Robert Bordone is a negotiation, mediation, and conflict resolution expert who founded Harvard Law Schools Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program as well as the Cambridge Negotiation Institute. He was a professor at Harvard for many years and is currently a senior fellow at Harvard Law School.
Dr. Joel Salinas is a behavioral neurologist and scientist. He was formerly a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a clinical associate professor of neurology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He was the founded and was chief medical officer at Isaac Health.
Whats the big idea?
Instead of seeing conflict as a battle to win or a mess to avoid, disagreement can be navigated in a way that creates connection and positive outcomeson both a business financial level and a relational one. There is value to emerging from our cocoons of comfort in search of the benefits that honest, direct, and courageous engagement with conflict can bring. Conflict Resilience provides usable and scientifically validated strategies to negotiate disagreements with greater confidence and clarity. Whether its in your workplace, family, or community, learning to sit with and grow from conflict can create value in every aspect of your life.
Below, coauthors Bordone and Salinas share five key insights from their new book, Conflict Resilience: Negotiating Disagreement Without Giving Up or Giving In. Listen to the audio versionread by both authorsin the Next Big Idea app.
1. Your brain treats conflict like a physical threat.
When faced with conflict, the brain reacts as if were under physical attack. The same neural circuits that process physical pain are involved when we experience social rejection or disagreement. This can trigger our fight-flight-freeze-fawn-fester responses, making us either overly aggressive, avoidant, or stuck in rumination.
From a Darwinian perspective, these five responses could have a lot of value when under attack with an existential threat. But in the context of modern day-to-day relationships with family, friends, or colleagues, these brain responses can backfire. The brains automatic effort to protect us from discomfort in the moment prevents us from responding in ways that better serve our longer-term interests.
The key to conflict resilience is recognizing these automatic reactions, being able to pause and assess whether the in-the-moment threat is real or just discomfort, and then being able to deploy strategies to sit with the discomfort because of what we call the Bigger Better Offer on the other side of conflict.
2. Conflict avoidance makes things worse.
When we avoid the discomfort of disagreement by walking away, canceling plans, or changing the topic, we often just amplify the problem over time. Its understandable why you might shy away from tough conversations with your cousin about conflicting political views. You value the relationship and wish to prevent the disagreement from causing harm. While this strategy may help us navigate Thanksgiving dinner, in the long run, avoidance leaves us feeling less connected to that cousin.
Prolonged avoidance makes us feel that we dont even know each other. Spending time with them feels painful and fake. Eventually, the connection fades. The instinct to avoid for the sake of preserving a relationship ends up being the long-term kill.
Our society is set up to aid and abet the avoidance tendencysocial media, demographic changes, trigger warnings, cancel cultureall make it super easy to avoid and just hang out with those who think like us. As we see in our polarized world, this path dehumanizes and distances.
Just like avoiding exercise weakens muscles, avoiding difficult conversations weakens our ability to navigate disagreements. By learning to name whats happeningour emotions, triggers, and fearswe can take control instead of letting conflict control us.
3. Curiosity is your best conflict tool.
We tend to enter conflict assuming we already know the other persons perspective. But true conflict resilience comes from curiosity. Instead of debating or defending, try exploring: Ask open-ended questions, listen deeply, and seek to understand before being understood. When people feel heard, difficult conversations become more productive.
Its easy to say be curious, but its hard to do when we feel like we really do know what the other side thinks. Psychological biases tend to make us certain about how those we disagree with think, even when the truth is that we are often missing a lot of important information that can unlock the door to how they think, what matters to them, how to persuade them, and how better to connect with them. In our book, we share real-life examples of how cultivating curiosity led to breakthroughs in relationships, negotiations, and deal-making.
As we explore the deeper perspectives of those with whom we disagree, the possibilities for connection grow, even if we still dont see eye-to-eye.
