Konitono

Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS Android . T HIS YEAR the drivers of Formula 1 ( F 1) made a change: instead of celebrating after a race by spraying each other with champagne, they switched to sparkling wine. Not to be frugal— F 1 is not that kind of sport—but because of a new sponsorship deal. Officials in Saudi Arabia face a harder decision. The kingdom, which will host a race on December 5th, bans alcohol. Some, though, think it may loosen up for the event. “Champagne is part of the ceremony,” says a royal adviser. “Jeddah [the host city] will have seen nothing like it.” Saudi-watchers predict boozy parties on yachts and, perhaps, at select venues on land. That would be in keeping with the reforms of Muhammad bin Salman, the crown prince, who has ignored puritanical clerics and curbed the morality police, while breaking taboos by opening up cinemas and letting women drive. Concerts were largely prohibited not long ago; now female DJ s jive in public. The F 1 … [Read more...] about Will an F1 race mark the end of Saudi Arabia’s ban on alcohol?

T HE EVENTS that unspooled in the Solomon Islands on November 24th were from an old script. Protesters from Malaita, the most populous island, crossed to the biggest, Guadalcanal, with grievances over corruption and inequality. They called for the prime minister to go. Near parliament in Honiara, the capital, the protest descended into violence. Three days of looting in the city left much of Chinatown destroyed. Three people died in burning buildings. The damage runs to millions of dollars. It will be a long haul back to normality. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS Android . The Solomon Islands is a threadbare state, and Malaitans have always been among the poorest islanders. Investment and jobs are concentrated on Gaudalcanal. Over the decades Malaitans flocked there, which stoked ethnic tensions. In the late 1990s natives of Guadalcanal campaigned, through intimidation, to drive Malaitans off the island. Rival militias fought. In 2003 the government asked Australia … [Read more...] about Chinese influence is spurring violence in the Solomon Islands

I NOUE TOYOSAKU moved to Tokyo in 1913 and became an apprentice to a metalworker. When he struck out on his own a few years later he found profit making scissors for hair salons. The company he founded, Tokosha, now sells its Joewell brand scissors in more than 50 countries, for as much as ¥330,000 ($2,900) a pop. “We make scissors in the Japanese countryside but export to New York, London and Paris,” boasts Inoue Kenji, a grandson of the founder and Tokosha’s current boss. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS Android . Companies such as Tokosha, which has around 50 employees, make up a big share of Japan’s economy. The country has some 3.6m small and medium-size enterprises ( SME s), which employ 70% of workers (in Britain the figure is 61%). These firms are less productive than peers in other wealthy places. The gap between the labour productivity of Japan’s SME s and its bigger companies is greater than the average in the OECD , a club of rich countries. In the … [Read more...] about Japan’s small businesses are in trouble

F OR YEARS some libertarians have dreamed of creating floating settlements. Fans of “seasteading” talk of setting up self-governing hamlets in international waters, which would charge little or no tax. In 2019 Chad Elwartowski and Supranee Thepdet, an American and a Thai, spent time living in a small cabin floating some 12 miles off Thailand’s coast. The Thai government objected, towing away their “sea stead” soon after it was built. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS Android . Elsewhere in Asia governments see value in tempting people to live on water (but not to govern themselves). In November officials in Busan, a port in South Korea, said they planned to offer space for a floating neighbourhood that may be built near its shore. The project is endorsed by UN-HABITAT , a UN agency that deals with urbanisation. Itai Madamombe of Oceanix, the company that aims to fund and build the floating platform, says its prototype will cost around $200m and have room for 300-500 … [Read more...] about Busan, a South Korean city, plans a floating neighbourhood

I N THE NAMANVE industrial park on the edge of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, trucks rumble through the dust, laden with steel. Sacks of coffee pile up in warehouses. And at Raxio data centre, which opened this year, a local corner of the internet is encased in rows of gleaming racks. Reach out, and you can touch the cloud. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS Android . Most of Africa’s data are currently stored elsewhere, zipping down undersea cables that often make landfall in the French city of Marseille. From the continent’s southern tip it can take 180 milliseconds for a message to reach Europe and back—long enough to frustrate people trying to trade shares or play games. But a flurry of investment in data centres is now bringing the internet closer to users, laying the ground for a digital revolution. An upheaval is overdue. Africa has more internet users than America, but only as much data-centre space as Switzerland. Demand is soaring as more people get online. … [Read more...] about Data centres are taking root in Africa

DBS CEO Piyush Gupta speaks during a Reuters Newsmaker event in Singapore on March 2, 2017. (Photo by Edgar Su/Reuters filepix) - A + A SINGAPORE (Dec 3): Singapore's digital banks will find it hard to carve out space in the city-state's saturated market, said Piyush Gupta, the CEO of DBS Group, Southeast Asia's biggest lender. Online-only banks are due to start operations in Singapore next year, marking the financial hub's biggest banking shake-up in two decades. "In Singapore, it's not that easy for digital banks to carve out space," Gupta told the Reuters Next conference on Friday, pointing to Singapore's 98% banking penetration and incumbents' strong digital product suite. "Even in markets like Brazil and China you can see that the relative market share, size and growth of the incumbent banking system hasn't shifted very much," he said. Singapore-based internet platform company Sea Ltd, as well as Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm Grab's venture with … [Read more...] about DBS CEO says tough for digital banks to muscle into Singapore