· July, 2011

Stories about Economics & Business from July, 2011

Chile: Starbucks Employees on Hunger Strike

  31 July 2011

In Chile, a cup of coffee at Starbucks costs more than the baristas’ wages for one hour of work. This is what the 3 union leaders [es] on hunger strike in Chile state through a handwritten sign in this video [es]. They demand Starbucks to comply with only 4 out...

U.S.A., Japan: The US Declares War On The Japanese Mafia

  31 July 2011

Investigative journalist Jake Adelstein reported [en] that US President Obama has officially declared war on the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia, as it represents an “extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.” Japansubculture.com also published the text of the actual executive order.

Puerto Rico: Libraries and Reading

  28 July 2011

Gil the Jenius puts forward a theory about why “there are no decent libraries on the island”, adding that with the current levels of Internet penetration, “We don't have any excuses anymore.”

Africa: Membership Opens For mLab SA

  28 July 2011

Application for membership for mLab Southern Africa has opened: “The mLab SA provides incubation support to mobile developers and entrepreneurs through the following services: subsidised office space with meeting rooms – to allow members to benefit from being part of the mobile startup community; training and accreditation on mobile technologies...

Lebanon: Maritime Dispute with Israel Escalates

Hezballah leader Hassan Nasrallah has exclaimed that God had given Lebanon an opportunity to rid itself of a crippling debt, and become a "rich country" by providing it lucrative offshore oil and gas reserves. However, the reserves potentially lie in a disputed maritime border zone with Israel.

Jamaica: An Anime Nation to be Reckoned With

  27 July 2011

Jamaipanese says that this year's Anime Nation was “bigger and better” than its inaugural event, calling it “an epic event for fans of anime, cosplay, video games and Japan as patrons came from all over Jamaica to enjoy the event many of them wearing costumes or “cosplaying” as their favourite...

Russia: Megafon/Yandex Text Message Leak

Svetlana Gladkova of Profy writes that “one of the largest Russian mobile carriers [Megafon] and the leading Russian search engine [Yandex] need to explain quite a lot of things to their users […] due to an unspeakable data leak as thousands of SMS messages sent via Megafon website got publicly...

Peru: Football, TV Ads, Mining and Social Networks

  26 July 2011

On Tuesday, July 19, while Peruvians suffered with the semifinal match between Peru-Uruguay for the Copa América, netizens who were watching the game had a reason to tweet with anger: an advertising spot aired during halftime which used the traditional rivalry between Peru and Chile to find supporters against increasing the mining windfall tax.

Slovakia: Big Money in the Tube

A few weeks ago, the Slovak Performing and Mechanical Rights society (SOZA) - the country's music copyright organization - started billing web servers, typically for young music fans, which were embedding YouTube and Vimeo videos on their pages. Tibor Blazko reports on the Slovak netizens' reactions.

Azerbaijan: Fascinated by Georgia

Şüarımız GƏLƏCƏK! [AZ] travels to Georgia and becomes charmed by the beauty and “scent of democracy” the country offers in the region. The blogger notes that while his home country of Azerbaijan is considered to be the fastest growing economy in the South Caucasus it still lags behind from Georgia...