4. Discomfort is not damaging.
One of the biggest myths about conflict is that its inherently bad or destructive. In our professional work, we are constantly frustrated when people talk about eliminating or reducing conflict. Healthy conflict is a sign that folks feel free enough to be themselves and that there is enough diversity in the room to make life interesting and vibrant.
Disagreement itself doesnt have to lead to division. Tension can lead to growthboth personally and in relationships. We talk about how to stay in conflict to achieve the Bigger Better Offer.
We also offer evidence-based tools to help you decide when to commit to stay engaged and when to draw the line between discomfort for growth and submitting yourself to ongoing harm or trauma. Its a hard line to draw, but an important one.
5. Resilience is a skill you can build.
Conflict resilience isnt something were naturally good at. Each of us may be more or less conflict-resilient because of our upbringing, personality, and disposition. But whether you think you are super conflict-resilient or completely avoidant, you can get better with practice.
Through small, daily actionslike pausing before reacting, naming your emotions, and shifting from defensiveness to curiosityyou can transform conflict from a source of stress into an opportunity for connection and change. The more you practice, the more youll see improved relationships, connections, and outcomes. And the more you practice, the easier it becomes.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Venice is charging day-trippers to the famed canal city an arrivals tax for the second year starting Friday, a measure aimed at combating the kind of overtourism that put the city’s UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status at risk.
A UNESCO body decided against putting Venice on its list of cultural heritage sites deemed in danger after the tax was announced. But opponents of the day-tripper fee say it has done nothing to discourage tourists from visiting Venice even on high-traffic days.
Heres a look at Venices battle with overtourism by the numbers:
510 euros (about $6$11)
The fee charged to visitors who are not overnighting in Venice to enter its historic center during the second year of the day-tripper tax. Visitors who download a QR code at least three days in advance will pay 5 euros ($5.69)the same amount charged last year throughout the pilot program. But those who make last-minute plans pay double. The QR code is required from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. and is checked at entry points to the city, including the Santa Lucia train station, the Piazzale Roma bus depot and the Tronchetto parking garage.
54
The number of days this year that day visitors to Venice will be charged a fee to enter the historic center. They include mostly weekends and holidays from April 18 to July 27. That is up from 29 last year. The new calendar covers entire weeks over key holidays and extends the weekend period to include Fridays.
2.4 million euros
That is the amount Venice took in during a 2024 pilot program for the tax. The city’s top budget official, Michele Zuin, said last year the running costs for the new system ran to 2.7 million euros, overshooting the total fees collected. This year, Zuin projects a surplus of about 1 million euros to 1.5 million euros, which will be used to offset the cost of trash collection and other services for residents.
450,000
The number of day-trippers who paid the tax in 2024. Officials say 8,000 day-trippers paid in advance to enter the city on Friday, among the 77,000 who have already registered so far to enter the city this year. Another 117,000 have registered for exemptions, which apply to anyone born in Venice, those paying property taxes in the city, studying or working in the historic center, or living in the wider Veneto region, among others.
75,000
The average number of daily visitors on the first 11 days of 2024 that Venice charged day-trippers. That’s about 10,000 people more than the number of tourists recorded on each of the three important holidays during the previous year. City council member Giovanni Andrea Martini, an opponent of the measure, said the figures show the project has not deterred visitors.
48,283
The number of official residents in Venices historic center composed of over 100 islands connected by footbridges and traversed by its famed canals. The population peaked at 174,000 in 1951, when Venice was home to thriving industries. The number shrank during Italy’s postwar economic boom as residents moved to the mainland for more modern housingincluding indoor plumbing, which was lacking in Venice. It has been shrinking dramatically over recent decades as local industry lost traction, families sought mainland conveniences, and housing prices rose. Activists also blame the mono-culture of tourism, which they say has emptied the city of basic services like shops for everyday goods and medical care.
51,129
The number of beds for tourists in Venices historic center, including 12,627 in the less regulated short-term rental market, according to April data from the Ocio housing activist group. The number of tourist beds surpassed the number of permanent residents in 2023, according to Ocio’s monitor. Anyone staying in a hotel within the city limits, including on the mainland districts of Mestre and Marghera, pays a lodging tax and is therefore exempt from the day-tripper tax.
