Scottish You know the issue. Right I thought negotiations between our parents are we hope that this what their experience us bag Syrian democratic forces say they've captured Rucker's State Hospital one of the last strongholds of Islamic states in what used to be the group's Syrian capital a spokesman for the Kurdish dominated s.c.f. Said $22.00 judges were killed in the battle and there was no intense fighting around Iraq in the stadium the S.T.'s success comes a day after it coated our name square notorious for public executions. China's Communist leadership proposed to hold his most important gathering for 5 years the party congress the country's state news agency has published scathing criticism of Western democracy in an unsigned editorial posted in English the agency said that a divisive multi-party system simply don't need to crisis and chaos from Beijing his Johns our breath the latest offering published one day before the opening of the Communist Party Congress is a kind of triumphalist whoop of an editorial crises and chaos are swamping Western democracy it says with endless political backbiting bickering then policy reversals retarding economic and social progress instead in China social harmony prevails what it doesn't mention of course is that here political bickering is and backbiters in fact political opponents of any kind are largely all locked up Portugal is holding 3 days of national mourning for the 36 people killed in World fires that have devastated parts of the country. Thousands of firefighters continue to battle more than 50 separate forest fires still burning in central and northern areas porticoes prime minister. Has acknowledged that poor management of forests and dry weather were factors but said arson could not be ruled out delusion. Should or should he go but when asked to give up this situation is aggravated by extreme weather extreme drought and by the winners there is no self ignition of the forest what there is is an intentional creating a fire or negligence that world news from the b.b.c. Suicide car bombers in government have attacked a police training center in eastern Afghanistan a statement from the Interior Ministry said a car bomb went off near the training center a guard days the capital of petty our province making way for other attackers to start their assault government troops have sealed off the area. As Out African parliamentary committee is to open an inquiry today into alleged corruption at the highest levels of President Jacob Zuma his government prominent to be called to give evidence in the affair which has become known as state capture the billionaire go to family deny claims they made payments to influence influence ministerial appointments and gain lucrative state contracts. European affairs ministers from across the do together to discuss negotiations about Britain's departure from the blog the process remains deadlocked on a number of issues including Britain's exit Bill Kevin Connelly is in Brussels the bottomline I would guess from all of this week's maneuverings is that the $27.00 remaining states are going to decide that not enough progress has been made in the BRICs it talks so far to persuade them to move the whole focus of the negotiations on to the future trade relationship with the United Kingdom so I think the focus is going to move on to the next European summit in December that's what the u.k. Has to aim for now and it's going to be asked to make more progress in these talks if it's going to get what it wants at that December meeting Kevin Connolly. A new study by British scientists has suggested that cancer cells that survive after treatment may use the patient's own immune system to reawaken after lying dormant for long periods researchers from the Institute of Cancer Research in London say the tests in mice have shown that leftover cancer cells reactivate by hijacking a signal sent out by noon cells b.b.c. News. Imagine for a minute working in a big open plan office if you're actually more than have a quick look around now imagine it's a Monday afternoon in autumn it's a clear day and it's sun streaming through the windows suddenly all the women in the office start moving without saying very much they log off their computers they pop the case on and they file out of the door leaving the men in the office at their desks it's exactly 238 in the afternoon and it's not just your office women are filing out of buildings up and down the street this happened right across Iceland on October the 24th last year the women left work early shaving 30 percent of their working day because in Iceland they take home on average 30 percent less pay the men and in Reykjavik the capital losses shops and schools closed as all the women headed down to Parliament Square the crowd numbered around 20000 Omarion across the table was one of the was I push through which is really fantastic the. Speeches we were shrinking we put our hands as far away as food court I'd be sacked I mean clearly should be dealt with so you had like the potion so Klim and I merely remarking on a question about the everybody shouting everything should be on a list of what. Was. It most likely to come much a coach has to do. Since then the government has bought in rules that will make Iceland the 1st country to put in place a rigorous system to try and force companies to provide evidence that they're paying men and women equally is this tiny Nordic island nation about to show the rest of the world how to eliminate unequal pay once and for all. Have. This is what happens on the b.b.c. World Service I mean your accent on this show we travel and scour the surface of our troubled planet speaking of the people and the ideas that could actually change or improve the way we live and the solution where it's growing today is all about a big difference between men and women because whatever country you go to in the world one fact will be trade the women there on average will not be paid as much as the men yet we are today talking about the gender pay gap for decades it has remained a seemingly unbridgeable issue Despite advances in female education and the number of women working globally on average women take home just over half the wages of men according to the World Economic Forum What exactly does Iceland have at that slave to address this I reporter William Kramer has been there to find out more he William Hi India thanks for joining us so you've been out in Iceland William probing today solution why Iceland How bad is it for their gender pay gap Well actually Iceland is rated as the best country in the world by the World Economic Forum for gender equality generally that's good we're. Far as the gender pay gap is concerned the only