opening

There is nothing extraordinary about Hong Kong opening a store 24 hours a day, except that it is run by a humanoid robot.

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China has a particular way of understanding and integrating AI into daily life. While in the US it is committed to leading the large language models, in China the strategy involves creating what they call ’embodied AI’, which we can translate as ‘Personified AI’. China wants to export its strategy and wants to start in Hong Kong, where they will open a store run by a robot. What is happening. It was announced by the Chinese Secretary of Finance, Paul Chan Mo-po, in his weekly blog. In the post, he talks about Hong Kong’s strategy to boost AI and make it an everyday benefit for its citizens. As part of this plan, a convenience store will be opened on the Hung Hom seafront, which will be open 24 hours a day and will be run by a humanoid robot that will be able to offer service in multiple languages. The text does not clarify which company is behind this initiative and simply states that it is a company from mainland China; Among the most prominent robotics companies in China are Unitree and Deep Robotics, although there are many more. According to the announcement, the opening of this store will be their first outside of mainland China and they have chosen Hong Kong as “the first stop in the global expansion of their retail store concept.” Robots working in front of the public. Although it is not clear which company it is, we suspect it may be Galbot. Because? Because at the end of last year my colleague Alex was in Beijing and already He encountered a robot from this company in front of a small beverage store in a shopping center. Alex bought a bottle of water and says the experience was similar to that of a vending machine, but much more expensive and slower. Drones and autonomous cars. During my last trip to China I also came across a similar store run by a robot, but at that time I couldn’t stop to put it to the test. What I was able to experience is what it is like to ride in a Pony.ai brand autonomous taxi and then order a bubble tea to be brought to me by a drone. Both experiences are available in Shenzhen, of course. Taxis are much more integrated into daily life, while the delivery with drones is still a rarity reserved for a few points in the city. The goal behind personified AI. All these examples are part of the push for what the Chinese government calls ’embodied AI’. It is an AI that has a physical presence, that is, it interacts with the environment through sensors and actuators and can take the form of a robot, autonomous car or drone. The government mentions it in its 2025 jobs report and has made it a national priority for a reason: it is the next phase in boosting its robotics industry. In this sense, the fact that more and more robots are seen on the streets of Chinese cities is not a simple technological extravagance, but is part of a more ambitious plan. Robots are the way to sustain industrial growth despite factors such as rising wages or the population aging. Image | Blog of the financial secretariat, China In Xataka | China is preparing a hotel where robots will act as receptionists, waiters, cleaners and security guards: it aims to automate almost everything

Mexico has turned the opening of the World Cup into its greatest showcase. A wave of protests threatens to turn him against him