25 to 30 million
The number of annual arrivals of both day-trippers and overnight guests roughly confirmed by cellphone data tracked from a Smart Control Room since 2020, according to city officials.
Colleen Barry, Associated Press
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
It’s been five years since the intense early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first round of lockdowns that mandated work-from-home for companies around the world. Among the debate at the time: concerns about how younger workers and new recruits would cope without access to experienced colleagues and mentors.
Doomed to impersonal video conferencing in converted bedrooms, these youngsters couldnt hope to gain the confidence and deep experience of their predecessors. They would make their mistakes out of sight, and fail to learn.
Now imagine those new workers and interns are digital, not human. Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT at the end of 2022, its not unusual to see generative AI systems referred to as interns, coworkers or even colleagues.
In that case, its tempting to see their offspring, AI agents, as more experienced employees. Using the brain of a large language model, agents are given a specific purpose and granted access to an organizations software tools and data in order to autonomously fulfil their task.
For many enterprises, the question is not whether they should adopt agentic AI, but how quickly and how widely. Gartner forecasts that, agentic AI will address and resolve 80% of regular customer service issues with no human intervention by 2029, and this will result in a 30% reduction in operational costs. With stats like that, other business functions will surely followand fast.
Chain of thought
Big-name tech companies such as Salesforce are going all-in on an agentic future and AI companions are already a common feature in business tools such as Zoom and Slack. AI rivals are reaching agreement at an unprecedented pace on new technology protocols that allow the integration of AI models with all types of business tools and applications.
In this new era, the digital workers are being handed the keys to the enterprise. What can possibly go wrong? Potentially, quite a lot. All the major models are fallible and flawed. As Anthropic, maker of the popular Claude family of AI models, explains in a new research paper:
Language models like Claude aren’t programmed directly by humansinstead, theyre trained on large amounts of data. During that training process, they learn their own strategies to solve problems. These strategies are encoded in the billions of computations a model performs for every word it writes. They arrive inscrutable to us, the models developers. This means that we dont understand how models do most of the things they do. [Italics added for emphasis.]
Anthropics own research shows Claude being tricked into naming the ingredients for a bomb, though stopping short of giving instructions on how to make one. Separate Anthropic-backed research found that more advanced reasoning models, which show the chain of thought they use to reach their conclusions, dont always say what they think.
Without the ability to rely on chain of thought, there may be safely-relevant factors affecting model behavior that remain hidden, the researchers concluded. (The researchers evaluated the faithfulness of two state-of-the-art reasoning models, Claude 3.7 Sonnet and DeepSeek-R1.)
Connecting AI models to business tools, via agents, raises the safety stakes. An agent that has access to an email system can be exploited as a useful tool for attacker intent on phishing. Access to database systems can be levered to extract valuable data from an organization. Even instances of accidental misuse can have significant consequences in terms of disruption, cost, and reputational damage to an organization.
An adult in the room
In the absence of the ability to predict or drive the behavior, these new digital colleagueslike their human counterpartsneed chaperones to provide guidance and feedback. Its important there is at least one adult in the room to constantly monitor these (not very streetwise) interns, intervening in real time when they may be sent on a fools errand, tricked into handing over their wallet, or encouraged to say or do something offensive or illegal.
We know from experience that attempting to rapidly introduce new technology across an enterprise can be a recipe for chaos. Someone, somewhereand likely many peoplewill find themselves in the headlines looking silly, at best. At worst, they may lose valuable intellectual property and suffer serious financial and reputational loss.
The best solution for an agentic workforce is agentic oversightusing powerful, customized agents to simulate real-world scenarios and probe AI for weaknesses. Continuous, automated red teaming of these new technologies, at speed, can give enterprises the confidence they need before they send their armies of new interns and employees out to do real jobs.