number 2323 is not bad enough I mean there's over 100 countries in the rankings so you might think that's quite good but they're determined to improve and the government has pledged to eliminate the gender pay gap completely by 2022 so we heard just then that women left early because they got paid 30 percent less than men but that figures not taking into account hours part time work and things like that because of course a country's pay gap isn't just because of how the companies pay women there's also a matter of different lives that women have to men so you create choices breaks in career maternity leave part time working that sort of thing but here's the thing even when you look at women and men doing similar jobs for the same hours there's still a gender pay gap that is much smaller This is sometimes called the unexplained pay gap and it's still an issue all round the world in Iceland it's. I reckon to be about 6 or 7 percent Ok but it has been illegal for decades has and it's been illegal here to pay women better men and in the States and you cross the world yes in Iceland it's been illegal since $961.00 despite this hasn't gone away so even though it's illegal and quite possibly companies don't want to pay men more than women they still are doing it to a really big issue is still an issue everywhere and we heard at the beginning of the program from the organizer of the women's protest Mariana Trench to protest she works for the Icelandic confederation of labor an umbrella group called trade unions Marianna has been supporting workers on this issue of unequal pay for decades now about 10 years ago she got together with business Iceland the organization that represents employers and they were also keen to tackle the issue really at the Union we saw about a lot didn't work and then there's campaigned lot of work so we decided that they were torn that something boring more open. And we can't go there with the business community and the government. But there are a lot of set cation equal pay. Work places could apply excellent when we haven't had a little tinkering with bureaucracy on the program in a while so what exactly is this hack Well it's called 85 code on 2012 and I think catchy. Title is also known as the Equal Pay stand that's better and what is there is a set of guidelines and it's a booklet a management standard which took 4 years to write it's the 1st of its type in the world. A standard was published in 2012 and a pilot implement it was carried out the following year the very 1st organization to be accredited with the standard was the customs office I met there friendly head of h.r. My name is in it it has now started and I'm director of Human Resources said Icelandic customs so just take me through what did you do how did you actually implement the standard you evaluate all jobs that's within the organization after the evaluation you look at the paper just the salary goal 50 points that you have evaluated 1st of all you're looking at the jobs in the organization not the people you're looking at the positions and assigning them a value Yes and it's very important that you look at the persistent the core value of its position not the individual doing the jump and then after you've done that and you reevaluated all the jobs in the organization then you start looking at what you're actually paying people is that right yes then we do a sort of a salary analysis to check that we are paying equal wages for equal jobs so William how did the customs office decide on these core values that they're talking about for each position well owner and her colleagues came up with a set of criteria and then they got the managers in the customs office to agree to those definitions the core criteria of knowledge we have a start criteria for education and then another subcommittee are looking. Therians they were looking at things like for example how educated you needed to be to do a job how much responsibility was required whether you could do it at your desk or whether you had to go outside in the famously bitter Icelandic when main criteria us a book environment and then we got there into mental and emotional stress physical strain and work contingency and environmental stimulus so you've got all these categories like responsibility working conditions and different jobs can score higher or lower amounts in these different categories that right but very different jobs can end up with the same total score so if you think about it in the this system has the potential to elevate completely different types of work in a company or an organization that might have been previously overlooked So next you know how to agree how each job was scored with the managers in the customs office and frankly this sounds like it was a complete nightmare to get lots of meetings most managers think their jobs this is a very complex and maybe more complex than other jobs we've been looking at it over and over again and the maintenance of it was also that managers tend to call and think of the person doing the job and that's not what the standard is about you have to evaluate the job not the person doing it finally after months of internal wrangling earner a massive Excel spreadsheet so great so she's now living the h.r. Dream there a whole new set of data exactly a huge great big data set showing every job in the organization and how many points each one was now deemed to be worth she had to put the names of her staff next to all the jobs and basically everyone got their salary checked and that's keeping it wasn't just the women it was everybody in the organization that makes sense because she's got this whole new data set and so she can look across there and see whether there might be discrimination in other places so this could act as a brake on discrimination of all sorts Yeah it ought to but a question William a right this sort of communism or a. It's making jobs very prescriptive so why wouldn't you just do the job that you're being paid to do Ok that's several questions Terry So no it's not communism because I mean we do talk about equal pay but you're not paying everyone equally What is the mechanisms for paying everyone the decisions that you are taking when you are paying people are the same for whether you are talking about a man or a woman so in actual fact there is some wriggle room within the standard allows for different kind of salary system so you could have for example bonuses or you could have like a commission based salary system that can all be accommodated within the standard but it's just that all those decisions need to be transparent so a good reason to kind of get above and beyond your job and to work hard you know there's actually no real reason why you