The opportunity to become part of the Denla British School (DBS) family is here for Year 3 to Year 10 students who excel in Mathematics, Science, English, Thai, Music, Sport, and all-round abilities! Denla British School (DBS) is a premium international school that implements the Enhanced British Curriculum modelled on the top independent schools in the UK, and it offers scholarship opportunities at the “DBS Scholarship Day” for students of Year 3 to Year 10. Interested students and parents can learn more about this at the scholarship information session at DBS on Tuesday 4th February 2020 from 9.00-10.00 am. Then, on Saturday 7th March 2020, selected candidates will be invited to take the scholarship assessment at DBS.

Mr Mark McVeigh, Principal of DBS said that the strength of the DBS unique vision in the core areas of an Enhanced British Curriculum, Academic Excellence for All, Entrepreneurship and Creative Thinking, and  Community and Global Perspectives, has encouraged DBS students to develop significantly in all areas – clearly shown from academic and non-academic awards – and that is why DBS is being recognised as the international school that nurtures global leaders and entrepreneurs.

DBS Scholarship Day is one of the programmes that contribute to the vision of Academic Excellence for All, aiming to encourage students who excel in Mathematics, Science, English, Thai, Music, Sports, and all-round abilities, to enrol in DBS. DBS is a unique international school in Bangkok, which implements a UK independent school curriculum and its teachers are not only experienced, but are also 100% native English speakers (apart from Thai and Mandarin subjects). The curriculum of UK  independent schools is outstanding, with its Personalised Learning approach that concentrates on encouragement, and adapting the teaching method to each student, according to their skills and preferences. Approaches vary from specific teaching for each individual, to teaching in small groups, with teachers and their assistants supervising the entire process. The school is not only known for its academic excellence, but also encourages an all-round education so that children can explore and discover their own talents.

At the DBS Scholarship Day, there will be an academic examination using the UK education standard for all candidates. Additionally, scholarships for music and sports, will involve students taking auditions and exercises, and showing proven, recognised records of their abilities. And for those who have all-round abilities, the assessment for them will be a mixture of academic examinations and practical assessment.

When a student is awarded a DBS Scholarship, the school will nurture them so that they can access the world’s top universities using, for example, the Beacon Programme that is designed to cater for high attaining and greatly engaged learners. The programme values enthusiasm, creativity and passion, whilst facilitating additional opportunities to stretch and challenge students beyond the classroom. The Beacon Programme aims to further encourage excellent learning behaviour. It will involve practising problem solving, analysing, leading, communicating and logic, using lateral and critical thinking. The Beacon Programme encourages self-determination, self-direction, self-respect, and self-awareness. This will allow students to become independent learners who thrive in working outside of their comfort zones, and can adapt and participate in a rapidly changing society and economy.

Besides the Beacon Programme, DBS has launched other special programmes:

• A Comprehensive ESL programme – to ensure that every DBS student is able to access the British curriculum, encouraging a good mastery of the English language for all.
• The Accelerated Reader programme – to enable students to make excellent progress in their English language reading. Books are selected at an appropriate level for the individual, students answer questions to show that they have understood, and they can then move on to the next level at their own rate.
• The Y10 and IGCSEs programme – to ensure that the school has the right teaching team in place for the start of the IGCSEs, and that the curriculum reflects the necessary IGCSE course specifications. Plans will be put in place so that individual students receive guidance on which of the optional subjects to choose, apart from the core English, Maths and Science.
• The GL performance programme – assessments for English, Maths, and Science to measure against the world’s average. The Progress Test Series (PT Series) assesses students’ comprehension of the core subjects to identify which students need extra support and which will rise to more challenging targets. Results from GL Assessments help teachers to accurately plan for each student’s academic excellence.

There is also a Co-Curricular Activities (CCA) programme, where students spend time learning in an additional hour per day. DBS also initiates a Model United Nations programme – an advanced learning model based on the procedures at the United Nations, giving students the opportunity to debate, discuss, analyse ideas, and present to large groups of people. This is all very important in instilling leadership skills in accordance with the school’s vision, “Nurturing Global Leaders.”

