The Weekly Briefing - 8 June

Headlines

BBC News

Websites begin to work again after major breakage

A major outage has affected a number of major websites including Amazon, Reddit and Twitch. The UK government website - gov.uk - was also down as were the Financial Times, the Guardian and the New York Times. Cloud computing provider Fastly, which underpins a lot of major websites, said it was behind the problems. Read

The Guardian

Stop Brexit ‘blame game’, Northern Ireland business leaders tell UK and EU

Northern Irish businesses have called on UK and EU leaders to stop the Brexit “blame game” and deliver urgent solutions to end growing tensions over the checks on food and goods crossing the Irish Sea into the region. Their plea comes as a US political committee involving five former US ambassadors says Joe Biden should appoint a special presidential envoy to Northern Ireland amid concern that the Good Friday agreement is being “wilfully boycotted in protest over the protocol”. Read

The Independent

No place for new fossil fuels if world is to reach net zero by 2050, says landmark report

An immediate end to new fossil fuel development is one of 400 radical steps proposed in the International Energy Agency’s Net Zero Roadmap – a first-of-its kind blueprint for how the global energy sector can effectively end its contribution to the climate crisis by the middle of the century. Read

The Fashion Roundtable Focus

Vogue Business

Paris Fashion Week’s new plan to measure environmental impact

The French fashion governing body will launch two new tools in September to measure the impact of Paris Fashion Week’s shows and collections. Will it be a game changer? Read

The Guardian

A movement, not a moment: Indigenous design in the spotlight at Australian Fashion Week

On Wednesday 2 June, the designer and creative director of First Nations Fashion and Design, along with her CEO and fellow designer Teagan Cowlishaw, made history with the first runway show featuring only First Nations talent: on the catwalk, making the clothes, and behind the scenes. First Nations Fashion and Design is a not-for-profit Indigenous corporation aimed at supporting the growth of the Indigenous fashion industry, with self-determination at the heart of their mission. Read

Retail Gazette

Retail sales grow at strongest rate in May

Retail sales have grown at the strongest rate in May since the Covid-19 pandemic struck the UK last year. Total sales increased 10 per cent in May compared with the same month in 2019, according to the BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor. That outstripped the 7.3 per cent gains made in April on a two-year basis and the 8.3 per cent growth recorded in March. Meanwhile, online sales were a major factor in the surging sales figures with non-food ecommerce sales climbing 39.1 per cent on May 2019 levels. Read