shouldn't have that so it just has to be that basically has to be fair and you have to document that decision making process so what happened at the customs office Ok drumroll please tell me. Well 10 percent of women had a pay rise and one percent of men did Ok and with a big pay rises Apparently they won't huge pay rises any pay cuts pay cuts no probably not I think could have gone about it that way but she chose to raise people's salaries instead but there was one quite interesting example relating to customs officers you know the people that are at the airport you know they want to look in your bag and they check all the sort of goods coming through and yeah so when they did the standard Those people have quite a bit of training that goes into their jobs they have to go outside in all weathers got quite a lot of responsibility so they're quite a lot of points and actually they get paid quite well they're also for whatever reason very often men that do that job the pattern that has developed over a period of years at the customs office is that when customs officers were approaching retirement they were allowed to come out of the cold weather and go into the h.q. Nice Casey desk Yeah but you can see the problem is that they ended up working alongside clerical workers who were very often female and doing very similar work to them but being paid much better there that's going to be a. Probably what did they do did they take a break I know they were sent back outside to do the job they were being paid to do right how do they feel about that I didn't speak to any of them but apparently they were a little bit grumpy about it we can see why that's a bit of a bit of a shock to have to get back out to the job it is yeah but you know 1st Farah suppose there is it now in the customs office some sort of pay slip you take here is there now complete equality there well actually in a couldn't tell me what the current adjusted pay gap was for the customs office well it has calmed down a bit because we have done the immediate actions that we need to do but yes we're still looking at it and how we could get it better yes of course it should be seal owner told me that she'll find out more when they do their next salary review and what about the other organizations that took part in the pilot Well again the Icelandic government couldn't tell me precise figures on how much the adjusted pay get reduced across the pilot they just said that 2 thirds of the organizations that took part had to raise some salaries. You were listening to World hacks on a b.b.c. World Service and today we're talking about Iceland's attempt to bring down the gender pay gap we've got over how the equal pay standard is supposed to work now please I would like to hear from someone who's had a pay rise so let's me going to start and she seems national affairs manager at the customs office so it's a pretty senior position she works quite closely with the director when they were implementing the standard secret found that she'd been underpaid her basic salary was the same as the men on her level but unlike them she and another female colleague were not being paid for that over time we were a bit annoyed. Well I wasn't. So much but I just thought Ok you know this is a reflection of reality as it represents itself in Iraq. I think there's a reason for the gender pay gap potentially you know I could have gone and said Well and I'm working some of the time I should have I should get paid for it but I didn't look at it that way I just thought Ok I will just have to try to limit the overtime that I do you know in retrospect I probably should have. Asked for that you're blaming yourself I'm not blaming myself in that sense. In a way I think it's a good thing that people are not expected to work a lot of all time because it's not good in terms of your private life in terms of your family but then again a male should not be expected to do that either have you thought about the working out how much overtime you've been doing for the last few years and asking for back pay. You know or not. But thought hadn't occurred to you know that and are you going to you know I suggest. Probably not probably not I actually hadn't thought about that pay at all until now so that's going to be quite big and it's the companies could have been breaking the law before the reviews there was a money's going to be that sounds good for workers perhaps quite expensive for businesses yes and we were laughing in that clip it's not really a joke when the u.k. Tried something like this with local governments 10 years ago it led to claims for back pay from hundreds of women running into millions of millions of pounds and I understand that legally this could be an issue in Iceland to vote to be honest no $1.00 I spoke to about it over there seems very worried about it but what's what I've been doing that different in this case because you just mentioned a similar pay review in the u.k. Ok So salary revaluations themselves are not new but I think there are 3 things that make what's happening in Iceland different and special. First. The fact that the work is laid out in a management standard the standard then are told me that by putting it in terms that businesses understand it does make it easier for them to implement and the standard has not been translated so in theory it could be put in place by any company in the world Secondly after carrying out this equal pay work the results are certified by an external body and then employers get a certificate to prove they do not discriminate and they can display a special logo on their websites so India this is the equal pay logo Ok so this is what they get They've been satisfied that it's black and white round image with bold line crossing through it curving through it sort of like a stained glass window yeah it does look a bit like a circular window what is supposed to be 2 smiling faces which are different but equal that have been brought together and it's also supposed to resemble coin a little bit it's kind of abstract but I can see that to face in it so what's the 3rd thing you mentioned really Ok so the 3rd thing is actually the most significant . Earlier this year the Icelandic government went a step further with all of this and they made it mandatory for companies to implement the standard So basically we're going to be rolling out over the next 4 years starting in January and if companies don't comply they can get fined Ok so it's a bit like going to the dentist I think every lovely stick out of a very good or some sort of nasty pain in the face. How big are these fines so the figure that's in the legislation is $50000.00 Icelandic krona a day so that's almost $500.00 Us dollars but