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Welcome the inauguration A World Cup is always a guarantee of something: visibility. There are few ‘showcases’ comparable to being the city in which the ball of a FIFA tournament begins to roll, something that will happen tonight (peninsular time) in Mexico City. What is not so clear is what the rest of the planet will see through that showcase: the Government hopes to offer a great sports festival, but there is seven protests summoned that threaten to spoil the day and leave a very different image. The World Cup ball is not the only one that rolls. And the day came. If you like sports (and if you don’t, too) it is likely that you had March 11 marked in red on your calendar. Barring an unforeseen catastrophe, this afternoon, at 9:00 p.m. peninsular time, the teams of Mexico and South Africa will play the opening match of the 2026 Soccer World Cup. They will do so in the Azteca stadium from Mexico City, after an opening ceremony in which several artists will participate and which will experience its climax when Shakira and Burna Boy perform the song of the World Cup, ‘Dai dai’. More than football. The normal thing on a day like today is that the host country of the World Cup dedicates itself to talking basically about football. Mexico knows it well, which has experience in the matter: this will be the third time in which it hosts the World Cup tournament, something it already did in 1970 and 1986. Today, however, the Mexican authorities (especially those in CDMX) are awaiting something else: half a dozen calls of protests that will start from different points of the city towards the vicinity of the stadium where athletes, authorities and fans will meet. What protests? The diary The Universal speaks of at least seven calls confirmed and organized by groups of transporters, health workers, peasant associations and pensioners who basically want to take advantage of two things: the media attention generated by the World Cup and the Government’s interest in avoiding any conflict that tarnishes the FIFA tournament. There are two mobilized groups that stand out above the rest due to the exposure they have achieved in recent weeks. The first are the ‘seeking mothers’that they cry out for justice for your missing relatives. The second, the teachersorganized in the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) and who have been demanding labor improvements for some time. Although the Executive has tried until the last moment reach an agreement with them to deactivate today’s protests, both parties (Education and CNTE) remain very distant. Claudia Sheibaum’s team does has been luckier with the farmers, who also threatened to mobilize. @lajornadaonline Hours before the soccer festival begins, the pain of the families of missing people is manifested in Mexico City. Collectives of searching mothers walk towards the Mexico City stadium, but the capital police prevented them from passing through Tlalpan. ♬ original sound – lajornadaonline – lajornadaonline “They want to provoke us”. The conflict does not catch the Government by surprise. The CNTE it takes months showing its discomfort and its relationship with the Sheinbaum Government has been strained in recent weeks, which has even led some of its members to break into the headquarters of the Ministry of Public Education. The most critical episode occurred a few days agowhen a teacher lost an eye after being hit by a rubber bullet while participating in a march. Incidents like this are the ones that now, a few hours before the start of the World Cup, the Government wants to avoid at all costs. “There are groups that want to provoke us, and they are not necessarily teachers. In other words, what they are looking for is repression, I say it clearly. What they are looking for is that before the opening of the World Cup the international note is: ‘The Government of Mexico represses teachers’. That is what they are looking for, but they are not going to have it,” Sheinbaum assured on Monday. The scenario is not simple. Both the president and the Government of CDMX assure that will respect the right to protest, but at the same time they are taking measures to shield the Azteca and prevent the protests from altering the World Cup agenda. “National Security Facility”. The Secretary of Government of CDM, César Cravioto, it was very clear about it on Tuesday: the capital’s stadium, he warned, “is already a national security facility.” Hence, access controls and protection have been reinforced. “They will have to understand that in less than 48 hours the World Cup will open here, in the stadium, and we have to protect it.” Cravioto insisted also that fans are “guaranteed” access to the Azteca, although he asked them to arrive “early” to avoid “complications.” ABC assures that there are professionals (journalists, stadium workers, sponsors…) who are already considering heading to the area at seven in the morning, six hours before the opening match starts. The focus is not only on the Azteca. The Secretariat of Citizen Security has also deployed a special device on the perimeter of the Mexico City International Airport to anticipate the arrival of CNTE protesters. Of laws and pensions. In the background is the clash between the Executive and the teachers represented by the CNTE, who on May 1, Labor Day, presented a document with their requests to the Government. In general lines propose eliminating the ISSSTE law of 2007, changes in educational reforms, recovering a solidarity pension system for teachers and a salary improvement. For now, and despite the eight-hour meeting held in extremison the eve of the World Cup, there has been no agreement with the Government, which maintains that the change in pensions would skyrocket its cost. The teachers’ protests will match today with those of the ‘seeking mothers’, who have been demanding that the Executive not forget the tens of thousands of people with unknown whereabouts that Mexico accumulates. Before, the group has … Read more

Despite the fact that it has been losing population and readers for years, Japan does not stop opening new libraries. And it makes perfect sense

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Japan has increasingly less people (in general). And less fond of reading (in particular). Despite one or the other, for years the country has been experiencing a curious phenomenon: its library network does not stop expanding, with hundreds and hundreds of new reading positions. To be more precise, Nikkei estimates that in 2024 there will be around 3,400 libraries spread across Japan, which is equivalent to 800 more than those that operated in 1999. The big question is… Why? The great paradox. In a country with less and less people and in which the passion for reading is losing ground, the logical thing would be for libraries to close. In Japan the first and the second happen (fewer people, fewer readers), but not the third. The curious thing is that he is not only avoiding the closures of reading positions. It is increasing them. Anyone who wants to find a place to read books at no cost has it much easier today than it was 25 years ago. Reviewing the data. To understand the paradox, it is necessary to first review three pieces of information. The first is the evolution of the Japanese population. According to World Bank Group, in 2024 they will reside in the country 123.9 million peopleconsiderably less than the 128 million it reached in 2010. And the medium and long-term outlook is not much better. The latest statistics Officials reveal that, far from slowing down, the decline in the birth rate is reaching historic figures and is advancing faster than the authorities anticipated. If nothing changes, in 2050 the population will fall to about 100 million. Less people, fewer readers. That is the second key. If we talk about reading, the problem is not so much that there are fewer Japanese as that those who exist seem less and less interested in literature. In 2018 the Agency for Cultural Affairs launched a survey to find out how often their fellow citizens read. He discovered that among those over 16 years of age the percentage of those who read less than one book a month was around 40-49%. In 2023, this indicator had already risen to 62.6%. Another 27.6% said they read between one and two books a month. As if that clue wasn’t clear enough, the number of bookstores open in Japan fell about 30% in just a decade. And the surprise came. With these figures on the table, the fact that just disclosed Nikkei and with which we started this article: today in Japan there are 30% more libraries than in 2000. Of the 2,600 public centers (in the hands of municipalities and districts) in operation at the beginning of the century, there were 3,400 in 2024. In 1996 they did not even reach 2,500. Although Japan is not far from it the country with higher ratio of reading seats per inhabitant, the increase is considerable and some libraries can even boast of moving hundreds of thousands of users a year. The Tenmonkan one, inaugurated in 2022, is around 700,000 people annually, many of them young people under 30 years of age. How is it possible? The big question. And the answer is simple: in Japan the libraries are not only more numerous, they are also they are changing. They are still reading spaces where one goes in search of books or a quiet room in which to devour a novel or study, but they are also places of socialization. Something similar to community centers, only with shelves full of books. “Residents use libraries very often. Together with auditoriums and museums, they attract people and create a lively atmosphere,” points out Katsuyoshi Kinoshita, head of the Foundation for the Advancement of Libraries. The “third place”. “They are spaces where people not only read books, but can also enjoy story-telling and other events or relax in a cafe,” confirm to Nikkei Fumihiko Suzuki of the Daiwa Research Institute. This openness has turned libraries into a kind of “third place” for many Japanese, a reference space beyond their homes, jobs or schools. Access is free, you can stay there as long as you want, there are always people and they often offer alternative activities to reading: events in auditoriums or for children, historical materials, museums… They are, in short, “meeting places.” Is it something spontaneous? Not quite. As explains Sadao Uematsu, of the Japanese Library Association, the phenomenon is partly explained by the “mergers” promoted at the beginning of the century, when “many reading rooms in community centers were converted into municipal libraries.” The success achieved last decade by some projects focused precisely on reading spaces encouraged other municipalities to get on the bandwagon. In recent years the pace of library opening has slowed down, but even so the phenomenon has aroused the interest of international institutions such as the World Economic Forum, which in February dedicated it an extensive analysis that connects the ‘boom’ of libraries with another of the phenomena that mark Japanese society: aging. In a country in which those over 65 years of age represent more than 29% of the population, spaces with community activities have become a key element for the well-being of the elderly. Against this backdrop, libraries have become valuable allies. Images | Olegs Jonins (Unsplash) and Yanhao Fang (Unsplash) In Xataka | While Japan’s population is sinking irremediably, Tokyo is growing. There is an explanation: ikkyoku shūchū

