ) :Rei • Your Age :18 • Profile link : https://csblackdevil.com/forums/profile/72931-rei™/ • How much you can stay active in both forum & teamspeak ? : in teamspeak more than 15 hours and in forum 5-6 hours • How you could help us a Devil harmony member ? :helping them when they need help and help with informations new members about this project • How much you rate Devil harmony project from 1 - 10 ? :10 because is very good project and i like music contests • Other informations about your request ? : i want to became devil harmony because music is my life • Last request link : This is rank is new and i dont have last request linko for it

if i am child why you talk to me?Why should i get punish when i didnt do something wrong?And 3rd question why you break the rules and then dont respect them.You are spamer these words was made by you in ts3 and please dont make us stupids or crazy.And please if we are childs admin why you play in our server when other servers havent childrens admins.I always do my right job and you are totally wrong here

omg ril slav you will lose your tag

hello all firstly can you respect the model please.Why you dont remember when you spamed in ts3?.Also i always attacks when it happends mods or something like that.You disturbed many times admin and please dont tell us what should we do.About second and first picture you got much gags and i made my final and last warning to you.Please be more respectful to admins next time because we are not your toys to do what you want and please stop spam in ts3 in public mesages and in pm.For another managers who need profs <12:18:37> "eXeCuToR": <12:18:15> "BoB1": admin please tell me ril slaves me ban and destroy im saying attack zm for sniper mod dont atack or saying me fk you please reported him admin <12:18:16> "BoB1": admin please tell me ril slaves me ban and destroy im saying attack zm for sniper mod dont atack or saying me fk you please reported him admin <12:18:17> "BoB1": admin please tell me ril slaves me ban and destroy im saying attack zm for sniper mod dont atack or saying me fk you please reported him admin <12:18:18> "BoB1": admin please tell me ril slaves me ban and destroy im saying attack zm for sniper mod dont atack or saying me fk you please reported him admin <12:18:19> "BoB1": admin please tell me ril slaves me ban and destroy im saying attack zm for sniper mod dont atack or saying me fk you please reported him admin <12:18:20> "BoB1": admin please tell me ril slaves me ban and destroy im saying attack zm for sniper mod dont atack or saying me fk you please reported him admin <12:18:21> "BoB1": admin please tell me ril slaves me ban and destroy im saying attack zm for sniper mod dont atack or saying me fk you please reported him admin<12:18:21> "BoB1": admin please tell me ril slaves me ban and destroy im saying attack zm for sniper mod dont atack or saying me fk you please reported him admin <12:18:22> "BoB1": admin please tell me ril slaves me ban and destroy im saying attack zm for sniper mod dont atack or saying me fk you please reported him admin <12:18:23> "BoB1": admin please tell me ril slaves me ban and destroy im saying attack zm for sniper mod dont atack or saying me fk you please reported him admin <12:18:24> "BoB1": admin please tell me ril slaves me ban and destroy im saying attack zm for sniper mod dont atack or saying me fk you please reported him admin <12:18:24> "eXeCuToR": stop please <12:18:24> "BoB1": admin please tell me ril slaves me ban and destroy im saying attack zm for sniper mod dont atack or saying me fk you please reported him admin. And about this mesage ril slav have only tag and he doesnt have acces for ban or destroy and he doesnt insult you or something like that.He is pretty guy who shows his job and respect the rules everytime in server and also help us admins when we have problems Greetings.

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