Perodua alza sales promotion

An estimated 369.65 million disposable cups were used to serve drinks by nine major coffee chains in Japan in 2020 alone, highlighting limited progress in promoting reusable cups and cutting waste, according to a recent survey by an environmental conservation group.

Greenpeace Japan said the annual waste translates into 1 million single-use plastic and paper cups a day, which, if stacked on top of each other, are “equivalent to the height of more than 10,000 Mt. Fujis,” reaching an altitude of over 37,000 kilometers.

The group surveyed Starbucks, Tully’s Coffee, Pronto, Doutor, Caffe Veloce, Excelsior Caffe, Ueshima Coffee House, Cafe de Crie and Komeda, sending questionnaires, observing their shops and analyzing sales data and other records.

Starbucks is estimated to have consumed the largest number of disposal cups, totaling around 231.7 million, of which some 142.1 million were plastic cups. It was followed by Tully’s Coffee at 72.5 million cups and Pronto at 35.3 million cups.

These three chains mostly serve beverages in disposal cups even for customers drinking them at the chains’ shops, increasing their dependence on disposables as a result, according to Greenpeace.

The three chains serve 3 percent, 20 percent and 31 percent, respectively, of their beverages in reusable cups, it said. Nagoya-based Komeda served nearly all of its drinks in reusable cups, according to the survey.

A public relations official at Starbucks Coffee Japan told Kyodo News the Seattle-headquartered coffee chain has set a global target of halving waste by 2030 compared with 2019.

As part of that effort, its Japanese branch has started serving cold drinks in glasses at 106 of its shops since April, while offering takeaway drinks in rental reusable cups on a trial basis, according to the official.

The report said about 91,000 single-use disposable cups are thrown away every hour in the Japanese cafe sector alone.

“With most of them being incinerated, or, in the worst case, improperly disposed into the environment, combined action from the cafe sector and the government is urgently needed to end the flood of single-use cups and transition towards a system based on the mantra of ‘reduce, reuse, and refill,'” it added.

Tomohiro Tasaki, the head of the National Institute for Environmental Studies’ research on resource circulation and waste management, said one of the steps the coffee chains can immediately take to cut plastic waste is apparently switching to reusable cups for dine-in service.

“They should be able to promote the shift to reusable cups reasonably smoothly by introducing a new sales system such as charging for disposable cups and giving discounts to customers using reusable ones,” he said.

By Melissa Mahtani , CNN

This story is part of As Equals , CNN’s ongoing series on gender inequality. For information about how the series is funded and more, check out our FAQs .

(CNN) “The Taliban cannot erase us, they can’t. This is not like the 1990s or before — they have to accept [women]. They have no other choice,” former Afghan politician and women’s rights activist Zarifa Ghafari tells CNN defiantly.

In 2018, at the tender age of 24 (though she admits she pretended to be two years older in order to qualify) Ghafari was appointed as one of just a few female mayors in Afghanistan. She then had to fight for months to be allowed to actually take up the position following protests from locals in the conservative city of Maidan Shahr.

Ghafari was finally able to start work in November 2019, almost a year after her appointment, but soon, as she tells CNN, she would endure constant harassment, intimidation and regular protests: crowds of angry men demonstrating outside her office, holding sticks and throwing stones.

She recalls walking into her office and everyone else walking out, as well as occasions when she would arrive at her office to a locked door, having to break the lock just to get in.

But the young Afghan official kept showing up and served as mayor for two and a half years.

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“The more they ignored me, the more I got stronger; the more they rejected me, the more I got stronger; the more I saw how [they ridiculed] me for my gender, the more I got stronger,” she says.

“I was like: ‘I’m going to show you people, because whatever I have inside my head, it’s equally like you'”.

And Ghafari would succeed in changing some people’s attitudes. She says one of her fiercest critics told her years later that she had proved him wrong when he had told her she was nothing more than a little girl.

“I was able to show the power and the ability of women and to prove that we can do anything. I showed people that it doesn’t matter how many more times I get attacked, I will be still here because I think what I am doing is right,” she says.

