Jules Dufour, a Jewish banker in Paris, devised a complex scheme (involving his son Armand) to save the family and the family bank from liquidation when Germany invaded France in 1940. The scheme worked, but it needed the co-operation of Sheikh Ghassan, the Amir (ruler) of Abdali Umm-Qasr, an oil-rich French dependency. Ghassan had reason to believe that, at the end of the war, his country would gain its independence and control the oilfield. However, under pressure from the USA, this only happened years later, in a deal negotiated by Jules in 1945. Sheikh Khalil, Amir from 1965, saw the deal as a betrayal by Jules. In 2010, as a very old man, he wants revenge - which he delegates to his nephew Omar, head of the government's IT procurement agency. Khalil induces Armand, head of the bank from 1955, to open a subsidiary in Abdali Umm-Qasr, managed by Frederick Chapman from the bank's Vienna office. Omar has a secret hold over Frederick's wife Laura and can use her, if necessary, to put pressure on the bank. Omar approaches Frederick for a huge IT loan, which is granted without involving Laura. However, he has planted a flaw in the loan, so that it will not be repaid and will destroy the bank. He has diverted part of the loan to his girlfriend Trudi's business in Vienna, where she is one of Frederick's customers. Learning of a connection between Omar,Trudi and Laura, Frederick asks his wife about this. She alerts him to Omar's designs, and he discovers the booby trap in the loan - but with the bank's reputation and Laura's liberty at stake there is no way out. Armand, long retired, appeals to Khalil directly. Khalil won't listen, but has a change of heart when Armand tells him that Laura (Khalil's distant relative!) is being exploited by Omar. Khalil wanted to damage the bank, not destroy it, and says that Omar has acted disgracefully. He defuses the plot, and the bank survives. Frederick deals with Trudi, and is revealed as Armand's grandson - and the next head of the bank.

With this book, the author offers a personal look at some of the landmark policies, people, and institutions that have shaped Africa's post-independence history - and will continue to shape its future. It is a true inside account - told from a very personal perspective - of the evolution of African development over the last five decades.

This open access book presents the scientific views of some fifty experts on how they believe the COVID-19 pandemic is currently affecting society, and how it will continue to do so in the years to come. Using the concept of a “common” (in the sense of common values, common places, common goods, and common sense), they elaborate on the transition from an Old Common to a New Common. In carefully crafted chapters, the authors address expected shifts in major fields like health, education, finance, business, work, and citizenship, applying concepts from law, psychology, economics, sociology, religious studies, and computer science to do so. Many of the authors anticipate an acceleration of the digital transformation in the forthcoming years, but at the same time, they argue that a successful shift to a new common can only be achieved by re-evaluating life on our planet, strengthening resilience at an individual level, and assuming more responsibility at a societal level.

Tom Harlan brings his Oath of Empire series to a shattering conclusion in The Dark Lord. In what would be the 7th Century AD in our history, the Roman Empire still stands, supported by the twin pillars of the Legions and Thaumaturges of Rome. The Emperor of the West, the Augustus Galen Atreus, came to the aid of the Emperor of the East, the Avtokrator Heraclius, in his war with the Sassanad Emperor of Persia. But despite early victories, that war has not gone well, and now Rome is hard-pressed. Constantinople has fallen before the dark sorceries of the Lord Dahak and his legions of the living and dead. Now the new Emperor of Persia marches on Egypt, and if he takes that ancient nation, Rome will be starved and defeated. But there is a faint glimmer of hope. The Emperor Galen's brother Maxian is a great sorcerer, perhaps the equal of Dahak, lord of the seven serpents. He is now firmly allied with his Imperial brother and Rome. And though they are caught tight in the Dark Lord's net of sorcery, Queen Zoe of Palmyra and Lord Mohammed have not relinquished their souls to evil. Powerful, complex, engrossing --Thomas Harlan's Oath of Empire series has taken fantasy readers by storm. The first three volumes, The Shadow of Ararat, The Gate of Fire, and The Storm of Heaven have been universally praised. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Scaling Impact introduces a new and practical approach to scaling the positive impacts of research and innovation. Inspired by leading scientific and entrepreneurial innovators from across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Middle East, this book presents a synthesis of unrivalled diversity and grounded ingenuity. The result is a different perspective on how to achieve impact that matters, and an important challenge to the predominant more-is-better paradigm of scaling. For organisations and individuals working to change the world for the better, scaling impact is a common goal and a well-founded aim. The world is changing rapidly, and seemingly intractable problems like environmental degradation or accelerating inequality press us to do better for each other and our environment as a global community. Challenges like these appear to demand a significant scale of action, and here the authors argue that a more creative and critical approach to scaling is both possible and essential. To encourage uptake and co-development, the authors present actionable principles that can help organisations and innovators design, manage, and evaluate scaling strategies. Scaling Impact is essential reading for development and innovation practitioners and professionals, but also for researchers, students, evaluators, and policymakers with a desire to spark meaningful change.

Privacy law isn't working. Waldman's groundbreaking work explains why, showing how tech companies manipulate us, our behavior, and our law.

Most organisms and populations have to cope with hostile environments, threatening their existence. Their ability to respond phenotypically and genetically to these challenges and to evolve adaptive mechanisms is, therefore, crucial. The contributions to this book aim at understanding, from a evolutionary perspective, the impact of stress on biological systems. Scientists, applying different approaches spanning from the molecular and the protein level to individuals, populations and ecosystems, explore how organisms adapt to extreme environments, how stress changes genetic structure and affects life histories, how organisms cope with thermal stress through acclimation, and how environmental and genetic stress induce fluctuating asymmetry, shape selection pressure and cause extinction of populations. Finally, it discusses the role of stress in evolutionary change, from stress induced mutations and selection to speciation and evolution at the geological time scale. The book contains reviews and novel scientific results on the subject. It will be of interest to both researchers and graduate students and may serve as a text for graduate courses.