“The DBS Scholarship Day is a special opportunity and the first step to being at the leading edge of the DBS community. It is open for application from today until 21st February 2020. Interested students and parents can attend the scholarship information session at DBS on Tuesday 4th February 2020 from 9.00-10.00 am. By Friday 28th February 2020, the school will announce the list of selected candidates who will be invited to take the assessment tests on Saturday 7th March 2020. The scholarship winners will be announced in the next week,” DBS Principal said.

Interested parents can fill in the form below

https://forms.gle/dYN9PM6XHRrWGrw2A

or contact 02 666 1933

Email: admissions@dbsbangkok.ac.th

German scientists and business leaders are working to create what they hope will be the first viable market for a carbon-neutral version of the kerosene that already powers most modern aircraft.

The science is still based on chemical reactions pioneered in Germany in 1925, but instead of converting coal and other fossil fuels like the oil-starved Nazis did during World War II, green kerosene is derived from water and actually pulls carbon dioxide out of the air during creation.

The process, which requires huge amounts of electricity generated from renewable resources to ensure carbon neutrality, fractures water into oxygen and hydrogen, which is then combined with carbon.

The project is being overseen by Bremen University, in a consummately German public-private research strategy that previously created the MP3. The German system, which the U.S is trying to emulate, aims to produce the green fuels required for sectors of the economy like aviation and heating that rely heavily on petroleum imports.

“Synthetic fuel is the only vision I can see right now to really become CO2 neutral in the conceivable future,” Deutsche Lufthansa AG Chief Executive Officer Carsten Spohr told a conference on sustainable aviation in the German capital in November.

While green kerosene releases carbon when burned, the process is neutral because it recycles greenhouse gas from the air and doesn’t require more fossil fuels to be taken from the ground.

The German flag carrier is working with the consortium to supply what it expects will be 5 percent of its fuel within five years. The non-fossil kerosene is being made at closely held Klesch Group’s Heide oil refinery near the North Sea, using renewable energy supplied by local wind farms.

Other countries, including Canada and the U.S., are already deploying Power-to-X technology to capture carbon dioxide and store it underground, but so far only in proof-of-concept ways that are too small to make a noticeable difference in the battle against climate change.

Carbon Engineering, a Canadian company partly funded by Bill Gates, has been producing “Air to Fuel” gasoline, diesel and kerosene since 2017, but not in major volumes due to costs, which are still several times more than petroleum-based products. The venture is one of a handful that Canada’s government is supporting in the race to curb surging aviation emissions by developing the most economical and environmentally friendly fuel possible.

But it’s Germany, where more than half of Europe’s 130 Power-to-X testing plants are located, that’s leading the charge. Public calls for action on climate change intensified following last year’s record-breaking droughts and heatwaves, withering crops and swelling support for the environmentalist Green Party.

While power generation and farming currently dwarf aviation’s around 2 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gases, skyrocketing emissions from air travel means the industry, which was exempted from the Paris 2015 climate agreement, will become the biggest single polluter if predicted cuts in other sectors materialize, UN data and projections show.

“We almost need a wartime footing to unlock the momentum and the significant state investment needed to catalyze the transformation of our socioeconomic systems,” Oliver said by phone from the U.K.

Indeed, Germany’s government is already working on a strategy for scaling-up its “green hydrogen” push to produce synthetic fuels at more competitive prices. If Lufthansa gets its way, that effort will include channeling more of the government’s aviation tax into the project.

Increasingly onerous regulations, demands from carbon-conscious customers and the spread of flight shaming are all adding to the pressure to develop cleaner fuels faster.

“All the technologies you need are currently deployed in other areas, so it’s just a question of making it practical and economical”

The social-engineering tactic, which started in teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s native Sweden, contributed to a 4% decline in that country’s passenger numbers last year as more people opted to travel by electric train. Operators of rail networks across Northern Europe, already the world’s most advanced green economy, have been adding overnight routes to capitalize on the trend.

A study by Brussels-based Transport & Environment found that converting all aviation fuel to non-fossil kerosene with currently available technology would cost between three and six times more than traditional jet fuel. Even without factoring in rising taxes on air travel, that would lead to an increase in ticket prices of as much as 60%, the research group estimated.

