Stories about Economics & Business from July, 2010
Qatar: Residents survive change to eight-digit phone numbers
In an effort to meet future demand, Qatar changes most mobile and landline numbers from seven to eight digits. Residents complain, but find the transition to be easier than expected.
Qatar: Expats Question Future Plans
If you are a long term resident in one of the GCC countries, what are your long-term plans? What will you do when you return home? At Qatar Living, expatriates attempt to answer the inevitable question: What will you do when you return home?
Philippines: Opposition to Rail Transit Fare Hikes
Metro Manila commuters of the Metro Rail Transit will be facing fare hikes as the Philippine government plans to abandon subsidies for the public transportation because of rising operation and maintenance costs. Bloggers react
Latvia: Concerns Over the Future of the Largest Daily, Free Press
With the ownership of the largest daily newspaper, Diena, in question, many journalists in Latvia fear business interests and political influence would rule the news coverage ahead of the October parliamentary elections.
Cuba: Economic Effects
“The unemployment phenomenon, which is vehemently denied by high officials in the government, is nothing new”: Iváns File Cabinet uses the example of Cuba's only telecommunications company to illustrate its effects.
Kenya: Mobile Payment Revolution
Erik looks at mobile payment services in Kenya: “Kenya is quickly gaining a competitive advantage in the mobile payments space. Led by mobile operator giant Safaricom with their Mpesa product, the market locally sees huge value in mobile money transactions.”
China: Looking for supplier
David Petersson gives some tips on identifying good and reliable suppliers in China.
Taiwan: Threatened by Microsoft
Tetralet complains about his recent experience with Microsoft [zht] about how the software giant emailed and called to threaten that if Tetralet does not welcome Microsoft to “help his company on software property management“, Microsoft would report to superiors and “what's going to happen is not predicable“.
Latvia: ‘The Harmony Center’ Political Bloc
All About Latvia writes about Saskaņas Centrs (“The Harmony Center”), Lativa's “most popular” political bloc.
The Balkans: Regional Lottery vs Nationalism
Belgraded writes about the planned revival of “the one big regional lottery” in the former Yugoslavia and does not “miss the opportunity to point out just how stupid nationalism is.”
Dominica: Going Virtual
“The Commonwealth of Dominica has gone virtual with great alacrity” in order to promote tourism; Repeating Islands has the details.
Taiwan: Manhattan”s” in Taipei
Pomelo(鉑鎂鑼) criticizes the vacuum promises(zht) made by Taipei mayor Hau Lung-pin who promises to build one Manhattan in Shezi region, yet another Manhattan in the basin of Danshui river before the coming election.
Malaysia: Drop in Foreign Direct Investments
The recently released United Nations World Investment Report 2010 brought to light the shape of the Malaysian economy to its citizens: Foreign direct investment has dropped by 81 percent. Here are some online reactions.
Ecuador: Leader of Citizen's Revolution Has an Economics Blog
Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa has been known for promoting Open Source Software. To prove this, he has created a blog where he explains economic matters didactically, so that people can understand the economic analysis, charts and concepts. He has been posting since May 29, 2010 in the multimedia blog Economía en...
Spain: First Online Galician Newspaper Closes Down
The first monolingual Galician online newspaper Vieiros [gz] has closed down after 15 years because of financial problems. In a melancholy post, Galician reporter McShuíbhne says the loss of language online amounts to a loss of nation.
Bangladesh: Minimum Wages Raised In Garments Sector
After long protests and bargaining with the employers and the workers, the Bangladesh Government has decided to raise the minimum wages to Tk. 3000 per month ($44) which is approximately double of the current minimum wages. Bloggers discuss how this impacts the workers and the industry.
South Korea: A Politician’s ‘Emperor’s Dish’ Enraged Struggling Koreans
A South Korean politician's effort to experience the minimum wage earner's life went backfire due to poor understanding on the severity of the working poor's life conditions.
China: Explosion in Nanjing
A ruptured gas main is the reported cause of an explosion [zh] this morning at a plastics factory currently being torn down in NE Nanjing. Injuries are reportedly in the hundreds, while the number of deaths has yet to be confirmed. Free More News has been aggregating links to photos...
Taiwan: Film Festival of “Food and People”
Karen Yu announces on okogreen blog that the “2010 Food and People Film Festival”(zht)-co-hosted by fair-trade coffee shops and environmental NGOs-will be showing 4 documentaries on each friday through out September. The 4 documentaries are We Feed The World, Sustainable Table, Bullshit, and Black Gold.
South Korea: Expectations for New Micro-Finance Loans Rise Among Skeptics
New "Sunshine" micro-finance loans for low income households have just been launched in South Korea. Koreans struggling amidst a financial crisis greeted the news with enthusiasm, although some are also carefully skeptical.
Russia: Privatization revisited
The Pipeline discusses the announcement of Russia's biggest privatization drive since the 1990s, departing from an article [RUS] in Vedomosti.