my understanding is that the fines are going to be pretty much a last resort there's also talk of specific targets so for example companies will have to get their adjusted paid up to under 3 percent or so I also had the figure 5 percent or they'll get put on some kind of special measures and how do businesses fail after making it mandatory like this has been quite controversial. And not just with businesses with the people that actually designed the standard in the 1st place why they concerned about it because they made it well the managing director of Icelandic standards told me that management standards are by definition voluntary and they don't generally contain sort of set targets like this there's also practical concerns so next year about $150.00 companies large companies in Iceland are going to need to be certified and there's currently only 2 companies that can check that they're compliant there's a lot of work then 50 companies exactly and lastly inevitably the business community is worried about all of this extra regulation and cost companies argument against the legalising such a standard has been cost and saying it's too expensive this is the current Minister for Social Affairs and equality $14.00 big loans and we did some research on it then with room found that the management plan that there is relatively easy to implement it takes a bit of initial work we estimated from companies that had gone through implementation that there was an annual expense of point 1.2 percent of their payroll we could say it's quite limited in that scope when you offset it against the gender pay gap of around 7 to 8 percent it's clear that cost is being borne by women not companies and by making this a mandatory across those you're really turning the table you're saying to business well it is not your employees responsibility whether you are the discriminating lot it is your. Responsibility it is your responsibility to eliminate it if there is discrimination to be found but there is a bigger picture here isn't there really because even if you change the way women are paid in work it's not necessarily going to change what sort of jobs they get into in the 1st place Yeah exactly they're still going to be more male customs officers and more female character workers so on that last example in a says she is trying to change it. Thanks so much William. Now we're going to take a minute to look at some of the big issues that are standing in the way of closing the gender pay gap I'm joined by Saudi is the heating She's the head of education gender and what at the World Economic Forum Hi India Good to be here so you've you've looked across Iceland's equal pay stunned it is this something that could actually work elsewhere you know interesting the core elements of this the standard the do the need for doing internal assessments having external organizations provide a certification these are actually experiments that are being tried in other parts of the world too but often they're missing the broader ecosystem of equality and gender parity that exists in Iceland so it's not wholly new but it's being done in an environment where it really could take off and pay off for women and men what else is keeping women back. So there are number of elements when it comes to the economic gender gap there's the pipeline issue women and men are making different choices when it comes to what they're studying even though more women are graduating from university in most countries in the world they're met women and men are graduating in very different subjects they're making different career choices there tends to be a pattern where women are going into what happened to be lower paid professions so there are a lot more women for example in care work there are a lot more women when it comes to the education sector there are a lot more women in the non for profit sector the 2nd aspect is what happens once people are in those jobs women still tend to do more of the unpaid work and men still tend to have less responsibility in the home and so that particular aspect still continues to exist which leads to then having less opportunity in the workplace towards leadership positions regardless of whichever industry it is so where do you think the bulk of the focus should be to think it should be in the pipeline or do you think it should be in the jobs that women are doing. You know it really needs to be a holistic approach our Global Gender Gap Report has progressively shown that we are getting further and further away from parity it's going to take 170 years according to our last report to get to gender equality in the economy and that slowdown has a lot to do with the fact that we're not taking a holistic approach one measure is not going to cut it you mentioned that that sort of big a holistic approach are the countries that are good at doing that that addressing addressing that issue in a way that you've seen that this working well certainly Iceland is one of those countries I mean one of the reasons that a specific intervention like this one is likely to be successful in a place like Iceland is because they have already worked on the broader care infrastructure they have already worked on putting in place paternity leave in addition to maternity leave so that there's more balance when it comes to child care but certainly when you look at women in politics it is one of the most gender equal countries in the world when it comes to leadership positions in politics too so that is the kind of holistic approach that needs to be taken so this is starting to happen it is the beginning of a movement but it does require very very precise interventions as part of that holistic approach thanks so much for joining us out if that's all we've got time for today if you are listening to this on the radio you can also check out our podcast people fixing the wells and it's ideal for listening to us. Next week we've got a report about how companies giving everywhere in the world a new address using just 3 Buy for now that's what's that's my address. Distribution of the b.b.c. World Service in the us is made possible by American Public Media. Public radio. American Public Media. Northern Ireland. And. The. B.b.c. News with Gerry Smit hours after Iraqi government forces captured the Kurdish held all city of Kirkuk and other code a stronghold in northern Iraq has fallen a Izzie the militia backed by the government in Baghdad entered singe are after Kurdish Peshmerga fighters withdrew from the city on Monday night according to residents there was no fighting. Us bad Syrian democratic forces say they've captured Rocker's State Hospital one of the last strongholds of Islamic state in what used to be the group's