But that’s not a deal-breaker, according to Ulf Neuling, a chemical scientist at the Hamburg University of Technology. Governments can help offset the added expense through subsidies, tax changes or other incentives and, unlike, biofuels, which turned out to be less environmentally friendly and affordable than once hoped, synthetic jet fuel is scalable, he said.

“All the technologies you need are currently deployed in other areas, so it’s just a question of making it practical and economical,” Neuling said. “It can be used in airplanes that are on order now.”

The amount of electricity needed for an electrolysis process that essentially recycles what’s already in the air is what makes these fuels relatively expensive-for now. Other hurdles to cranking up production include adding further strain to grids at a time when coal plants are being shuttered and electricity use for battery-powered cars is rising.

German engineers have pointed to a future of vast solar parks in North Africa that could produce green fuels at competitive cost, before they’re shipped to Europe. Building them would cost billions. And then there’s the nuclear option being floated by Rolls Royce Holdings Plc, which is a major maker of both aircraft engines and small, modular reactors based on designs used in military submarines.

Rolls Royce CEO Warren East said just last month that coupling reactors to electrolysis units would “provide a very competitive solution” to the price issue.

To be sure, not everyone is convinced such synthetic fuel is a cure-all for greenhouse-gas pollution, with some analysts suspecting that backers of the technology like Lufthansa and Air France-KLM are just trying to deflect criticism.

But previous proposals, such as biofuels and battery-powered engines, never got the full-throated support of a leader like Angela Merkel. The German chancellor dismisses calls from climate extremists like Thunberg to ban air travel altogether, saying a solution to the emissions problem is just around the corner.

“The potential of hydrogen for aviation is far from tapped,” Merkel told industry leaders last August. “We don’t want any restrictions on our mobility.”

Insurers covering Tesla’s directors and executives will foot the bill as part of a so-called derivative settlement, two people familiar with the accord said Wednesday, declining to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly about the deal.

Musk and the board were accused of duping investors in 2016 into backing the $2 billion buyout of the solar-panel installer, which was co-founded by Musk and his cousins. Critics of the deal called the acquisition a bailout of SolarCity and questioned the company’s corporate governance.

Pension funds that objected to the deal are likely to press ahead with a March trial against Musk over his alleged failure to disclose that SolarCity was in deep financial trouble when he urged shareholders to back the buyout.

The settling defendents are directors who were on the board in 2016: Brad Buss, Robyn Denholm, Ira Ehrenpreis, Antonio Gracias, Stephen Jurvetson and Kimbal Musk, according to a filing in Delaware Chancery Court. Since then, the composition of Tesla’s board has changed: Buss, the former chief financial officer of SolarCity, is no longer on the board, while Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson joined the board in December 2018.

Tesla and Chairman Robyn Denholm didn’t respond to requests for comment on the partial settlement.

In earlier court filings, Tesla officials defended the directors’ work in reviewing the SolarCity deal, claiming that “both the process and the price of this acquisition were inherently fair to Tesla’s stockholders.”

The settlement comes as Tesla turns a corner with back-to-back reports of better-than-expected earnings, which have sent shares soaring. The stock climbed as much as 12% in early trading Thursday and was up 11% at 12:47 p.m. in New York.

The accord leaves Musk, Tesla’s largest shareholder, to battle alone against investors who complain the billionaire overpaid for SolarCity, and that directors rolled over instead of properly scrutinizing the deal. Judge Joseph Slights III will hear the case in Wilmington without a jury, which is normal in the Chancery Court. The trial is scheduled from March 16 to March 27, according to a filing.

Musk painted the SolarCity deal as a no-brainer that would combine the leading U.S. electric-car maker with what was then the largest provider of rooftop solar panels.

Tesla now has roughly 400,000 solar customers, one of the biggest U.S. renewable-energy portfolios. It ran into a stumbling block when Walmart sued last year, saying the company’s rooftop panel systems caused fires at stores and warehouses. The companies later reached a settlement.

Efforts to integrate SolarCity coincided with Tesla struggling to ramp up production of its all-electric Model 3 sedan, and that put the company under financial pressure, Musk acknowledged in emails unsealed as part of the investors’ suits.

In one email, Musk said he was forced to shift SolarCity workers to help with Model 3 production issues. If he hadn’t done that, Tesla would have faced bankruptcy, he said.He admitted in a pre-trial deposition that he probably wouldn’t make the same deal again.