Opening a company in a single visit to the administration sounds like utopia. In China it has been law for years

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Bureaucracy is probably one of the few things on which there is almost absolute consensus: everyone hates her. Queuing from window to window, discovering that you are missing a photocopy, returning another day because the official who signs is not there… an administrative ordeal, but it doesn’t have to be like this: years ago, in China they set out to end the labyrinth of procedures with one objective: so that more companies can be created to be more competitive. One visit at most. The ‘one visit at most’ reform It was promoted in the province of Zhejiang in 2016 and today it has spread to more territories in the country. The central objective is to unify all the procedures into one, so that those who want to form a new company only have to go to the administration once, avoiding the “walk” through different windows. It does not only affect the creation of companies, but all types of procedures such as birth certificates, registration records, registrations for health insurance and health cards. In addition, there are many procedures that can be done electronically, it is what they call ‘zero visit’ and the idea is that over time more and more processes will be added to this list. How it was before. Before this reform the process was not only much more tedious, but also much slower. a businessman counted in CGNT To get a permit you had to go through a lot of procedures, the lines were very long and it took several weeks. And if everything went well, if a document was missing or there was an error, you would have to start over. Another businesswoman says that she sent the documentation online and when she went to do the process it took her only 15 minutes to get the permit. Land of entrepreneurship. That this reform has been promoted in Zhejiang is no coincidence. It is the province in which Hangzhou is located, the city that has become the reference technological hub for AI companies. Here you can find Alibaba, DeepSeek, Unitree or Deep Robotics. It is also where the Zhejiang Universitynicknamed “the Stanford of the East”, and where many of those who are today senior executives of technology companies have studied. The streamlining of bureaucracy is one of all the measures that the government has implemented and which also include very advantageous loans for entrepreneurs. One person companies. Recently We were talking about ‘one person companies’ or OCP and how the Chinese government is supporting this new entrepreneurship model. They are startups created by a single person with strong AI support, very much in the style of what he did Peter Steinberger with OpenClawwhich in turn has allowed many entrepreneurs to create their own solo companies. OCP communities are being created in cities like Suzhou, Wuhan offers special loans for ‘solopreneurs’ and in Shanghai they cover up to 300,000 yuan in computing expenses. How is it here? In Spain we also have our own agile business creation system called CIRCE. It works through the DUE (Single Electronic Document) that groups up to 25 administrative forms into one. Through CIRCE you can create or cease a company, whether it is a SL or a self-employed person, and it can take from one to ten days. Of course, for SLs it is still necessary to complete an in-person procedure at a notary office. Image | Studio4rt, Freepik In Xataka | For 60 years, a farmer with no idea about architecture built a cathedral from scratch in Madrid. The bureaucracy has closed it