Syrian capital 22 g. Hardest were reportedly killed the Philippine president did Ted declare the southern city of Iraq we need to be liberated from the hardest fight is a rebel alliance loyal to the Islamic state group held the city for most 5 months fighting killed almost a 1000 people and health official in the eastern Afghan province of patriarch says at least 6 people were killed in an attack on a police base in God days the provincial capital more than 40 others were taken to hospital fighting is continuing a South African parliamentary committee is opening an inquiry today into alleged corruption at the highest levels of government prominent officials are expected to give evidence the billionaire go to family deny claims that they made payments to influence ministerial appointments and gain state contracts. As China's communist leadership prepares to hold his most important gathering for 5 years the Party Congress the state news agency has published scathing criticism of Western democracy that she and her agency described liberal democracy as a divisive and confrontational system swamped by crises and chaos the home of the enemies lawmaker has been sentenced to life in prison the court said that when children t.v. So far was a property developer she sold hundreds of apartments that were never built keeping $16000000.00 in down payments for herself. B.b.c. News. Hello I'm Manuela also welcome to business daily from the b.b.c. Coming up the world's main stock markets keep going up but how long can it last we asked the boss of one of the world's largest investment funds I think the thing that we worry about in the uncertainty of it gets created by some of the headlines could be higher volatility down the road and weaning the world off plastics We'll hear what one of the world's leading consumer goods companies is doing and those who were used to dealing plastic all together the waste from me it's really poured designed things are not designed to be circular they are designed to be tossed in the bin why you're using plastic which is immaterial made to last hundreds of beers and is a single use product that's all in business daily from the b.b.c. . How long can World stock markets continue their astonishing rise London's may share index the Footsie 100 is just a smidgen below its all time high and over in the us the main Dow Joe index closed at a record high on Monday yet again Canada lost over to the B.B.C.'s business correspondent Dominic O'Connell one of the big successes of personal investment in American recent years has been a company called Vanguard which has come not quite from nowhere but certainly from obscurity to be a complete household name it's now this is the largest mutual fund manager in the world and the 2nd largest money manager behind a company called Black Rock Vanguard manages 4.4 trillion dollars So that's roughly and u.k. Turns about 3 times the U.K.'s annual g.d.p. And it's made its money really from being a Pam what's called a passive investor doesn't try and beat the market it just tries to match the market and it's ultra low cost much cheaper than most of the fund managers out there soon administer them in a started it like other people though it's a bit worried about but the full value of the of the u.s. Stock market the Dow Jones Index has. Another record high yesterday so ass's Chief Executive Building read that he thought we were headed for a bit of a bubble in the stock market I don't think we're in bubble territory but we think the valuations are very high and we are quite worried about it companies have done a really good job managing through this period of more anemic growth than we're used to in a recovery but they have squeezed out profits pretty aggressively and you look at margins and so forth and they've been running at very high levels with very low interest rates a stock price is nothing more than discounted earnings back to lower the interest rate the higher that value is going to be so high valuations in a sense make a little bit more sense in a low interest rate environment that said you know we're at levels that we believe are very high from a valuation perspective around the world and the likely performance over let's say the next decade is going to be less than long term historical averages so what do you do then if you are confronted with a market that you think is highly valued do you ask people to put money in cash or anything drastic one of them know because the expected return of equities is still significantly higher than the expected return of fixed interest so you're not expecting a crash another we expect there could be a decent sized correction at some point but we like to think in terms of a long term perspective so let's say over the next 10 years when we look at global equities from the developed world our best estimates would be that you would be $2.00 to $3.00 percentage points below the long term average So let's say the long term average around the globe has been between 9 and 10 percent you could be looking at 6 percent returns in equities over the next decade now again with fixed u.s. Treasuries are trading at 2 percent yield so there's still a premium there still do focus a bit yeah and so the message to investors will be a tough one they would like to see the double digit returns of equities but we think that unlikely and that means people probably have to save a little bit more if they're putting money aside for retirement and they have to be able to withstand volatility while at the same time only enjoying lower than average returns. What about bricks that shape what you do here in the u.k. Obviously no one has a real clear picture yet and we're watching it carefully and on 2 fronts really 3 fronts one is what's the overall economic impact to Europe and to the u.k. That's more a macro concern we have a very large group here working in London 400 people about a quarter of those are non u.k. Citizens so just what's the passport going to be like and one of the work rules going to be so from a tactical standpoint that's probably as big a concern as any and then the 2nd thing that we're looking at is how are local investment products going to be regulated today you can use certain usage based funds for your u.k. Investors that could change and that would require us to create clone funds that would be more local but you know these are all over come up all and so we remain very optimistic about the U.K.'s prospects as a place to do business in the long run has the Trump presidency been good for the u.k. Economy the Trump presidency has in a sense kind of defied conventional wisdom because it seems that there's a negative headline almost every day yet the markets keep reaching new highs