But this was all before America withdrew its troops from Afghanistan last year and before the Taliban took control of the country. Initially, Ghafari had wanted to stay, but the situation on the ground got increasingly worse, she says. Her father was murdered in 2020 and she believed her own life was also at risk.

The last straw came in the summer of 2021 after she says armed men came to her home searching for her and brutally beat up her security guard. She had already survived multiple assassination attempts by the Taliban and knew leaving Afghanistan was the only way she could keep the rest of her family safe, so she fled in August 2021 making it out of the country by hiding in the footwell of a car.

“I believe that we must build, rather than sever, the bridge between the people of Afghanistan and the world.”

Zarifa Ghafari

Now living in Germany, Ghafari continues to raise her voice for the people of her homeland and uses her radio channel and humanitarian foundation — the Assistance and Promotion of Afghan Women organization — to advocate for women’s rights.

“I am under no illusions about the Taliban, but I am also aware that they will now be in power in Afghanistan for some years to come. The media has mostly focused on the Taliban, and how they will govern, but I am interested in the people and I believe that we must build, rather than sever, the bridge between the people of Afghanistan and the world,” she says.

In February, Ghafari went back to Kabul for the first time and says she was horrified to see how quickly conditions had deteriorated there and in nearby provinces.

“We have always had shocking poverty in Afghanistan, but now, even those who were middle class are struggling to survive. State employees have not received their salaries for months. As I drove around Kabul, I saw people standing by the side of the road and selling their household possessions,” she says.

The month before, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted the “scale of the despair” as the UN launched its largest-ever humanitarian appeal for a single country, warning that “virtually every man, woman and child in Afghanistan could face acute poverty.”

Ghafari says her heart broke further when the Taliban went back on their much-anticipated promise to let girls above 6th grade return to school in March . In response, her organization is building a center in Kabul to provide basic tailoring, handcraft and secondary education classes to women as well as maternity care and general healthcare services.

She hopes to expand to other parts of the country in the coming months.

But Ghafari knows that her efforts alone are not enough. This week, as she accepted the Geneva summit for Human Right and Democracy’s 2022 International Women’s Rights Award , she urged the world to do something.

“Risking your life for something that you believe in is worth it.” @Zarifa_Ghafari talks to CNN’s @melissamahtani after receiving the 2022 Women’s Rights Award. https://t.co/JFXN8B9ZXb pic.twitter.com/6CDphTN9ca

— The Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy (@GenevaSummit) April 6, 2022

“I urge you to do everything you can to take our people out of this predicament, and to raise your voices in support of humanity. The solution is not for all just sitting and sending statements. We need action at least after seven months of darkness for men and women of my country,” she said in her acceptance speech at the UN.

“My country has been at war for 40 years. Achieving peace in a country that has been at war for decades is never easy. It often involves making distasteful choices and speaking with people you find abhorrent. And yet there is no other way. That is how peace was achieved in Northern Ireland and in Yugoslavia, and I believe it is the only way it can be achieved in Afghanistan,” she continued.

In addition to prioritizing human rights and women’s rights in any international talks with the Taliban, she asked world leaders to not close their doors to Afghans seeking safe shelter. Referencing the welcome many European countries are offering those fleeing war in Ukraine, Ghafari added: “Our blood is not different by colour from Ukrainians”.

Story of the week

Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, during an election campaign event in Paris, France, on Saturday, April 2, 2022. (Photo by Benjamin Girette/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

From femicide to Islamophobia and pay inequality, feminists are calling on the next French president to invest in structural reforms that will benefit all women.

What’s at stake for women in the French election

Women Behaving Badly: Rokhaya Diallo

French journalist, author, filmmaker, and activist for racial, gender and religious equality Rokhaya Diallo poses during a photo session in Paris on April 28, 2021. (Photo by Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images)

Written by Adie Vanessa Offiong

While France proclaims its blindness to race, Rokhaya Diallo (1978), ensures the glaring existence of racial inequalities are known. She founded Les Indivisibles in 2007, an anti-racism organization which uses humour and irony to counter racial discriminations.

