In the Italian province of Rovigo, Amazon’s arrival appeared to be an opportunity to revive the area’s economy and create jobs. But two and a half years later, it’s clear that the giant has had a negative impact on the struggling area.
Tag: amazon
In his final address to the nation, just days before his departure, U.S. President Joe Biden warned against the emergence of a “tech-industrial complex” that threatens democracy; a charge against tech barons, including Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, who have pledged allegiance to incoming President Donald Trump.
With the announcement that Elon Musk will become part of Donald Trump’s administration, the tech billionaire’s influence on the U.S. will keep on growing. From pouring hundreds of millions into Trump’s campaign to bending social media narratives, Musk’s actions underscore the ease with which the techno-oligarchy can buy political sway, writes Natalia Viana of Brazil’s leading investigative platform Agência Pública.
Bezos, Branson, Musk, Isaacman. Will the billionaires throwing untold resources into private space travel prove to be visionaries or just thrill seekers? The latest, Isaacman’s Polaris dawn mission, launched Tuesday with the objective to feature the first ever private spacewalk.
Updated August 21, 2024 at 11:00 a.m. Brazil reports fires burning in the Amazon Rainforest at unprecedented rate on this day in 2019. How extensive were the fires in the Amazon rainforest? The fires in the Amazon rainforest of 2019 were widespread, affecting multiple countries in the region. The exact extent of the fires varied, […]
Our battle to keep local stores open, despite the evolution of our consumption habits, may just be the expression of nostalgia of a rural dream that is gone. Or is it really?
An investigation reveals that the company does not own any of the three renewable power plants it claims to operate in Spain — as well as a scheme allowing Amazon to dodge full regulatory oversight of its projects.
Discreet about its strategy, the Chinese company Temu is proving a fierce competitor to incumbent e-commerce brands, notably Amazon, by operating at a major loss. Some are worried whether its aim is to collect something more valuable: data on the habits of Westerners.
The term was coined by journalist Cory Doctorow to explain the fatal drift of major Internet platforms: if they were ever useful and user-friendly, they will inevitably end up being odious.
More than a decade ago, with the economy growing and political capital committed to public research and development, Brazil was the poster child for investing in the future. It was all bound to drop out quickly once the winds changed.
The murder of Brazil indigenist Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips is shocking. Still, once looking more closely, it is not necessarily a surprise considering both the violence in Brazil and the situation in the rain forest under President Jair Bolsonaro.
Illegal mining and deforestation are destroying parts of the Amazon and devastating indigenous people’s lives. As laws and governments fail to protect the environment and vulnerable communities, locals have turned to the imagination of the future generation.
? Dumêlang!* Welcome to Thursday, where a U.S. air raid in Syria kills civilians, tainted cocaine kills 20 in Argentina, and Jeff Bezos’ superyacht gets special treatment in Rotterdam. Thanks to Persian-language media Kayhan, we also look at the discontent brewing among Iranians vis-à-vis their country’s religious government. [*Northern Sotho, South Africa] SPOTLIGHT I […]
? Selamat pagi!* Welcome to Friday, where a new fast-spreading coronavirus variant has been identified in South Africa, Amazon is hit by global protests on Black Friday and IKEA is renting a tiny apartment for a tiny rent in Japan. Meanwhile, boars, jaguars, pumas and bears invade our newsletter as we look at how wildlife […]
Long perceived as a country chasing Western tech, China’s business and technological innovations are now influencing the rest of the world. Still lagging on some fronts, the future is now up for grabs.
Since Agnès Varda, Louis Malle and Michel Gondry, trying one’s luck in Hollywood has become an obsession for some French filmmakers. But Netflix and friends are changing the formula.
Would an agreement with the Americans make the Bolsonaro government change course?
Europe is moving forward in a united front to force Big Tech that could lead to a historic showdown on the future of how the digital economy functions.
As the European Commission targets U.S. retail giant Amazon for alleged antitrust violations, David Barroux in French business daily Les Echos offers his own take.
“Amazon is ‘un-Swedish”…” Yes, in my country too, you’d probably hear something called osvenskt in one of those low-budget conference halls where “patriots’ gather to drink domestic beer and worry about the Moderland. So, you’ll be surprised that slap at the U.S. e-retailer was delivered by my old Swedish Econ101 professor, 10 years ago, as […]
Even in its more profitable heyday, the ad-driven media model had its fundamental flaws.