This agentic warfare approach offers the greatest chance of implementing enterprise AI for its intended purposes. After all, you wouldnt give an unvetted new employee completely unhindered and unsupervised access to your business systems, would you?
Donnchadh Casey is CEO of CalypsoAI.
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
Leadership transformation isn’t found in boardroomsit’s happening in our homes. In a world facing converging crises of climate, technology, and social displacement, how we create our spaces reveals everything about how we’ll lead through these transformative times.
Integrity derives from the Latin word “integer”meaning whole, complete, undivided. This word describes both ethical leadership and structural soundness. A home lacks integrity when its foundation cracks or its systems fail to work as a unified whole. Similarly, leadership without integrity fragments under pressure, creates waste through misalignment, and fails to shelter those who depend on it.
The decisions that shape our homesfrom material sourcing to energy systems to spatial designare fundamentally ethical choices. They reveal whether we truly understand our relationship to resources, community, and future generations.
This connection between home and leadership becomes clearest when we contrast two fundamentally different approaches:
The extractive mindset designs homes that deplete resources, prioritize appearance over performance, and externalize their true costs to communities and ecosystems.
The regenerative mindset creates living spaces that work in harmony with natural systems, optimize for both human and planetary health, and regenerate the communities they exist within.
The mindset we adopt when designing our homes reveals our relationship with material resources, directly reflecting our capacity to lead with integrity. The same patterns of thinking that have contributed to environmentally wasteful building practices in the past inevitably also surface in organizational decision making. The good news is that embracing regenerative practices creates a virtuous cycletransforming our homes, reshaping our mindsets, and ultimately enhancing our leadership abilities.
Beyond four walls
Visionary leaders recognize that their organizations, like homes, exist within living systems. Just as a sustainable home requires understanding energy flows, material lifecycles, and community impacts, effective leadership requires seeing beyond isolated metrics to the health of entire ecosystemsorganizational, financial, social, and ecological.
These systems transform leadership in four critical dimensions:
Holistic integration: The alignment of systems, values, and resources to create a unified whole greater than the sum of its parts. In homes, this means designing spaces where energy, water, materials, and human needs work in harmony. In leadership, it means cultivating organizations where purpose, people, profit, and planetary impact reinforce rather than undermine each other.
Regenerative stewardship: Moving beyond sustainability to actively restore and enhance the systems that support life. In homes, this means creating spaces that give more than they take. In leadership, it means building organizations that actively heal social divides, regenerate depleted resources, and leave ecosystems healthier.
Honest materiality: Embracing the true nature, origins, and impacts of what we build with. In homes, this means selecting materials for their authentic properties rather than superficial aesthetics. In leadership, it means fostering transparency about how value is created, and impacts are managed throughout the entire organizational ecosystem.
Adaptive co-evolution: Designing for a dynamic relationship with changing environments rather than rigid control. In homes, this means creating spaces that respond to seasonal shifts, climate extremes, and evolving family needs. In leadership, it means developing organizations capable of thriving amid uncertaintysensing, responding to, and shaping emerging futures.
As technological acceleration and climate impacts intensify, transformative leaders mirror sustainable builders: envisioning regenerative systems, pioneering new methods, and understanding the interconnectedness of people and planet.
The next generation of breakthrough leaders won’t just manage extraction more efficientlythey’ll architect regeneration more intelligently. And like all great architects, they’ll understand that integrity isn’t just a virtueit’s structural necessity.
The whole puzzle
Traditional leadership focuses on optimizing fragments: profit centers, performance metrics, quarterly returns. This fragmentation is like building a house by perfecting individual rooms without ensuring they work togethera strategy that inevitably creates dysfunction at both local and planetary scales.
The integrity-driven approach sees the whole puzzleunderstanding that a home, like an organization, exists within Earth’s living systems. When our homes and businesses operate with fragmented thinking, the collective impact accelerates climate destabilization. When we design with integrity, we create regenerative ripples beyond our immediate sphere.
