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Today’s newsletter supported by: |
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Hi there Intriguer. Have you ever been whistling along, minding your own business, then tripped and accidentally fallen into your dream job? Well that kinda happened once to a border collie named Tilly, who was ejected from a car during a crash in Idaho. The little guy turned up on a nearby sheep farm, happily herding sheep.
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Today’s briefing is a 4 min read:
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🇪🇺 Everybody wants a piece of European factory space.
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🇮🇷 Iran’s president tours Latin America.
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➕ Plus: A top secret toilet, how the papers are covering the US returning to UNESCO, and why Apple’s Vision Pro is the perfect gadget for the apocalypse.
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¿Hablas español? ¡Check out our weekly edition in Spanish!
⏱️ Around the world in sixty seconds
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🇰🇷 South Korea: Seoul is suing North Korea for blowing up a joint liaison office along their shared border in 2020. North Korea, which destroyed the building in protest against South Korea’s support for defectors, is unlikely to pay the $35M in damages.
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🇪🇪 Estonia: Poland plans to support Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas to serve as NATO Secretary-General instead of Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen. Poland is reportedly wary of replacing Jens Stoltenberg, a Norwegian, with another Nordic leader.
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🇲🇾 Malaysia: Authorities in Malaysia have asked Interpol to help track down a Singapore-born and US-based comedian, Jocelyn Chia, who joked about missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. The foreign ministers of Singapore and Malaysia condemned her joke.
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🇨🇷 Costa Rica: US and Costa Rican officials have agreed to open legal pathways for Nicaraguan and Venezuelan asylum seekers in Costa Rica to seek US residence. Some 129,000 asylum seekers approached Costa Rica (pop. 5 million) for protection last year.
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🇱🇧 Lebanon: Lawmakers failed for the twelfth time yesterday (Wednesday) to appoint a new president after members of Hezbollah walked out and broke quorum. The president’s office has been vacant since Michel Aoun’s term ended in October.
🇪🇺 EU | Geo-economics
Factory space is Europe’s next hot commodity
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Industrial space in Europe is at a premium as global tensions accelerate a ‘near-shoring’ trend for manufacturers.
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Companies bought or leased 29% more space in Europe last year compared to the year prior. And it seems there’s a mix of factors at play:
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🚀 Online shopping has driven demand for logistics space
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🦾 Automation is cutting some operating costs in Europe, and
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💰 Governments are offering incentives to companies.
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But Europe’s near-shoring journey is still rougher than a Ryanair red-eye:
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📈 Higher energy prices have left some activities non-viable
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👷 Firms are struggling to find the right manufacturing skills, and
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⚖️ The gains are uneven (central and eastern Europe benefit most)
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Plus, a key Euro-area manufacturing index just hit its lowest point since 2020, suggesting there’s a lag between renting space and actually using it (not to mention a broader economic slowdown).
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Intrigue’s take: The ‘shoring’ buzzwords have been crushing it lately: near-shoring, friend-shoring, right-shoring, re-shoring, on-shoring.
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But they all basically point to the same thing: a spooked world securing supply chains and reducing its reliance on China. And yet, China is now exporting a trillion dollars more to the world in goods each year than before COVID.
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So the world may need even more ‘shoring’. Or more time. Or both.
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Also worth noting:
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A global manufacturing index has now signalled a drop in worldwide goods exports for eight straight months.
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France pitched a ‘Made in Europe’ industrial strategy to the European Commission earlier this year.
📰 How newspapers covered…
The US announcing it will rejoin UNESCO
Paris, France |
US plans to rejoin UNESCO from July, ending membership dispute |
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US decides to rejoin UNESCO and pay back dues, to counter Chinese influence |
Mumbai, India |
Why the US wants to rejoin UNESCO after years of disputes over Israel and Palestine |
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Today’s newsletter is supported by: CaskX
The Next Frontier of Alternative Investment is…Whiskey?
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Here’s the thing about alternative investments. Lately, it’s been crypto-this and NFT-that and Silicon-Valley-blah.
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No offense to any of the aforementioned. But you can’t hold an NFT in your hand. Let alone savor a smooth, smoky sip of one.
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Whiskey, on the other hand, can be appreciated (pun very much intended) both investment-wise and in-real-world-use-wise.
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This week, CaskX is giving International Intrigue readers the opportunity to get early access to a range of new investment offerings that won’t last long as soon as they hit the market.
🇮🇷 Iran | Geopolitics
President Raisi is getting a celebrity welcome in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba
Iran’s president is befriending America’s neighbours
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was in Nicaragua yesterday (Wednesday) for a Latin American tour that’s also taking him to Venezuela and Cuba.
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During his first leg in Caracas, Raisi and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro signed 19 cooperation pacts, and pledged a six-fold boost to trade.
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And the rhetoric’s been lofty, too: Raisi called Iran’s bonds with Venezuela “invincible”, and hailed a “new world order” of “freedom-seeking” nations.
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Intrigue’s take: Iran has managed to maintain regional influence, suppress internal dissent, and demand the attention of Western policymakers, all while under US sanctions.
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So for Latin America’s few remaining US-sanctioned regimes, what’s not to love?
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Also worth noting:
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Iranian state-backed firms have been helping Venezuela repair its oil infrastructure since 2020.
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Nicaraguan opposition figure Félix Maradiaga, arrested in 2021 and exiled to the US this year, described Raisi’s visit as a “tour of shame”.
➕ Extra Intrigue
What we’re reading about Apple’s new augmented and virtual reality headset, the Vision Pro.
🗳️ Poll time!
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What’s the most important sector to near-shore? |
📸 Photo of the day
Credits: US Department of Justice
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Former US President Donald Trump was arraigned on Tuesday on federal charges that he unlawfully kept top-secret documents in his Florida residence, including in a ballroom and a bathroom. He’s pleaded not guilty.
Thursday’s poll: Are tech regulations a trap or a necessary protection?
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⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧨 Trap (7%)
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🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🛡️ Protection (39%)
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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤲 Both (52%)
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⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (2%)
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Your two cents:
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🤲 M.P: “Tech regulation is necessary, however, with the world becoming increasingly intolerant they are also a trap that can be used to shut down a company that doesn’t fall into line with the current regime.”
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🛡️ E.W: “Companies driven by profit and with inherent political leanings cannot be trusted to put people’s wellbeing first, let alone to self-regulate.”