opening private clubs for Spanish millionaires

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Madrid boasts of being a welcoming city for people from all over the world. That hospitality and its fiscal laxity with big capital have transformed the accent of some of the upper neighborhoods of the capital with the arrival of millionaires from all over Latin America. In fact, such has been the migration to the capital that some of the local millionaires have been displaced to other neighborhoods. As response to that massive arrivallocal millionaires have found a new way to socialize: select clubs for wealthy members, with five-figure entry fees and selection processes that are more reminiscent of a job interview than a place to socialize. Only in the last two years have they opened Forbes House, the Metrópolis Club in the iconic building on Gran Vía, the Vega Members Club and Soho House is about to arrive. Select and controversial club. Normally these spaces maintain a low profile and their openings do not appear in big headlines. However, the waiting list to enter some of them begins even before they open their doors. Remembering the scene from Brad Pitt in Fight Club: “The first rule of Fight Club is not to talk about Fight Club.” However, this silent phenomenon has made headlines after the statements by Tamara Falcó’s husband, by Íñigo Onieva collected by The World during the presentation of his club Vega Members Club. “We don’t want this to become the Latin American club either. We want there to be a balance between the local and international community,” Onieva said during the event. The comment seems to have not been well received by the Latin American millionaires living in the city, and has become an issue with economic, social and even political implications. The Latin response was immediate. As published The CountryOnieva’s statements quickly circulated among the richest and most influential Latin personalities in Madrid, generating surprise and indignation. Sergio Contreras, a Venezuelan political refugee in Madrid, goes further by reminding the managers of those clubs that some of those Spanish fortunes were made thanks to the fact that they emigrated at the time to countries like Venezuela. “There is a racist discourse that I am beginning to notice: first it was said that we took away their jobs in the real estate sector. Now, it turns out that we also steal their leisure and their apartments,” he complains. Manuel Campos Guallar, partner and co-owner of Vega, came forward to emphasize that different generations mix in these clubs, nationalities and professional profiles. For his part, the director of Forbes House, Andrés Rodríguez, was more direct: “We meet in the restaurants in Madrid, we meet in the stores, but we still don’t know each other very well nor are we doing much business,” he declared to the same medium. For Rodríguez, precisely connecting the Latin American community with the Spanish one is one of the missions of his project. Entering costs money, but above all contacts. Beyond the controversy raised by the right of admission by nationality, the new private clubs that have proliferated in Madrid are not exactly cheap, but money will not give you the key to enter either. Entering Forbes House or Vega does not depend only on being able to pay: there are interviews, filters and the mandatory recommendation of at least two current partners or the express invitation of the founders. Entry fees to these exclusive spaces are usually between 10,000 and 15,000 euros, to which must be added an annual fee that can exceed 2,000 euros. In the specific case de Vega, the founding members contributed 15,000 euros each and the annual fee is 2,400 euros and 1,500 for those under 35 years of age. The model was not born here, but it has found its moment here. Madrid has not invented this type of exclusive access clubs for select members. New York has been living for years The New York Times christening as “member-only mania“. A survey GGA Partners’ 2023 report reveals that 63% of clubs reported an increase in membership from 2022. Remote working created a class of well-paid executives hungry for a social life, and empty buildings after the pandemic provided the infrastructure necessary to satisfy it. London has been at this longer. The historian Seth Alexander Thévoz documents in his book ‘London, Clubland‘ a total of 133 active private clubs in the city, of which 78 are after 1985 and most of the newer ones have opened after 2015 or even 2022. Madrid is following that same path, with a small nuance: here the tension between the local and the international has given the phenomenon a charge that goes far beyond the economic filter to elect the wealthiest members of the city. The passport can also affect your income as a member. The business behind the phenomenon. Beyond the social nature of creating a space where millionaires from the capital can interact among equals, the proliferation of private clubs in Madrid is not a passing fad or a whim of four rich people: it responds to a structural transformation of the city. According to the latest report From Barnes City, the Community of Madrid leads foreign direct investment in Spain, concentrating close to 70% of the national total, with more than 24,000 million euros, and in 2026 it will repeat as the most attractive city for high net worth. That concentration of wealth It directly feeds the demand for exclusive leisure spaces for those ultra-rich clients. The business model of these private clubs for the rich is not new, but its scale is. He Club Matadorone of the oldest of this new cycle, has around 2,500 members and an approximate turnover of six million euros per year, with an annual membership of 1,720 euros. He New Clubof nineteenth-century essence and founded in 1856, has a maximum of 500 members, a permanent waiting list and a monthly fee of approximately 1,500 euros. The death of a partner is usually the only way of access for a new partner, … Read more

RAM is in an “unprecedented” crisis. So much so that even Tesla is considering opening its own memory factory