“At the time I thought it made strategic sense for Tesla and SolarCity to combine. Hindsight is 20/20,” he said. “And if I could wind back the clock, you know, I would say I probably would have let SolarCity execute by itself; would have let Tesla execute by itself.”

The case is In Re Tesla Motors Inc. Stockholders Litigation, No. 12711, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington).

The draft bill from Graham, the South Carolina Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, mounts a double attack against encrypted services such as Apple’s iCloud and Facebook’s WhatsApp chat. It removes technology companies’ immunity to lawsuits by victims for violating child exploitation and abuse statutes and it lowers the standard to bring such cases.

The bipartisan measure, which was obtained by Bloomberg and hasn’t yet been formally introduced, would affect a wide range of social media companies, cloud service providers, email and text platforms and other technology services. It could put Facebook in the government’s crosshairs for its plans to encrypt all of its messaging apps and undercut Apple’s refusal to create back doors into its devices and services.

Graham’s bill, which Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut is also working on, calls for Congress and the administration to establish a commission to determine best practices for tech companies to prevent online exploitation of children and allows the attorney general to modify the recommendations.

“The absolute worst-case scenario could easily become reality,” said Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom, a libertarian think tank aligned with technology companies. “DOJ could effectively ban end-to-end encryption.”

Although the measure doesn’t directly mention encryption, it would require that companies work with law enforcement to identify, remove, report and preserve evidence related to child exploitation — which critics said would be impossible to do for services such as WhatsApp that are encrypted from end-to-end.

If technology companies don’t certify that they are following the best practices set by the 15-member commission, they would lose the legal immunity they currently enjoy under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act relating to child exploitation and abuse laws. That would open the door to lawsuits for “reckless” violations of those laws, a lower standard than contained in current statutes.

The timing of the bill’s introduction remains unclear with senators serving as jurors in the Trump impeachment trial.

Facebook and other companies have extensive systems to find, remove and report child-abuse images, as well as other prohibited content such as terrorist propaganda. Their monitoring ability, however, doesn’t extend to systems that are encrypted end-to-end. Online safety experts have said Facebook’s efforts to root out this content will suffer as the company pivots to closed communications modeled on its WhatsApp chat service.

That move “will make it harder to detect — and stop — child abuse and similar crimes,” Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said in prepared testimony before Graham’s committee in December. In addition, Apple’s encryption had stymied a sex trafficking investigation that authorities wanted to pursue after hearing a prison telephone call by a suspect, he said.

Attorney General William Barr is taking aim at both encryption and the liability shield as he increases scrutiny of technology companies. The Justice Department has tentatively scheduled a meeting on the future of Section 230 for Feb. 19, according to a person familiar with the plans.

A spokeswoman for Graham’s committee emphasized that the document is a draft and isn’t final. The Justice Department declined to comment.

Barr has pressured Apple to provide back-door access to encrypted data for law enforcement investigations, urging the company to unlock iPhones used by the gunman behind a Dec. 6 terrorist attack on a Florida Navy base.

Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has conceded the company’s moves may make it harder to find offensive content, but he nonetheless pledged on a Wednesday earnings call to uphold his most controversial positions, including “standing up for encryption, against those who say that privacy mostly helps bad people.”

The Information, a technology news website, earlier reported some details of Graham’s bill, known as the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act, or EARN IT Act.

The draft bill represents the latest effort to weaken liability protections for technology platforms after a 2018 measure that pared the exemption for content related to online sex trafficking.

Passage of that law indicated that the rules are changing for an industry that had been the darling of Washington but is now facing a broad, bipartisan backlash.

On Tuesday, a top House Democrat, Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, said she’s reviewing whether the provision should be further revised to stem election misinformation.

Lawmakers have also raised concerns about whether the shield fosters online drug sales and other issues. There have also been complaints from conservatives of political bias. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, has introduced his own bill to withdraw the legal immunity if companies can’t prove to the U.S. that they moderate content in a politically neutral way.

While there are signs there’s bipartisan support to tackle the issues raised by encryption and the liability shield, Congress doesn’t appear to have a unified approach and passage of the measure could be difficult in an election year.