Amazon to add 5% surcharge to account for fuel and inflation

Apr 22 2022

For the first time in its history, Amazon will be charging sellers a 5% surcharge to account for fuel and inflation.

The e-commerce platform reported that the fee will start to be applied as of April 28 due to the ever-increasing inflation. In a recent memo, Amazon wrote that “In 2022, we expected a return to normalcy as Covid-19 restrictions around the world eased, but fuel and inflation have presented further challenges,” going on to say that “It is unclear if these inflationary costs will go up or down, or for how long they will persist.”

The surcharge will apply to rates paid by sellers opting for Amazon’s fulfillment services such as storing, packing and shipping. Those who do not make use of Fulfillment by Amazon will not be affected by such costs.

The surcharge is the latest example of businesses’ reaction to spiking costs of energy and fuel. Even locally, employers are concerned about how much further they can absorb costs before passing them on to consumers, resulting in higher costs.

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14-year-old left unattended with shotgun as reports of dead protected bird increase

Apr 22 2022

The Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) has reported a case of a hunter leaving a 14-year-old minor unattended with a loaded shotgun.

The 14-year-old was reportedly filmed sitting in a hunting hide with the loaded shotgun in hand whilst looking for birds. The organisation also reported a number of illegal hunting and trapping cases. This morning, the Malta Police Force was notified of five dead protected Marsh Harriers in Delimara.

“It is still unclear whether the animals are victims of Tuesday’s massacre or were shot earlier.”

“The birds were found in two freshly harvested fields close to the Church of Our Lady of tas-Silġ, where a team from BirdLife Malta witnessed the illegal shooting of roosting harriers in the night from Monday to Tuesday,” CABS wrote in a statement.

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“Statistics clearly show that vaccinations are helping to reduce deaths”, says Charmaine Gauci

Apr 22 2022

In this afternoon’s press conference, Superintendent for Public Health Prof. Charmaine Gauci stated that “the vaccine is effective especially with complications and deaths across Europe, where we can see that people who require hospital admission are unvaccinated or have not yet received their booster.”

Prof. Gauci also discussed the national death rate and explained the importance of understanding where these deaths come from. “We classify these deaths according to the WHO and if you look at the statistics, it is clear that the vaccinations are helping reduce deaths as well.”

“In fact, if you look at data from March 2020 until April 18th of this year, we have seen a 76% overall of deaths related to COVID-19 were due to ‘direct underlying cause’.”

What do you make of this?

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Malta with best broadband value in Western Europe; 12th place from 220 countries globally

Apr 22 2022

Research conducted by broadband internet comparison organisation Cable.co.uk has revealed that Malta has the cheapest cost per megabit in the entirety of Western Europe.

The study, which analysed the cost and performance of broadband in 220 countries globally found that Maltese consumers access their broadband with €0.07 per megabit, which is 2 cents less than Andorra, Spain and Portugal.

With regards to internet access costs, Malta places twelfth globally at $0.08 per megabit. Multiple Eastern European countries were frontrunners in the study when considering cost per megabit in USD, with Romania, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia leading the list together with Singapore and Thailand.

Melita CEO Harald Roesch stated that their mission is to “deliver communication products that rank top tier in Europe for value; the results of the research show that we have succeeded.”

You can view the full report here.

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