An indigenous tribe in Brazil’s Amazon region has seen plenty of coronavirus cases, but zero deaths.
Welcome to Wednesday, where the fighting in Gaza intensifies despite international calls for ceasefire, COVID deaths hit a new record in India and a flooded Italian village resurfaces. Le Monde“s correspondent Louis Imbert reports from the West Bank where more and more young supporters of the ruling Fatah party are joining the clashes with Israeli […]
Welcome to Wednesday, where Aung San Suu Kyi is charged and Alexei Navalny is sentenced. Also Jeff Bezos announces he will step down as Amazon CEO, in utero music is a thing and Mada Masr probes into the politics of hair in Egyptian schools. • COVID-19 latest: In search of the origins of COVID, a […]
Categories
Here Fly The Little Amazonian Birds
Le petit oiseau va sortir…! “Here flies the little bird!” is what we say in France when we want our subjects to pay attention and look at the camera. That time in Manaus, one of the gateways to the lush Brazilian rainforest, these vibrant orange birds didn’t fly away just long enough to get this […]
Careful cultivation of the Amazon’s curative fruits and plants could be far more profitable than destructive practices like soy or livestock farming.
Categories
Everything And The Kitchen Sink
Fish, fruit, pottery, an endless selection of drain pipes: the massive open-air markets were a vivid memory from the northern Brazilian city of Belem.
It’s easy to fault Jair Bolsonaro for his apparent indifference to the unfolding environmental disaster in Brazil. But there’s plenty of blame to go around.
How economic actors, communities and developing countries fare in the digital economy will depend in large part on how much control they have over the data they produce.
PARIS — Are there pictures? Nowadays, in almost every criminal inquiry, this is the first thing judges and prosecutors ask. “We can’t work without these tools,” says Elisabeth Sellos-Cartel, video-protection officer in the Interior Ministry’s security cooperation delegation. “Big Brother is watching you” is no longer a concept of much concern, it seems, to authorities […]
The digital behemoths Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon have long sold dreamy ideals. In reality, their business models are very conventional. Their extraordinary power is founded solely on their digital leverage.
-OpEd- PARIS — When Amazon realized that its AI recruiting tool favored men, the company quickly shelved it. Back in 2016, a chatbot released by Microsoft turned into a sex-obsessed neo-Nazi machine in only 24 hours. These incidents, along with others, played right into the hands of all those who say there is too much […]
WASHINGTON — I loved Amazon when it first appeared. It was the 1990s, and I was living in Italy and then China, two countries that are strongly monolingual with a scarce number of foreign-language bookstores. Rome for instance, with three and a half million inhabitants at the time, had a couple of English bookstores and […]
Categories
Life On The Amazon
You can travel the world for more than 60 years without being an aventurier, per se. Still, we got pretty close from the relative comfort of our Amazon cruise where we saw this passing moment of indigenous life in the Brazilian rainforest.
Despite billions in fines against the U.S. giant by the European Commission, Google continues to crush Europe’s once-prosperous price comparison services.
Amazon is upending the commercial status quo. And yet, as much as people like to complain about it, the temptation to use it can be irresistible.
DaWanda will soon disappear, clearing the way for its top competitor — the U.S. firm Etsy — to dominate the e-commerce market for homemade goods.
BOGOTA — “Our grandparents knew our territory well, its sacred and productive places, but also the risks we assumed if we did not use resources appropriately….” These are the words of José Zafiama, a teacher of the Uitoto indigenous people and member of the Azicatch Indigenous organization, which brings together peoples in the Predio Putumayo […]
Tim Cook’s company is a rock of common sense in an industry that’s gone rogue.
SAN FRANCISCO — On Amazon, customer comments can help a product surge in popularity. The online retail giant says that more than 99 percent of its reviews are legitimate because they are written by real shoppers who aren’t paid for them. But a Washington Post examination found that for some popular product categories, such as Bluetooth headphones and speakers, the vast majority of reviews appear to violate Amazon’s prohibition on paid reviews. Such reviews have certain characteristics, such as repetitive wording that people probably cut and paste in. Many of these fraudulent reviews originate on Facebook, where sellers seek shoppers […]