This planetary perspective transforms leadership from an exercise in optimization to an act of stewardship. It requires alignment between systems, purpose, and impact across scalesfrom the individual home to the global commons we all share.
The future of leadership starts in the home because our profound transformations begin with reconsidering what we’ve taken for granted. By examining the integrity of our fundamental structuresour living spaceswe reveal the blueprint for leading organizations capable of thriving amid complexity while contributing to a flourishing world.
The leadership our future demands builds on the same foundation as sustainable homes: the recognition that integrityboth structural and moralisn’t optional. It’s essential for creating systems that withstand time, resource constraints, and accelerating change.
Gene Eidelman is cofounder of Azure Homes. Rachel Weissman is founder of Congruence.
When Twitter cofounder and Medium founder Evan “Ev” Williams was planning his 50th birthday party, he didnt know who to invite. Having spent more of his life building and scaling tech companies, he found himself feeling disconnected from friends. Thats why he started Mozi last year with Molly DeWolf Swenson, a marketer and producer. Swenson, who serves as CEO of the company, says that the appwhich lets users check in to certain locations where other contacts can join them and vice-versais intended to facilitate spontaneous, in-person interactions.
Launched in December 2024, Mozi raised $6 million in seed funding from Williams Obvious Ventureswhich he cofounded with Vishal Vasishth and James Joaquinand is live in 135 countries.
During South by Southwest, Swenson and Williams joined Most Innovative Companies host Yasmin Gagne to discuss what inspired the app, how it works, and how they plan to make money off of it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
How does Mozi work?
MDS: You set up a basic profile. The only information we require is what city is your home base, a photo, your phone number, and your name. Then you sync your contacts so that we know which of them are on Mozi. Then you can decide whether you want them to be able to see your plans or not. Then as you go, you input your travel plans or your local plans. The idea is that you open up Mozi and you see where your friends are and the things that they’re doing that you could join them for, whether that’s coworking at a coffee shop, or going to a show that night. Those are the kinds of things we’re trying to drop people into. It’s not something where you’re spending a bunch of time on your phone. You’re actually getting together in person.
Molly, what attracted you to the business?
MDS: I had a spreadsheet of 450 people that I started at my first company, Riot, which was a media company. We’d be traveling back and forth to New York a lot and I’d be like, Ive got to remember to reach out to these people when I’m in New York. So it just started with Who are the important people I need to remember to reach out to that live in New York?. And then that expanded to Who’s in San Francisco? and Who’s in these other cities? Then that list ended up expanding to potential clients, people with audiences, people who are single so I could set them up. It wasn’t very accurate for very long because it takes a lot of effort to keep something like that up to date. So when Evan and I came together to talk about Mozi for the first time, I described the spreadsheet to him.
Do you worry about the app promoting behavior like stalking?
MDS: Its encrypted as fuck in terms of personal information. We’ve been really, I’d say conservative on making sure that privacy is protected for you and your contacts.
EW: We don’t just broadcast your location to everyone. We only tell people the plans you share with a subset of your contacts. Nothing in Mozi is public.
Cant you just text your friends to make plans?
EW: But through Mozi you could share plans with people who you want to know better as well.
How are you going to make money through the app?
MDW: Premium features. There’s dating apps now that people will pay for, there’s health tracker apps that people pay for. There’s tons and tons of utilities on our phones that people are willing to pay some amount for. you We have a thesis that people would be willing to pay for an app that is purpose-built for maintaining and strengthening their friendships and relationships. People write to us saying, I’d be willing to pay for a product like this, just don’t bring ads into it. A lot of our users initiallyMozers, as we call themare in an older demographic. They’re in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. They’re less price-sensitive than some of the [users of] social platforms that are targeting younger users.
EW: Mozi is really in the category of utilities. The types of apps Molly was mentioning are utilities; they can charge a subscription because people don’t spend all day on them. You kind of need people to spend all day on the app if you’re going to make an ad model work. We’re not focusing on monetization right now. We need to grow the network. But it seems very likely to us that this can provide such value in life as a utility.