which I think just shows the resiliency of both the u.k. Economy as well as our own and frankly that of Europe's as well I think the thing that we worry about is the uncertainty that gets created by some of these headlines could lead to higher volatility down the road we have not seen evidence of that yet the choppiness in the markets really has not come forth the markets just to ignore from the markets today look at a lot of what gets said is you know really just words and they tend to look at what are the actions behind the words I think that's probably a fair assessment that was the chief executive. Of the u.s. On that agenda so I always read him what he says that this is a warning he's making he's sounding a warning note about where stock markets are asked he's making a clear warning and he's not alone. And there are many fund management and investment professionals think the same thing you know when markets go on higher and higher and higher then eventually history tells us there will be a correction and we're in quite an old extended period of highs driven largely by the actions of central banks around the world the pump money into the system which has voted stock markets up no it looks like that and that quantitative easing as it's known as coming to an end and there is a natural feeling that there is going to be a correction of some kind we're getting to the anniversary of the $987.00 Market Crash Black Monday as it's called here in the u.k. Where markets fell by 25 percent roughly I think MacNair probably hopes that it's not going to be a 25 percent correction something a little more gentle than. That was that Dominic O'Connell the B.B.C.'s business correspondent and a reminder that you're listening to business daily from the b.b.c. With me Manuela. Later this month will see the release of the latest Blue Planet 2 b.b.c. Series written and directed by the broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough It is as the title suggests all about the Earth's oceans and in a separate b.b.c. Interview ahead of the series launch So David told they told us about some of the things he's come across while filming looking at the oceans and seeing a mother albatross come back. After having a scar there on them dark to go to feed this chick he's been away for weeks to bring about food and she became the chick begs for food and outcome what. Plastic. Floating on them and brought back and food. And hot grey. Well the new Blue Planet 2 series comes amid growing global calls for cutbacks in these plastic earlier this year Dame Ellen MacArthur The record breaking sailor through her Ellen MacArthur Foundation warned that there will be more waste plastic in the sea than fish by 20 . 50 unless industry cleans up its act so what is industry doing well I spoke to you really that it makes a lot of consumer products shampoos detergent soaps and in less developed markets they sell these products in small single use plastic sachets great for low income consumers but and nightmare for the environment many of the sachets end up in landfill waterways and oceans David Blanchflower is usually the chief research and development officer we do sell a lot of the individual sachets and the benefit of those sachets is that it does allow us to sell our products to consumers without a lot of money to very low price point and they're very weighty efficient in terms of their ability to get product to those consumers at the moment those sachets are not recyclable and so they're the largest part of our portfolio which isn't recyclable and so far just a few months ago we made a commitment 25202025 all of our packaging will be fully recyclable reusable or compostable why not biodegradable well at the moment there's no real technology that allows them to be bio degradable if you look at the sort of the hunter technical hierarchy of sustainable packaging you talk about reducing reuse or do you actually need the packaging in the 1st place if not then can you really use the packaging If not can you recycle the packaging and then finally recover the packaging in some way and when you then talk about biodegradable from a sort of a material then in many ways all of the energy this going into making that material is then lost again it's much better when you look at it to actually find a way to either reuse or recycle or recover the material because that's a very good way to recover the energy that you've put into making those products in the 1st place is it hard to organize that kind of a recovery though for those little sachets Well there are 2 issues the 1st one is. The technical challenge to making a sachet recyclable and we have a project ongoing with a number of suppliers to make the sachet itself recyclable The 2nd thing we're doing with another partner in Indonesia is to allow us to then recover the material involved in a sachet So that's a 2nd project we're working on in order for the materials the packaging to be recycled then also have to be collected and again we're working with a number of N.G.O.s in India on pilot collection schemes the issue today is that many materials are already collectors for recycling in India because there's a value to those recycled materials at the moment sashay waste isn't collected because it can't be recycled and so it's our expectation that as we develop the technology that allows our materials to be recycled or we used then that of course will then naturally get all the people who want to invite to get involved in the collection scheme because there will be then value through that collection scheme and the recycling scheme associated with our packaging materials these are basically experiments that test cases you're testing these things out how do you know if it's going to actually work the 1st one is simply the technical challenge to ensure that the packaging does the job is designed to do which is to protect our products you know make sure that the food doesn't waste to the products can be transported from one place to either that's the 1st technical challenge in many ways that will actually define the scope of our project that's why we send their pilots we know that we can do the recovery work in Indonesia and so that's why we're now moving towards more of a a full scale process and then of course we then have to do the pilot around the collection scheme again to demonstrate that there is economic value in the system there we're set to commit India our view is that there will be put. Would then have to move from pilot scale to full scale which is why we've effectively giving ourselves it seems a long way away but it isn't a 202520 year that all of our packaging can be recycled reuse or compatible in that timeframe cost does play a big