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Neither technological advances nor a revolution in devices: crises are what is defining the last years of the sector. He veto Huaweithe semiconductor crisis of 2020 and now, the RAM memory crisis. The difference between this crisis and the previous one is that, although the 2020 crisis was caused by a perfect storm, the RAM memory crisis is being caused by excessive interest in data centers and AI. And it is taking all sectors ahead. That there is no RAM memory for consumers is a symptom, but it implies something much bigger: although the main producers are investing millions to increase your RAM productionit is not memory for consumption, but for GPUs and data center systems. Only a few companies dominate the production of these chips, and if they cannot produce them, they do not produce the memory chips for SSDs –raising the price-. They dedicate all production to meeting the demands of AI. And, as we read in FortuneElon Musk, one of the owners of some of the largest data centers on the planethas shown that there are two ways to face this crisis: hitting the wall or taking action. And the translation is that Tesla is considering building its own RAM factory. The problem is that it is easier said than done. Tesla and Intel interested in biting the RAM biggies In recent weeks, some of the world’s leading companies have presented results and RAM has been the central topic. PlayStation, for example, has assured that they are very aware of their ability to continue manufacturing PS5 with the goal of not going upagain, the price. And NVIDIA has been stating for days that it needs TSMC – its main chip supplier – and Samsung – who provides them with new generation HBM4 memory – get the batteries. Meanwhile, the outlook is not good. own NVIDIA aims for seven or eight years of construction no brake on data centers. Intel assures that The crisis will extend beyond 2028 and Micron, one of the big three in DRAM memory, has cataloged the market bottleneck as “unprecedented.” In this technological tsunami, and during Tesla’s results presentation at the end of January, Elon Musk pointed out that the company could need to build your own memory manufacturing plant. The objective is the one that all companies have: ensure supply. Going from scratch to manufacturing RAM memory is easier said than done, however, here Tesla has an advantage: they are not new to chip manufacturing. Although they abandoned the project for a few months, at the beginning of this year Musk himself stated that They came back with their own chip for your data centers. Additionally, there is the fact that they are a company with enough muscle to create a clean chip manufacturing room next to some of its existing plants. Intel is another one looking to become one of the important voices in the RAM conversation. Together with the Japanese giant SoftBank, they are developing an evolution of stacked DRAM memory that have been baptized as ‘ZAM’ and that seeks to break the HBM memory monopoly of Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix. Now, things in the palace are going slowly, and if Intel (which is already in it) It will take between three and four years to have commercial productsTesla’s ambition may go into the next decade. Let’s hope we don’t continue in this crisis by then, but if more “players” are interested in producing RAM, it would mean that, in the event of subsequent crises, there will not be a few that dominate the sector, producing a bottleneck like the one we are experiencing. Domino effect of the AMR crisis and China taking action Because this is not just about RAM being more expensive for users: it goes much further. If companies do not have the capacity to satisfy the demand for AI, they pour all their manufacturing muscle into a single task, neglecting the others. This explains the rise in the price of SSDs, but also of other products that should not have a leading role in this conversation: hard drives or HDDs. It is a brutal domino effect because, as we say, it goes beyond the modules being more expensive: RAM is more expensive for companies and that implies mobile phones or more expensive or with less RAMconsoles that increase in price (like what is happening posing for nintendo switch 2), machines that are late and they will be more expensive (like the Steam Machine), car problems and even impacting the routers. And in this scenario, in which companies like Intel or Tesla are considering taking a bite out of the RAM sector, we have some Chinese companies that had no role in the conversation. positioning itself as an option to alleviate demand. We told it a few days ago: there were reports indicating that PC brands such as Asus, Dell or HP were considering purchasing memory from Chinese manufacturers such as CXMT. Their modules are not as advanced as those of Samsung, for example, and they do not have the production capacity of South Korean companies, but… they produce. And in lean times, that’s better than selling laptops without RAM. Anyway, as we have said on occasion, there are still more companies joining the production of RAM when the crisis has already had a full impact, but the goal is not to create more RAM for ourselvesbut for your data centers. It’s time to entrust ourselves to the most sacred thing: that our PC doesn’t break and we need to update. Images | Gage Skidmore, Intel In Xataka | The US has a problem with its AI data centers: more and more states are opposed to building them

The opening of Shein in Paris should have been a triumph. It has ended up causing the biggest slowdown for the Chinese giant in Europe

