More than a dozen of the world's largest car makers have agreed on minimum human rights, environmental and business ethics standards for their global supply chains, according to the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) in Michigan and CSR Europe in Brussels, which today jointly announced the "unprecedented agreement."

Global crop yields for maize, rice and wheat could be significantly affected by 2050 if nothing is done to tackle climate change.

While the mobile channel grows in importance and revenue for merchants, so does their fear of fraudulent attacks and the realization that combating that risk requires specialized tools. Those are some of the key findings from the Second Annual Mobile Payments and Fraud Survey, available for free download at the Kount Inc. website.

Analyst Insight: In July 2013, Mary Driscoll of APQC had an interesting headline in the Harvard Business Review Blog — "Why are Companies Continually Getting Blind-sided by Risk?" Their risk management survey highlighted that 75 percent of respondents stated they were hit by at least one major supply chain disruption over the past two years. Another key finding: people at the front lines of business were hamstrung by lack of resources for visibility needed to adequately assess their supply chain risk. – Gregory L. Schlegel, Founder, The Supply Chain Risk Management Consortium, and Adjunct Professor, Supply Chain Risk Management, Lehigh University