Weekly Roundup: October 3, 2016
Comoros ∙ Benin ∙ Belarus ∙ Saudi Arabia∙ Netherlands ∙ Kuwait ∙ Lebanon∙ Sint Maarten∙ Germany ∙ Ireland
Once weekly I share the top stories from ten countries based on a simple random sample from the U.S. Department of State’s list of countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. If you like what you read, please subscribe to receive these Roundups weekly in your mailbox: http://eepurl.com/b-SrOb.
Comoros
News was more difficult to find for this small archipelago nation between Mozambique and Madagascar, with the biggest story being President Azali Assoumani passionately calling for a swift implementation of the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals while attending the annual UN General Assembly heads-of-state kickoff late September. He took an interesting approach to commenting on the ensuing migration crisis by framing it as a sustainable development issue, since through sustainable development, states can become “capable of stabilizing peoples in their homelands.”
Benin
Minister of Communication and Digital Economy Rafiatou Monrou was excited to announce last week that the long-awaited transition from analogue to digital media would finally happen in June 2017. This is a revitalization of the all-but-finalized efforts of 2015 that fizzled to a halt when negotiating partners were not all in agreement on the processes of the transition — the nature of the process demands a high level of public and private coordination. “This is a turning point,” he said during the press conference.
Belarus
News that would make any Illinois citizen jealous, the Belarusian House of Representatives approved its 2017 budget after its first reading, The budget maintains the social focus from this year, prioritizing healthcare and education. Chief among its 2017 goals are, in addition to following its social development plan for 2016–2020, to improve economic competitiveness abroad and recover any previously-lost economic growth. In addition to approving the budget without much partisan arguing, the budget projects an impressive surplus of Br 1.5B (or $700B USD). To be fair, there isn’t a whole lot of partisan anything in the Belarusian House, of whose 110 members, 93 are “independent” of political party.
Saudi Arabia
Here I am wondering when the glory of one extra hour of sleep will come thanks to a programmed glitch in our time-keeping system, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia goes and completely changes its calendar. That’s right, Saudi Arabia officially lept off its long-used lunar-based Hijri calendar to the solar-based, and more-or-less, globally-used Gregorian calendar. The Saudi private sector had been using the Gregorian calendar for years to help it facilitate international trade, but this move officially moved the Kingdom from one calendar to the other. The move is seen by many as part of the government’s attempts to cut on budget expenses by paying the same for 365 total days of potential work (Gregorian) versus 354 days of potential work (Hijri).
Netherlands
Some business news now as Dutch equivalent of Grubhub, Takeaway.com, launched its IPO (TKWY) on Euronext. Though Bloomberg suggested that the IPO be given a Yelp rating of three of five stars, the stock did considerably better than expected, raising the company €328m to help fund its expansion and marketing efforts. The company, which operates in ten mostly northern continental European countries, had expanded rather easily until it reached Germany where it has had to expend significantly more resources on marketing due to fierce competition from native Delivery Hero.
Kuwait
The Kuwaiti Health Ministry held a large event late last week in celebration of World Heart Day where ministry Media Officer Dr. Ghalya Al-Mutairi revealed several several significant health statistics that affect the modern Kuwaiti people. She announced that 20.5% of adult Kuwaitis still smoke while a whopping 56% suffer from high cholesterol. Even more alarming, 77% of cases of heart disease are now attributed to being overfat. The event used the slogan “Change Your Life” while laying out the ministry’s “plan to raise awareness of chronical and communicable diseases and means of preventing them.”
Lebanon
I have mentioned here before how much I enjoy agricultural protests, and I am pleased to report that Lebanese apple farmers have brought us our second with their “Day of Rage” this passed Saturday. Instead of making their intended targets (national government) take notice, though, civilian motorists seemed to have been the ones most hit — sometimes quite literally. While some apple farmers in Tarshish merely slowed traffic to hand apples to passersby, others near Beirut blockaded highways and threw their presumably not-rotten apples at the frustrated vehicles. The rage of the apple farmers stems (Ha. See what I did there?) from their desire for government subsidies as well as more aggressive pushing of their product on international markets and other trade policy reforms.
Sint Maarten
The Dutch half of the island had parliamentary elections last week, but results have been delayed due to the painstaking process of recounting the ballots thanks to an “unfortunate incident.” Apparently during the initial voting, one voter was stopped as they were voting by the chairperson of that voting location, informing them that they had been “deregistered from the registry.” This set off a chain of confusion (that, quite frankly, I am included in) which resulted in the decision to just recount everything. Well it’s good that they did, because while doing so, election officials discovered several invalid ballots where some voted for every candidate on the ballot, and at least one other voted for “I love you Baby.”
Germany
Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Dresden this Monday morning to begin celebrations of German Reunification Day, but she and President Joachim Gauck were met with less-than-celebratory chants of “Get out!” If that weren’t enough, the crowd had brought signs as if it were an episode of College Game Day uring her to vacate her office. Don’t worry though; she’s not really that unpopular — the former East German town is the birthplace of far right party Pegida. A predictable modern theme for many Western countries, Pegida tends to be overtly nationalistic, terrified of migrants, and resentful of liberal economics. Though Merkel seems as undaunted as ever in her conviction that love and a warm embrace are the keys to a happy future, the government does estimate that growing xenophobia “could threaten peace in eastern Germany.”
Ireland
The Institute of Technology Carlow will soon offer the first Bachelor of Science degree in Ireland dedicated to “Brewing and Distilling.” Though the island has been almost synonymous with Guinness for quite some time, the Republic is seeing a “massive growth of craft brewing and distilling.” Course topics will range from yeast biology to raw resources, malting and production methods to marketing. Irish whiskey exports are up by 60% since 2009 while upwards of 100 new microbreweries are expected to open in Ireland by 2025.