The French journalist, writer and activist is a driving force for minority rights, and racial, gender and religious equality.

Born to Muslim Senegalese and Gambian parents , Diallo grew up in La Courneuve, a diverse French suburb, where her color was never questioned. She got involved in local politics, presiding over La Courneuve’s Youth Council, and became actively involved with the anti-sexist organization, Mix-Cité.

The ‘where are you really from? question began when she started working in Paris, which was the moment Diallo realised that people perceived her differently.

Today, Diallo promotes equality and pluralism – a political philosophy that recognises diversity – through advocacy campaigns that promote racial and gender justice.

She queries the roles given to black actors on French screens in her 2020 documentary, Acting while Black: Blackness on French Screens and her book, Don’t mansplain me! (2020), reveals how male patterns make women invisible in society. She has also authored Racism: The Guide (2011) and France Belongs to Us (2012).

Diallo was ranked among the 28 most powerful people in Europe in 2021 and is also listed on the British Powerful Media list among the top 30 Black personalities in Europe. Her antiracism fight, earned her the Struggle against Racism and Discrimination award in 2012.

Diallo has degrees in law, and audio-visual marketing and sales and is currently a Researcher in Residence at Georgetown University Gender+ Justice Initiative program.

Other stories worth your time

Khrystyna Pavluchenko & newborn daughter Adelina Pavluchenko (Photo by Kyung Lah/CNN)

• Ukrainian women escaped to give birth in a country free of war – CNN
• Iranian women denounce violence in film industry – Aljazeera
• The women sharing their memories of Ukraine before the war – BBC
• Balaclava fashion trend is ‘threatening to women’ – Guardian
• Women’s safety endangered by gender-based violence in Somaliland due to one of its worst droughts – Independent

“For too many centuries women have been being muses to artists. I wanted to be the muse, I wanted to be the wife of the artist, but I was really trying to avoid the final issue: that I had to do the job myself.”

Anaïs Nin, French-American diarist, essayist, novelist

Colombian singer Maluma is lending his star power to make a new cristalino mezcal shine a little brighter.

Maluma, born Juan Luis Londoño Arias, first tried mezcal about seven years ago, soon after his 21 ^st birthday, when a fan came up to him in a Mexico City airport and told him that she knows as a Colombian he drinks aguardiente —a spirit flavored with anise that translates to “firewater” — but she thought he’d like mezcal more.

“She told me you’re already 21 so you can drink, and I laughed because in Colombia it’s 18 years old,” Maluma recalled. “For me, aguardiente was a bit too strong, and I didn’t find the pleasure in it that I was looking for in alcohol. Mezcal felt more spiritual. I felt a little trip when I had the mezcal. I felt like I was connecting myself with the universe and having a more spiritual experience with alcohol. I was not drinking to get drunk, I was drinking to have an amazing time.”

Years later, Maluma’s father asked him to meet with representatives from Casa Lumbre , the parent company behind brands like Montelobos mezcal and Ancho Reyes ancho chile liquor, to try some of their products. Maluma fell in love with a cristalino mezcal, a smoky spirit made from Espadín agave, which is then aged for six months in former American whiskey barrels — about the length of time it would take to make a reposado mezcal. What sets it apart is the aged spirit is then charcoal filtered, which removes color and softens the oak influence so more of the agave shines through. The resulting liquid has notes of vanilla and honey and is lightly smoky.

Maluma then went down to Oaxaca to visit agave fields and palenques, and learn how mezcal was made.

“It was very magical how they put the agave under the ground and how they got the smoky flavors form that,” Maluma said of the process of burying agave in the ground to cook it. “Everyone works there with such passion, and that’s beautiful to me.”

The singer knows that a Colombia guy promoting a Mexican product might raise some eyebrows.