factor in all this I mean like you say has to take economic and commercial sense well what we're increasingly finding as we roll out the unity of a sustainable living plan is that there is both a consumer benefit and an economic benefit to make our materials more sustainable you know we started off with a commitment in 2010 to reduce our packaging waste by 50 percent we've now reduced our packaging waste by 28 percent in that time frame and as a consequence of that we've also reduced the cost of our packaging so we're seen that reduce the amount of material in our packaging that of course reduces the weight and reduces the cost of the packaging and so all we're seeing this actually a good way of and should we make our packaging more sustainable and we're getting cost benefits through to our business there will be people who say well why don't you just have distribution points around countries where there is no plastics small sachet packaging where things are just dispensed from containers and people fill containers and reuse those well I think people want to buy products at the time that they want to buy them in the way that they want to buy them and it's our job to ensure that our products are available in the way that people wish to buy them and many people today that is in retail stores or it's on e-commerce or it's online in that case then packaging plays the critical role to ensure that we do protect our products you know we and we transport our products to those points where people want to buy them would you ever be put in a position where you have to choose either you sell something with a packaging that is harmful to the environment and therefore you have to make a choice but to continue selling it or not I think we're positioned where it's our . Law to design products that meet consumer needs all around the world they sure that they collide all of our consumers it's also then our role to ensure that the packaging we design flaws products is also fit for purpose so in many ways I want the. David Blanchflower unit leader well while business and industry look to ways of recycling and reusing plastics some retailers and consumers have taken matters into their own hands and they're avoiding plastics altogether so how would that work how difficult is it. Went to meet a retailer in East London trying to make a difference. Just falls down and control exactly the amount you want and my name is in great Calderon and we are as bulk market along the 0 waste shop people come to your shop without but they're not have any packaging so how do they actually get the product into their shopping bags this idea of this business is reuse what you have and not to consume and like create more resources to do something people can bring in containers like Tupperware jars or the use can use the paper bags that I provide in the shop which don't become possible and feel like a bit of a choice I have spices I have planned I have passed and hygiene products which are really difficult to get plastic free and some d.i.y. Stuff people can make their own lotions the kids get experimental. Cases if we're going to get them and shame. To have champagne and can stand. Offish conditions so how did this all start when I needed to go to so many different places around the to get my shopping done and then I started paying attention to the waste Actually I never paid attention to that because I thought of Torah teas government and companies they were taking care of that but they're not that's really infuriated me and I really wanted to do something so my way of doing something to help the environment was. Setting up the shop and help other people to go 0 waste because I thought was really difficult and shouldn't be this way should be easy at the moment there's there's no packaging for these products but how difficult was it feed to sort of a space with out plastic it's not totally possible to avoid the plastic my supply chain because I am a 0 way shop but my supply is they are not to waste so what I try to do is to shorten the supply chain because this way I can work with local people and they're more willing to step into it and example the coffee are you stall I just get a big box affiliate I go to the grocery and then he fills the box with the profit things I bring back to the shop once it's finished I go back and really feel the box so I don't have any plastic packaging to think people do you think the problem is education I think is education but it's also designed a waste for me it's a really poor design things are not designed to be circular they are designed to be tossed in a bin like why you're using plastic which is a material made to last hundreds of years to use once and toss in the bin so you should be using that again and again that report there by terrorists dollars and this edition of Business Daily there's much more business news online at b.b.c. News dot com but don't touch that dial state you just hear on the b.b.c. World Service. B.b.c. B.b.c. . You're listening to witness on the b.b.c. World Service I'm Vincent Dowd winning the book a prize for fiction is a massive achievement for any author j.g. Farrel did so twice in 1979 spiral drowned while fishing in a remote part of south west island where he'd gone to live the books of his people love the historical novels always with a strain of comedy looking at the decline of the British Empire in India in the Far East and in Ireland. Even for rural Ireland the sheep's head Peninsula is remote country day maybe glinting now in sunlight but the waters here are broad and deep and cold in August 1979 in a strange accident never totally explained they took the life of one of the best writers of his time. It was the early afternoon of July the 1st 919 and the Major was comfortably seated in a train travelling south from Kingstown along the coast of Wicklow As a matter of fact it is the major was saying to his fellow passengers though I'm sure it won't be my last I'm going to be mad to have an Irish go sure they smiled back at him and God bless now and a long life and a happy one j.g. Ferals troubles appeared in 1970 but it was 650 years earlier in the period just after the Irish War of Independence it's sad dramatic and often very funny critics loved it it turned out Jim Pharrell had less than a decade to live he'd been born in Liverpool in 1935 and educated at public school in Lancashire his biographer live in a Greece and says at that point he would have. He had a rather conventional young man he had what would be cool to Sarah to middle class upbringing he came from a background with a mixture of Irish entrance and English influence and in fact the Irish influence truth very strong because his mother was a great storyteller