What would a premium feature look like?
MDS: We prototyped a map view with a slider into the future. You could, at the city level, see where your friends are, then you slide into the future with your finger and all those little bubbles move to different cities where they will be. That could be one. Ive also talked about this feature of being able to sort my contacts by who is single so I can set them up.
EW: Another cool feature idea is an intro feature where if you see two people who don’t know each other who are going to be in the same place, you can introduce them. Normally that would take a good six text messages, but in the app you could do it like boom, boom, if they both opt in.
MDS: We actually had a cool Mozi moment yesterday. Two people connected at the Mozi event and they realized they had the same birthday they just happened to see each other’s profiles. We should have just popped that information up when they connected on the app. Theres things like that where you connect and it’s likehere’s your common ground. How do you figure out you have the same birthday that fast?
Evan, you cofounded X (formerly Twitter). What is your relationship like to social media now?
EW: I don’t spend much time on it at all. I just think for mental health and for ROI on time invested, I like to do other things. Twitter is still an amazing source of tech information if you want to know what’s happening. If you want to recruit people, LinkedIn is social media. But now I’m just enjoying my time reading books and hanging out with friends.
Have you made any friends through Mozi?
MDS: We found out a friend was in Kyoto and went out to drinks with her and her brother because of Mozi. I heard from someone yesterday who was like, I ran into someone because of Mozi in Dubai. We hadn’t seen each other in four years. It feels like we’re delivering on something important. We want to increase the surface area of that social serendipity.
As the cost of a college education has ballooned to nearly $100,000 a year, a new generation of workers may be opting out of a four-year degreeand seeking out trade jobs instead. Among Gen Z, blue-collar jobs in industries like plumbing and construction have grown more appealing, promising job security and decent pay. A survey conducted by the Harris Poll last year found that Gen Z expressed a marked interest in moving into the trades, and that they were more likely to view those jobs positively when compared to corporate roles.
The trades are also desperately in need of younger workers, as they struggle to meet demand and find skilled workers. That’s especially true in the manufacturing industry: A new Deloitte report estimates that within the next decade, manufacturers may need to fill 3.8 million open roles, as people age out of the workforce and more jobs are created.
President Trump’s far-reaching tariffs could also drive up the labor shortage in the manufacturing industry. A recent Goldman Sachs analysis concluded that the tariffs are likely to create 100,000 new manufacturing jobs, according to Axios. In fact, the manufacturing industry has seen significant growth since the pandemicin part, driven by initiatives to create more semiconductor and clean-energy jobs.
But unlike other trades, the manufacturing sector may not be able to rely on renewed interest from a new crop of young workers. It seems, manufacturing jobs don’t hold the same allure for Gen Z workers; in surveys, they have shown little desire to engage with industrial work due to concerns over wages and safety. A study by the workplace safety software company Soter Analytics found that one in five Gen Z respondents believed industrial work paid poorly, and a quarter of them also did not view industrial work as safe.
Another sticking point for Gen Z is flexibility, something young workers repeatedly cite as a major priority. As the Deloitte survey notes, manufacturing executives are aware this presents a challenge in an industry that typically relies on in-person work with fixed schedulesbut many of them also reported that offering flexible arrangements like splitting or swapping shifts had helped increase retention. (By contrast, other jobs in the trades can offer more flexibility or allow workers to set their own hours.)
But perhaps the greatest hurdle to luring young workers to manufacturing jobs may be that Gen Z often wants to feel a sense of purpose at work. Job satisfaction tends to be especially low among blue-collar workers: According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, only 43% of those workers said they were very satisfied with their jobs, as compared to 53% of employees in other industries. Younger workers were even less likely to be satisfied than their older counterpartsand also less likely to view their job as a career. If manufacturing employers can’t find a way to address issues like job satisfaction and flexibility, they may continue struggling to appeal to Gen Z workers.