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Days after Shein’s controversial arrival at the historic BHV Marais in Paris —an opening as massive as it is controversial—, the story takes a turn that no one in the Chinese company expected. France has decided to postpone the opening of the rest of the Shein stores scheduled for November and December, a slowdown that reveals the extent to which the physical commitment of the ultra-fast fashion giant is shaking the sector and French politics. In a nutshell. The SGM group, owner of BHV, announced that the planned openings in Dijon, Reims, Grenoble, Angers and Limoges are postponed indefinitely. The inaugurations were to start on November 18 and extend until the beginning of December, but according to BFMTVSGM prefers to postpone them “a few days or a few weeks.” Today, the only operational Shein store in the country is the one in Paris, open November 5. A postponement that accumulates reasons. The delay does not respond to a single factor: it is a cocktail of commercial problems, reputational crisis, political pressure and regulatory turbulence. First, the Paris store disappointed its own customers. As reported days later by Le Mondedespite the more than 50,000 visitors on the first day, the result was frustrating: no men’s clothing, no children’s fashion, no large sizes, nor the ultra-low prices usual on the web. Added to this was insufficient space to manage the influx. But the hardest blow, according to the French media, did not come from the clients, but from the brands that have decided to leave BHV after the arrival of Shein and due to accumulated non-payments. Dior, Chanel, Guerlain and Lancôme – four pillars of French perfumery – leave the department store, along with more than 20 fashion and home brands. The departure comes at the worst possible time: the Christmas campaign, the month in which BHV rebalances its accounts. Furthermore, the image crisis is amplified by the breakup between SGM and Galeries Lafayette. According to Fashion Networkthe French chain has ended its agreement with SGM to avoid any link with Shein, which implies that all these centers will be called BHV, not Galeries Lafayette. Expansion meets politics. Shein’s arrival has unleashed unprecedented municipal rejection. From Liberation have pointed out that several mayors – Dijon, Reims, Grenoble, Angers and Limoges – are explicitly opposed to the implementation. Specifically, in Grenoble, Mayor Éric Piolle even asked to suspend opening until all products were legally verified. And the straw that broke the camel’s back. As different media have describedthe French Government discovered child-like sex dolls, prohibited weapons and other illicit products on the platform. This activated a process of temporary suspension of the marketplace, exhaustive customs controls and a judicial procedure that is still open. “The postponement is temporary.” Frédéric Merlin, president of SGM, insisted: in an interview for BFMTV. In it, he explained that the group needs to adapt the offer, adjust the pricing policy, gain space in regional stores and work on “more personalized orders.” But, as Le Monde recallsits management simultaneously faces non-payments to suppliers and the largest brand flight that BHV has experienced in decades. For its part, Shein maintains a different discourse. According to Reutersthe company says the Paris store has been “a great success.” He accepts that he must adjust prices and improve the experience, but he assures that for now his priority is to optimize that first physical point before opening the following ones. However, it does not offer new dates. Meanwhile, the company will have to face a key event: a mandatory appearance at the National Assembly and a court hearing on November 26, the same day on which the Paris court must examine the request to suspend the platform. In parallel, as the French media highlightsthe European Union has agreed to advance the application of taxes on small imported packages to 2026 – an essential pillar of Shein’s logistics model –, further increasing the pressure. Downshifting. France has become the first European country to put a real brake on Shein’s physical expansion. The openings have been postponed “a few days or weeks,” but the context—investigations, protests, brand leaks and regulatory pressures—suggests that the pause could last longer than SGM and Shein would like to admit. The question now is whether Shein will manage to adapt to a market that demands transparency, legality and social commitments or if the Paris store will be remembered as the beginning of the biggest clash between ultra-fast fashion and a country that, for the first time, has decided to put a stop to its advance. Image | FreePik and DMCGN Xataka | Shein has opened its first store in Europe in Paris. Paris has reacted as always: staging a revolt

Convenience stores were an emblem of Japan. Until the demographic crisis has revealed the dark side of opening 24 hours

