Why urban warfare in Gaza will be bloodier than in Iraq | Singapore’s biggest money-laundering case has links to Chinese gamblers | Middle Management Is the Key to Sustainability | Project Managers Should Think Like Startup Founders

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� � � � � � You Might Like � � � � � � � � � Why urban warfare in Gaza will be bloodier than in Iraq - The Economist    THE WAR in Gaza is exacting a brutal toll on civilians. The Hamas-run health ministry says that more than 8,000 people have died. The number of children among them, more than 3,000, exceeds the annual death toll for children in all wars in each of the preceding three years. The Economist estimates, from satellite imagery, that over a tenth of Gaza’s housing stock has been destroyed, leaving more than 280,000 people without homes to which they can return. In many ways that fits with the norm of urban warfare, which is unusually destructive. But Israel’s war in Gaza is also distinctive. War in built-up areas is always bloody. America’s first assault on Fallujah in 2004 killed as many as 600 civilians, or 0.2% of the population, compared with 0.3% in today’s war in Gaza. A second assault later in the year killed around 800 more and left the majority of the city’s buildings damaged. A battle for Sadr City, a suburb of Baghdad, is thought to have killed nearly 1,000 people in March and April 2008, out of a population of around 2m, not dissimilar to that of Gaza. The largest urban battle in recent years was the assault on the city of Mosul, which had been seized by the Islamic State (IS) group, by an American-led coalition including Iraqi and Kurdish ground forces. At least 9,000 civilians were killed in Mosul during 2016-17, according to Airwars, a non-profit organisation that tracks civilian harm. That amounts to 0.6% of the population at the time. Of the buildings that were damaged, more than 80% were residential. Continued here Singapore's biggest money-laundering case has links to Chinese gamblers - The Economist    When police showed up at Su Haijin’s lavish apartment in Singapore one early morning in August, he leapt from his second-floor balcony. The ethnic-Chinese businessman was found hiding in a drain with broken legs. The police meanwhile arrested nine other suspects in what Singapore has described as one of the world’s biggest money-laundering cases. It has since seized or frozen more than $2bn in luxury properties, cars, gold bars and cash. The case is part of a broader campaign by Asian governments to counter a huge surge in money-laundering linked to organised crime. This criminal tsunami has roots in illicit online gambling by Chinese punters, much of it organised in South-East Asia by ethnic-Chinese gangs. In recent years the gangsters have also moved into other illegal activities, especially online scams. Police in Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, as well as Singapore, have recently raided casinos and scam-shops to arrest and grab the assets of those responsible. In October, Australian police arrested seven people on suspicion of laundering the proceeds of cyber-scams, smuggling and violent crime, and seized over $30m in assets. It was the third China-related money-laundering case they had made public this year. In June police in the Philippines raided a giant online gambling firm, rescuing 2,700 people who claimed to have been tricked into working in cybercrime. China’s summer blockbuster this year was not “Barbie” or “Oppenheimer” but “No More Bets”, a propaganda film warning of the risks of being trafficked to South-East Asia to work in cyber-scamming. Continued here Don't like ads? Go ad-free with TradeBriefs Premium Middle Management Is the Key to Sustainability - Harvard Business Review    While the executive in charge of the sustainability function plays the starring role in any social or environmental initiative, its success often depends on an organization’s hidden heroes: its critical midlevel team leaders. But how this group drives sustainability will vary with a company’s sustainability maturity. In their work the authors have identified four levels of it and goals and actions that are appropriate for middle managers at each one. At level one, lagging and skeptical, middle managers should focus on getting sustainability on the agenda by exploring customer demand, gathering outside perspectives, and finding easy wins. At level two, building a base, the goal is to develop capabilities and start to embed sustainability into core processes. At level three, accelerating, middle managers increase the speed and scale of efforts through internal councils and by increasing transparency and rethinking business activities. At level four, leading, middle managers strive to build lasting sustainability infrastructure and set up transformative partnerships in their sectors or value chains. With the right skills and priorities, the unsung champions of sustainability can drive progress within companies at any level and across industries. Continued here Project Managers Should Think Like Startup Founders - Harvard Business Review    Most project managers focus on planning and execution. But large projects rarely go in a straight line, and often that planning doesn’t take into account key assumptions, and the execution goes far in the wrong direction before the need for changes are recognized. Agile approaches don’t go far enough in solving this problem because they focus on pivoting quickly — being reactive — rather than avoiding the problems to begin with. The author, a strategic advisor to large firms, suggests that project leaders should think like startup founders instead, using the tools that have become common in that sector: a project canvas, customer development, and so forth. In doing so, project leaders can uncover and solve for some of the project’s biggest questions and risks first, before scaling to full execution. In most organizations, projects are temporary endeavors to achieve a specific goal, such as implementing a system, launching a new product, or solving a customer problem; project managers lead teams to achieve these goals within an agreed timeframe and budget. As such, the skills that project managers are taught usually revolve around planning and execution: defining the work, identifying agreed-upon measures of success, constructing a workplan, mobilizing a team, marshalling resources, monitoring progress, and getting to the finish line. Continued here

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