Volvo Group plans to lay off as many as 800 workers at three U.S. facilities over the next three months due to market uncertainty and demand concerns in the face of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, a spokesperson said on Friday.
Volvo Group North America said in a statement it has told employees it plans to lay off 550-800 people at its Mack Trucks site in Macungie, Pennsylvania, and two Volvo Group facilities in Dublin, Virginia, and Hagerstown, Maryland.
The company, part of Sweden’s AB Volvo, employs nearly 20,000 people in North America, according to its website.
Trump has upended the global trading system that has been in place for over 75 years with a plan for tariffs on products from across the world. His vacillating trade policy has undermined consumer and business confidence, and caused economists to raise their forecasts for a U.S. recession.
Volvo Group’s lay-offs are the latest response from a car and truck industry that is reeling from the Republican president’s tariffs on certain parts, which is expected to increase the cost of manufacturing vehicles.
“Heavy-duty truck orders continue to be negatively affected by market uncertainty about freight rates and demand, possible regulatory changes, and the impact of tariffs,” a spokesperson for Volvo Group North America said in an emailed statement.
“We regret having to take this action, but we need to align production with reduced demand for our vehicles.”
Chris Prentice, Reuters
Cambodia and China have signed a $1.2 billion deal to finance an ambitious canal project that aims to boost trade efficiency by linking a branch of the Mekong River near Phnom Penh to a port on the Gulf of Thailand, the Cambodian government agency heading the project announced Friday.
The deal to fund the Funan Techo Canal was signed Thursday during the state visit to Cambodia of Chinese President Xi Jinping, the agency said in a news release. Xi returned home Friday after a three-nation Southeast Asian tour that also included Vietnam and Malaysia.
Construction of the 151.6-kilometer (94-mile) canal began last year but was halted shortly after the Aug. 5 groundbreaking ceremony for reasons that were not made clear. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said at the time that the canal will be built no matter what the cost, emphasizing that the project promotes national prestige, the territorial integrity and the development of Cambodia.
Described as a public-private partnership contract, the deal was signed by Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol on behalf of Cambodias government, and by Ieng Sunly of the Funan Techo Coastal-Inland Waterways Company Ltd., the private sector partner. The project is being developed on a build-operate-transfer basis, with Cambodian investors holding a 51% stake, and Chinese investors holding 49%.
The canal will create a new inland waterway-maritime corridor capable of handling vessels up to 3,000 deadweight tons, according to Fridays announcement. It will encompass canal excavation and the construction of ship locks, navigation and logistics infrastructure.
As an inland waterway and important transport infrastructure in Cambodia, the FTC Project will become a new engine driving national economic growth,” said Wang Tongzhou, chairman of China Communications Construction Company, in the announcement. He added that “after completion, it will significantly reduce the comprehensive logistics costs in Cambodia, and promote Cambodias industry to the middle-to-high end of the value chain.
China Communications Construction Company is the parent company of China Road and Bridge Corporation, the contractor for the project’s construction from the Bassac River to the coastal province of Kep. The massive state-owned firm has faced scrutiny for its alleged involvement in financial scandals. It is also blacklisted by the United States for its role in helping the Chinese military construct and militarize artificial islands in the South China Sea.
According to Friday’s announcement, the canal is expected to create “up to 50,000 direct and indirect jobs in Cambodia.
Critics have raised concerns that the canal could severely disrupt the Mekong Rivers natural flood patterns. These disruptions could lead to worsening droughts and a reduction in the nutrient-rich silt essential for Vietnams vital rice production in the Mekong Delta, a region that sustains millions and is a major global rice exporter.
The signing announcement, however, stated that, A rigorous Environmental Impact Assessment, conducted by 48 specialists, confirmed minimal environmental impact.
It added that the Cambodian government has led efforts to minimize resettlement with a route designed to avoid dense communities and cultural sites” and that “a responsible compensation and consultation process is underway.