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The stores japanese convenienceknown as konbini, are not simple shops where you buy fast food or basic products, they are a deep part of the social fabric of the country. Its success is measured not only in numbers (more than 55,000 establishments spread across the 47 prefectures) but in the way in which they accompany daily life: they allow you to pay bills, send packages, print documents, buy tickets for shows, resolve unforeseen events, take refuge in case of emergency or simply take a break in them. And now that the country doesn’t stop agingthe stores are mortally wounded. The konbini. Let’s think that, in urban neighborhoods, rural towns or isolated coastal areas, these establishments have become the minimum infrastructure indispensable where there used to be post offices, banks or small family businesses that have now disappeared. The store, therefore, is not just a business: it is a safe space, open and available 24 hours a day, an emotional and logistical support point that has shaped the Japanese daily rhythm and has captivated even to millions of touristswho find in these establishments a mix of efficiency, warmth and aesthetic thoroughness that is difficult to replicate. Efficiency and expansion. I remembered the new york times in summer that the development of the Japanese konbini has been the result of an evolution of decades. Since 7-Eleven opened your first store In Japan in 1974, the combination of non-stop hours, quality fresh food (onigiri, bentō, noodles, seasonal desserts) and integrated services made the model a unique phenomenon. For many residents, these stores are literally the closest store, the most accessible ATM, the place to go when something is missing or something happens. The associated image is one of precision: perfectly organized shelves, impeccable coffee machines, attentive employees, continually renewed food and a sense of total availability. From Japan to the world. This internal success was projected outwards, so that 7-Eleven, today Japanese owned, is the largest retail chain on the planet, and global expansion plans aim mainly to North America. The konbini became an exportable image of Japan: efficient, friendly, reliable. The hidden reverse. But not everything shined the same. one piece from the Financial Times has revealed that behind that facade of functional perfection A franchise system is under increasingly intense tensions. Japan agesthe active population is decreasing and small businesses are experiencing increasing difficulties to hire staff. The model requires stores open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the pressure not to close falls squarely on the owners. He Akiko’s case and her husband, a 7-Eleven manager who worked without a day’s rest for six months until dying by suicide, starkly revealed the human price of this silent perfection. And more. It was not an isolated case: a labor inspection recognized the relationship between death and overwork, but the root of the problem is structural. Franchisees must deliver between 40% and 70% of gross profit to the parent company, which reduces their margin and exposes them to absorbing personnel, overtime and unforeseen charges. Visible efficiency therefore has an invisible cost. The crisis of the model. Faced with the problem, the chains 7-Eleven, FamilyMart and Lawson have tried make schedules more flexibleintroduce automatic checkouts, ordering systems assisted by AI and robots cleaning to reduce the need for labor. But none of these measures solve the main equation: fewer available workers and more opening hours supported by fewer people. Domestic consumption is also not growing as before, which limits the owners’ ability to increase payrolls. As minimum wages rise, margins narrow even more. many managers they work for free for dozens of hours to keep their stores open. Some they confess that, in the current state, closing would be a more rational option than continuing to operate. The fragility of the system thus becomes visible: if there are no new franchisees willing to take over, the model can collapse. Adaptation or goodbye. The response of the companies points towards a profound transformation of the model. 7-Eleven study contracts renewed from 2027, possibly moving towards the “mega-franchise” model, where the same owner manages multiple stores and distributes human resources between them. However, this implies a concentration of the business and could further displace the small independent owners who historically defined the konbini as a community space. The central question is whether the konbini will continue to be a connected capillary network to the territory or whether it will become a centralized corporate system, more profitable but less close. The great dilemma. If you will, the konbini was born as proximity symbol and frictionless service, and became part of emotional memory from Japan: open places when everything else is closed, spaces where the daily routine has a friendly pause. But that same ideal has been held for decades by people whose efforts they have become invisible beneath the surface of efficiency. Today, the system faces a limit that is not technological, but human. The future of the konbini will depend on whether Japan manages to rebalance the contract between the community, the company and those who keep the doors open at any time, 365 days a year. If it manages to adapt without sacrificing those who support it, it will continue to be an intimate and essential institution. If not, it could become the emblem of a society that knew how to take care of every detail… except for the people who made it possible. Image | Pexels, Japanexperterna, Shankar S. In Xataka | While half the planet aspires to retire, in Japan the opposite is true: 100-year-olds who only want to work In Xataka | The aging population and a poor pension system have a new symbol in Japan: grandmothers are rented

Opening an R&D center in the city that makes the most sense

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Xiaomi recently announced that The Su7its first electric car, would arrive in Europe in 2027. In this way, the European public will be able to taste first hand one of the electric cars that have caused the most in recent years. In addition, silently, the now also vehicle manufacturer has opened Your first research and development center Out of China. The installation, located in Munich, marks the starting point of the arrival of the Chinese manufacturer to the European market for electric vehicles. The first step. The opening of this center is much more than a simple technical office. Xiaomi, a company known for its mobile phones and other technological gadgets, launched its first car in 2023, and this new expansion is accelerating its transformation into a car manufacturer made and right. Its president, William Lu, He already made it clear In August that the company aspires to become one of the five largest automobile in the world, and Europe is key in that plan. What will the center of Munich do. German facilities will focus on adapting Xiaomi vehicles to the demands of the European market: from the development of technology for electric vehicles and intelligent driving to compliance with strict safety regulations. The teams of engineers, designers and European researchers will collaborate directly with the centers in China to prepare specific models for international markets. The models that will arrive. Although Xiaomi has not officially confirmed which vehicles will bring to Europe, everything points to SU7, a high performance sedan that would compete with the Porsche Taycanand al Yu7a SUV that would be measured with the Tesla Model and. Su7 Ultra has already demonstrated its potential by establishing The fastest back record For an electric production car in the Nürburgring circuit, with a time of 7 minutes and 4 seconds (6 minutes and 22 seconds its prototype version). A success in China. The growth of Xiaomi in the automobile sector has been meteoric. His su7 reached 200,000 units delivered in China In just 119 days, a stellar figure for a brand that opens for the first time in the automobile world. Now, the brand seeks to replicate that success beyond its borders, taking advantage of its experience in technology and software. It is not the only China in Munich. The Bavarian city has become The favorite destination of Chinese manufacturers to establish your design and research centers in Europe. Nio opened his design headquarters in 2015, while Avat and Li Auto have also chosen Munich for their European facilities. The proximity to the German car industry and access to specialized talent are usually the main reasons for this election. Cover image | Xiaomi In Xataka | China’s government is discovering that selling cheap cars is not enough in Europe: spare parts will be insured