“In Colombia, people are so in love with aguardiente, and as a Colombia guy, taking mezcal to Colombia seems a little weird,” Maluma said. “But I just tell them to try it, don’t be skeptical to it, if you want to go back and keep drinking what they were before, like tequila or aguardiente, that’s fine, but just give it a chance. But once they try it, they don’t want to come back. It’s like music, when you have a good song, just listen to it once, an if you like it, just play it one more time.”

Contraluz has been for sale in Mexico since 2016, and made its American debut at $60 a bottle about a month ago in nine states with plans for expansion. Maluma said it will launch in Colombia in the coming months and hopes to take the product worldwide. He’s serving as part of the creative team, having input on product design, event activations and promotional campaigns.

His favorite way to drink it?

“With Contraluz, it’s kind of dangerous because you can drink it at anytime. Last night I came to the hotel and I was so tired, and I thought I don’t’ want to drink. But I saw that bottle looking at me and it was like, ‘Yo, this is good for you. Have one glass and you can go to bed,’” he said laughing. “Every occasion and aspect you can drink it.”

But if he had to choose, it would be on ice with a bit of lime.

“That way you can sip it and keep talking with your friends. It’s very social. When I say it’s magical, it’s because once you start drinking can, you can talk in any language, you can talk with everybody, it makes you feel more natural,” he said. “This project is going to be massive and worldwide. I’m very proud of it.”

‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ will be out in cinemas on August 11. (Image credit: Screengrab from video posted on Instagram by Aamir Khan Productions)

After the huge disappointment of Shamshera last week, there is some semblance of recovery at the box office: Ek Villain Returns , a suspense thriller starring John Abraham, Arjun Kapoor, Disha Patani and Tara Sutaria, has done a fair amount of business in Week 1.

To be sure, it was expected that the film would do even better business than it did – considering it had a good opening weekend. But collections slowed down over the weekdays. Thankfully, the second Friday has held well too, and the film’s earnings now stand at Rs 34.50 crore.

So far, 2022 has not been a great year for the majority of Bollywood films. The last Hindi film that managed to do good business was JugJugg Jeeyo which brought in Rs 85 crore. Now, analysts say, Ek Villain Returns should go more than half of that. In fact, if things go its way in the holiday season ahead and a few shows are reserved for it, then lifetime earnings of Rs 45-48 crore are on the cards.

Meanwhile, Shamshera has proven to be a colossal disaster at the box office. The Ranbir Kapoor starrer could bring in just a little over a couple of crores in the entire second week, which is almost a 95 percent decline compared to its first week. Really, no one could have ever imagined that something like this could happen to a big-ticket film by YRF. The film’s earnings currently stand at Rs 43 crore, and it looks like it may eventually end up doing less business than Ek Villain Returns .

As for Thor: Love and Thunder , it has crossed Rs 100 crore in ticket sales in India, and kept the count up for the 100 Crore Club successes of 2022. It has taken a couple of extra weeks to reach here since it had slowed down a lot after a terrific opening weekend. However, the fact that it has still managed to reach this landmark is testimony to the fact that Marvel fans would make even a bad film some sort of a success. One wonders, though, whether they would tolerate the next superhero instalment in the same way at theatres if it’s a poor profit like this since loyalty too dries up after a while. Still, at least for the exhibitors, the movie did its job in keeping the lights on at theatres.

Lights are expected to glitter, though, in the week to come as big-ticket releases Rakshabandhan and Laal Singh Chaddha arrive. Both have been supported by terrific marketing and promotional campaigns. While Akshay Kumar is leading the charge for Rakshabandhan , which tells a simple story to the family audiences, Aamir Khan is returning to the big screen after years and aims to tell a classic for a wide segment of audiences. There is a lot of noise from disruptive elements, especially around Laal Singh Chaddha , though it is irrelevant and inconsequential since it’s nothing but chatter on social media.

Eventually both films will speak a language of their own and if the end product is good (which is indeed expected), then it would be Bollywood that will emerge victorious. Since the films are arriving on the partial holiday of Rakshabandhan on Thursday, August 11, a combined total of Rs 30 crore is on the cards for the first day in theatres, which should be good enough to get the box office back in action.