and mimic on the outside if you met him really just thought he was a very big burly schoolboy he was on all the 1st teams mainly rabbit which he had toward He went to Oxford and he was very conventional in his 1st term at Oxford University he became a member of the elite Vincents sports club he later told his friend the writer Hilary Spurling about the day he was struck down by polio he was in the changing rooms after a match and it felt funny is our friend of his rather pretty and he said oh well why don't then I don't bother to come around to the pub so he remembered getting on the bus and that was the last thing he did remember that he woke up at hospital in the iron lung so he went into the lung a large hearty rugger playing member of Benson's and he came round and Whitehead novelist Carroll much weakened by polio eventually left university and went abroad to work and write to France and to New York the 1st novels sold badly but with troubles Suddenly he found his subject the collapse around the world of British power troubles and the siege of Krishna poor set in India and then the Singapore grip for the Empire trilogy there more mischievous than you might expect this was sterile speaking to the b.b.c. In 1975 what I like it is who. You know. You're bringing him into I think you are. Thinking right. And then when they take out the prob and I'm really. Hoping that. The 3 empire novels aunt linked in any plot sense but Lavinia Greason says the. Strongly linked by Seem and in their feel they're about people caught up at moments of abrupt change during the unraveling of British power what do you think was the peak of ferals writing career publicly of course it must be the warts of the book a price procedure question poor in 1973 but privately he was never satisfied he could never allow himself to enjoy the moment his books share a melancholy sense that life is fleeting and happiness a sham in troubles major Brendan Archer who hoped to find a wife in Ireland is in fact kidnapped by Irish Republicans who plan to drown him the Major was left lying on the ground for a few moments while his wrists were tied behind his back a pool of blood was left in the place where he'd lain all the way down the steps from one terrace to the next blood continue to splash every few paces then the Major's limp body was conveyed on to the rocks the financial success of the siege of Krishna poor allowed him to buy a house in the quiet Irish countryside of West Cork So in May 979 Jim feral left London for good with its parties and romantic entanglements Lavinia Greason has tried to trace his love life he seems to avoid very deep very long term emotional entanglements that truth yes I don't think he wanted anybody else obscuring his own perceptions he did heartedly propose to 2 women but in contemporary words he never committed he was determined to write. His new neighbor on the sheep's head peninsular who was a young dairy farmer called Gerry Daly if anybody knew calmed down by the property if we stop and say hello and he rather I stopped once walked to matters. Before Stamer and we're talking him rather nice gentle man he was I know you did talk to him about fishing he said he couldn't. Chani fish don't hear your trade on the cut no thing so I just said to him by the way where are you fishing after and he said Don't after slip where and I said you never got a chance there on the kitchen sink so I said I'd take them all for the other side of the slip where to catch Pollock mackerel are Russ I'm back here to cut tree and he loved it he said it was nothing more than jiving them to come down and catch a fish and got back on corporate farms and. Then on the afternoon of course the 11th $979.00 Tyrell took a break from writing at home to fish a few minutes from his door is a low rock at the water's edge near a slipway Pauline Foley had a house near by she knew of Jim Carroll but she'd never met him she recalls taking a walk that afternoon with her young children by chance she says they spotted the writer fishing from the rock j.g. Was up he wasn't up very high we could see that he got boots on and always telling them he mustn't go near the sea but I tend to Sarah and quick make quick money in the water and so I say that hold the baby and I will go down and that put them into hysterics changed his tone to it and he don't and we could see him in the water just his head could only see his head I think and I say I'm just going to go down to see if I can reach to him it's all went down and they wouldn't have it they said no no no now we're coming in as well if you got in but you'll fall in and we call to take off the boats push off the boats he didn't even attempt to take the boots off he just continued to look at the boys he was quite close to me it was only within about 8 feet it has been suggested that if you banged his head or whatever he may not even have been fully conscious I am absolutely certain he was fully conscious he looked up at the police he looked round at me and I caught him can you not take a peep. And he shook his head no and I said try and come towards me so I can reach because he was staying still he wasn't moving his arms he wasn't moving anything other than that his head was completely above the water and he looked at me to enter around and he looked at the children and then he turned around to me again and he just went underwater. Days later the body was found on the other side of the bay when Jim ferals death became known in London there was speculation he'd been murdered by the ira or had taken his own life the inquest decided the death was an accident in 2010 troubles was retrospectively voted the Last Man Booker for $970.00 there's been a gap in the award that year and j.g. Farrel today is one of only 4 Double winners of the book a price. Distribution of the b.b.c. World Service in the United States is made possible by American Public Media producer and distributor of award winning public radio content engaging audiences creating meaningful experiences and fostering conversation proud to deliver the highest quality and most respected global news from the b.b.c. World Service because global times call for global perspectives a.p.m. American Public Media. The b.b.c. News service on k s k Anchorage is made possible by your support become a sustaining member of Alaska public media online by going to Alaska public dot org Thank you for listening to f.m. 91 point one k s k Anchorage. Good morning Ari there were the public's lights then there was lunch then the president and Senate majority leader held a press conference to say they are closer than they've ever been this enough to heal the rift in the Republican Party It's Morning Edition from n.p.r. News.