Italy is going to build the suspension bridge with the largest opening in the world. And they will load it to NATO’s budgets

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The megaconstructions are the order of the day. We find each other Colossal projectssome that They make us crack an eyebrow thinking If necessary. However, few can boast of being the culmination of a work of centuries, or even millennia. Italy is close to getting it when approved A huge bridge that connect the continent with Sicily: the Messina bridge. The turn is that they have described it as something key to the NATO. So that? So that the bridge budget is included in the percentage of military spending that Italy must contribute. Historical dream. Sicily is a complicated territory. Isolated from the continent, it remains Italy and, although they have a very strong identity feelingthat isolation has led to some problems and difficulties throughout history. In it Roman empire I know proposed Unite the territory through the Strait of Messina with a peculiar plan: connect Calabria and Sicily using barges and barrels. It was ruled out for obvious reasons such as intense maritime traffic or its technical unfeasibility. In the Middle Ages, Charlemagne too study take actions to unite the territory and, in 1866, firmer plans were drawn to build a viaduct, but they were also discarded when considering that A tunnel would be more suitable. In whatever, it also ended in nothing and, during the following decades, the project of the bridge in the Strait was changing hands without success, maintaining the connection with the peninsula by ferry. Colossal. Throughout. Everything changed in 2023, when the new Giorgia Meloni government resurrected the plan. Contemplating an investment of more than 13,000 million euros, the bridge would mark a turning point in Italian, European and world architecture, depending on who we ask. The length will be about 3.7 kilometers with twin towers of 399 meters on both banks, a height of 72 meters above sea level so that large boats and capacity can pass and capacity to move A large number of vehicles. The three lanes in the direction offer a capacity for 6,000 vehicles per hour, and their two railways would allow a cadence of 200 trains per day. It is a transport barbarity to connect Sicily, but the only thing about this bridge will be the central opening: 3,300 meters that would set a new world record for a suspended vain. Necessary. The start of the works is scheduled for this same 2025 and its estimated completion by 2032. As we say, after many comings and goings, the project is already officially underwayas the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure of Italy, Matteo Salvini, advertisement Last Wednesday. Finally, the cost will be 13,500 million euros and, as we read in New York TimesItalian minister and vice president, he is “absolutely proud of work.” Stating that “it will be an unprecedented public works in the world.” The justification of the bridge, as we read in Financial Timescomes from the side of the revitalization of Sicily. With this volume moved from the continent, the economy of one of the poorest regions of Italy can be promoted, where unemployment practically double The national rate: 13% compared to 6.5% of the rest of the country. But … necessary? The question is why, if a bridge between both territories was so important, something had been done. And, above all, why firm projects such as 2011 threw himself by land, arguing concerns about his price, about 5,000 million euros at that time and, in addition, about his real need. And it wasn’t the first time: Silvio Berlusconi He already proposed This project in 2005 for about 3.9 billion euros. Criticism. Many. There are few detractors of the bridge. This “unprecedented work in the world” faces opposition, environmentalists and even nature itself. The opposition, as New York Times states, considers that it is “an economic and social catastrophe” by diverting funds from other projects more necessary to build “a cathedral in the desert.” The animalists lo consider A disaster for local flora and fauna, as well as for a bird’s migration route. And when we say he has against nature, it is because those critics too comment that the area is prone to earthquakes that could make the bridge collapse. Even the ‘thing nostra’, the Sicilian mafia, said Be against the bridge in 2023. It has a trick. If you have so much against, if it is not clear that you will revitalize Sicily after a mastodontic investment, why do you go ahead with the project? During the NATO summit in June, Meloni declared that, due to the convulsive moment that is lived in several parts of the world, “there are many threats and hostile actors operating on the southern flank of the Atlantic Alliance.” In addition, he commented that “Russia projects more and more His presence in the Mediterranean” And this bridge would be a key piece, according to the Italian government, “in the context of NATO defense and security, facilitating the movement of the Italian and international armed forces in a context in which the Mediterranean is a geopolitically sensitive area.” And the trick? Well, like other NATO allies, Italy has beenOppromeded to increase its annual expenditure in defense Up to 5% of its GDP during the next decade, including 1.5% for strategic infrastructure. If the bridge is 13,500 million euros and include it in their proposals for “strategic infrastructure”, they would already be hitting a good bite to that 5% They must invest. Instead of armament or other elements, in a new bridge. Germany goes behind. “The Mestina Strait Bridge constitutes a fundamental infrastructure in relation to military mobility, taking into account the presence of important NATO bases in southern Italy,” they said in a report prepared last April, but Italy seems to be the only ones that will try to ‘put’ a renewal of infrastructure in that 5% of NATO. Germany, in a recent reporthas included in these defense budgets other 1 billion euros for the maintenance of ‘autobahn’, Your highway system. Forcing the machine. Returning to the Italian Bridge, and … Read more

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