Sopheng Cheang, Associated Press
If youve been thinking about skipping that Target run this weekend, you’re not alone. A grassroots group called The Peoples Union USA is asking shoppers to sit out spending money at major retailers, restaurants, and banks from midnight on Good Friday through Easter Sunday.
No shopping, no spending, no fueling the corporate machine that has been bleeding us dry, organizer John Schwarz said in a video posted to Instagram.
The goal? Hit big brands where it hurtstheir bottom line. The boycott follows weeks of frustration over corporate DEI rollbacks and rising political tension, especially with companies such as Target, which has been the focus of a separate 40-day boycott led by faith leaders during Lent.
As a result of its DEI policy changes, Target has been the target of a boycott organized by faith leaders for the last 40 days, coinciding with Lent.
On January 24, Target announced that it was getting rid of policies concerning hiring goals for minority employees, an executive committee focused on racial justice, and other changes to its diversity initiative.
According to a report from Numerator, more than one in 10 customers surveyed on April 16 plan to participate in the boycott, though this move is less well-known than the widespread “economic blackout” that took place on February 28.
Furthermore, not all participants are planning to fully stop their spending for the weekend, though many plan on avoiding large corporations, including the brands Target, Walmart, Amazon, McDonalds, and Starbucks. Half of all participants are shifting their dollars to local, small businesses instead.
Users on X and Bluesky sounded off, reposting The Peoples Unions post and reminding users to take stock of what matters.
Money anxiety is on everyones mind this week between taxes and tariffs, the CataLIST posted. Take back control by consciously choosing how and where you spend your money.
This Blackout is the second widespread boycott organized by The Peoples Union. The first occurred on February 28, and the same report from Numerator said that although sales and trips were down across retailers, Amazon, Target, and Walmart saw declines beyond standard weekly variation. Black and LGBTQ+ consumers showed the most significant participation in the February 28 blackout.
Many of these boycotts cite brands DEI pullbacks and policy changes at the behest of the new administration. Though blackouts and boycotts already have scheduled dates in the future, Target is attempting to fix its relationship with its consumer base as the 40-day “Lent” spending fast comes to a close.
On April 17, Target CEO Brian Cornell met with Rev. Al Sharpton, head of the civil rights organization National Action Network, to discuss DEI and racial justice. Sharpton called the meeting constructive and candid, and plans to meet with some members of the National Action Network board of directors to determine next steps with Target.
Whether or not the boycott makes a measurable dent in sales this weekend, organizers say its about more than just the moneyits about sending a message.
The pending merger between Capital One and Discover Financial services received approval from several regulators Friday, bringing the $35 billion tie-up closer to completion.
The Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency signed off on the deal, which was first announced in February 2024.
The Federal Reserve Board said it entered into a consent order with Discover and assessed a fine of $100 million for overcharging certain interchange fees from 2007 through 2023. Discover has since terminated these practices and is repaying those fees to affected customers, according to the Federal Reserve. The boards action is being taken in coordination with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
It said Capital One has committed that it will comply with the Boards action against Discover of Riverwoods, Illinois, including remediation requirement, as a condition of approval.
The OCC said its approval reflects its careful analysis of the effect of the merger on communities, the banking industry, and the U.S. financial system.
Capital One, based in McLean, Virginia, said it expects to complete the acquisition on May 18 now that it’s received all required regulatory approvals. Shareholders of both companies approved the deal i n February.
The deal joins two of the largest credit card companies that arent banks first, like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, with the notable exception of American Express. It also brings together two companies whose customers are largely similar: often Americans who are looking for cash back or modest travel rewards, compared to the premium credit cards dominated by AmEx, Citi and Chase.
It also will give Discovers payment network a major credit card partner in a way that could make the payment network a major competitor once again. The U.S. credit card industry is dominated by the Visa-Mastercard duopoly with AmEx being a distant third place and Discover an even more distant fourth place.
