🌍 Firms snap up European factory space

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Today’s briefing is a 4 min read:

• 🇪🇺 Everybody wants a piece of European factory space.

• 🇮🇷 Iran’s president tours Latin America.

• ➕ 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.

¿Hablas español? ¡Check out our weekly edition in Spanish!

1. 🇰🇷 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.

2. 🇪🇪 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.

3. 🇲🇾 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.

4. 🇨🇷 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.

5. 🇱🇧 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

Industrial space in Europe is at a premium as global tensions accelerate a ‘near-shoring’ trend for manufacturers.

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:

• 🚀 Online shopping has driven demand for logistics space

• 🦾 Automation is cutting some operating costs in Europe, and

• 💰 Governments are offering incentives to companies.

But Europe’s near-shoring journey is still rougher than a Ryanair red-eye:

• 📈 Higher energy prices have left some activities non-viable

• 👷 Firms are struggling to find the right manufacturing skills, and

• ⚖️ The gains are uneven (central and eastern Europe benefit most)

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).

Intrigue's take: The ‘shoring’ buzzwords have been crushing it lately: near-shoring, friend-shoring, right-shoring, re-shoring, on-shoring.

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.

So the world may need even more ‘shoring’. Or more time. Or both.

Also worth noting:

• A global manufacturing index has now signalled a drop in worldwide goods exports for eight straight months.

• 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

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🇮🇷 Iran | Geopolitics

Iran’s president is befriending America’s neighbours

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was in Nicaragua yesterday (Wednesday) for a Latin American tour that’s also taking him to Venezuela and Cuba.

During his first leg in Caracas, Raisi and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro signed 19 cooperation pacts, and pledged a six-fold boost to trade.

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.

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.

So for Latin America’s few remaining US-sanctioned regimes, what’s not to love?

Also worth noting:

• Iranian state-backed firms have been helping Venezuela repair its oil infrastructure since 2020.

• 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.

• Apple’s headset is the best of the bunch

• The digital world is crashing into reality

• The Vision Pro could be the future of work

• The Vision Pro is the perfect gadget for the apocalypse

🗳️ Poll time!

📸 Photo of the day

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?

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🧨 Trap (7%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🛡️ Protection (39%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤲 Both (52%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (2%)

Your two cents:

• 🤲 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.”

• 🛡️ 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.”