Dánská logistická společnost DSV dokončila převzetí svého konkurenta Panalpina. Nová firma s názvem DSV Panalpina se stane čtvrtým největším speditérem na světě po DHL, Kuehne + Nagel a DB Schenker.

Nástup mileniálů mění demografickou skladbu nákupčích ve firmách. Ty se musejí adaptovat na změněné nároky a preference. Nákupní oddělení průmyslových firem si například objednávají zboží a materiál stále více přes internet nebo přímo od výrobce. Tradiční velkodistributoři tak přicházejí o práci. Ukazuje to třetí edice studie Europe Industrial Buying Dynamics společnosti UPS Europe.

Internetové obchody a doručovatelé mají v hledáčku Moravu a Slezsko. Patří mezi ně supermarket Rohlík.cz, který brzy začne rozvážet zboží v Prostějově, nebo start-up DoDo. Ten se svými chytrými kurýrními službami zamířil do Brna. Na Ostravsku má zase své online zákazníky obchod Tesco a své služby již brzy rozšíří do dalších moravských měst. Jenže ne všechny firmy při své expanzi na východ republiky uspějí.

V souvislosti s procesem integrace společností Vodafone a UPC došlo k personální změně v nejvyšším vedení. Generálním ředitelem zůstává Petr Dvořák, na úrovni viceprezidentů došlo k posílení managementu. Nově zřízenou pozici viceprezidenta pro strategii a integraci od 1. srpna 2019 zastává Petr Procházka.

Společnost Colliers International v České republice oznamuje dvě povýšení na seniorní pozice ve svém oddělení poradenství pro pracovní prostředí Workplace Advisory a v týmu průmyslových nemovitostí Industrial Agency. Novou ředitelkou Workplace Advisory se stává Jana Vlková a na pozici Senior Associate v oddělení Industrial Agency byla povýšena Silvie Marešová.

Developerská společnost JRD se již 16 let věnuje realizaci energeticky úsporných projektů, které jsou zdravé a šetrné k životnímu prostředí. Firma dosáhla až na pozici lídra na trhu s nízkoenergetickým a pasivním bydlením, a tak naplnila vizi svého zakladatele Jana Řežába. Ten se nyní stal členem vědecké rady Univerzitního centra energeticky efektivních budov (UCEEB) ČVUT v Praze, čímž zúročil svou dlouholetou přednáškovou činnost na půdě univerzity. JRD nově vstoupila i do dalších oborových organizací: do Asociace developerů (AD) a Asociace pro rozvoj trhu nemovitostí (ARTN).

ON JUNE 22ND there was an alleged coup attempt in Ethiopia. The army chief of staff was murdered, as was the president of Amhara, one of the country’s nine regions. Ordinary Ethiopians were desperate to find out what was going on. And then the government shut down the internet. By midnight some 98% of Ethiopia was offline.

“People were getting distorted news and were getting very confused about what was happening...at that very moment there was no information at all,” recalls Gashaw Fentahun, a journalist at the Amhara Mass Media Agency, a state-owned outlet. He and his colleagues were trying to file a report. Rather than uploading audio and video files digitally, they had to send them to head office by plane, causing a huge delay.

Last year 25 governments imposed internet blackouts. Choking off connectivity infuriates people and kneecaps economies. Yet autocrats think it worthwhile, usually to stop information from circulating during a crisis.

This month the Indian government shut down the internet in disputed Kashmir—for the 51st time this year. “There is no news, nothing,” says Aadil Ganie, a Kashmiri stuck in Delhi, adding that he does not even know where his family is because phones are blocked, too. In recent months Sudan shut down social media to prevent protesters from organising; Congo’s regime switched...

THE LAST time continental Europeans felt they were dealing with an easily readable, straightforward British prime minister was in the late 1990s. Tony Blair charmed his continental colleagues. He wooed the French in their own language, led fellow heads of government on a bike ride through Amsterdam during a Dutch-led summit and made common cause with fellow “third way” social democrats like Gerhard Schröder, Germany’s then chancellor. Set against the backdrop of the “Cool Britannia” popularity of British music and fashion, this all suggested that Britain had finally cast off its conflicted post-imperial garb and was embracing a modern, European identity.

The glow faded when the Iraq war sundered Mr Blair from the French and the Germans. Then came Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May, who were all harder to place. All three made nice at European summits but flirted with the Eurosceptic tabloids at home. Mrs May took office in July 2016 after the country had voted for Brexit. But who was she? She ruled out a second referendum—then considered the most likely outcome in some continental capitals—but did not seem to be “of” the Brexiteers. At times she posed as a Thatcher-style Iron Lady; at others as a sensible Christian democrat. Buffeted by events, she was hard to define and left little lasting impression.

Boris...

SUHEYLA REMEMBERS the day clearly. She had invited her children for dinner and was preparing her youngest son’s favourite stew. He never showed up. Neither did her four daughters. When none of them picked up the phone, she and her husband Lutfu understood what was happening. They rushed to a police station to ask the authorities to track down their children: they were headed south. A month later one of Suheyla’s daughters called. She and her siblings, the youngest 18 and the eldest 27, along with her brother’s wife and their infant son, had smuggled themselves into Syria and joined Islamic State (IS).

That was in late 2015. Today, three of the daughters are behind bars in Baghdad, having been captured by Iraqi forces two years ago. The fourth died in jail, two months after giving birth to a boy. Their brother, Yasin, has not been heard from in two years. Earlier this summer, Suheyla and Lutfu (not their real names) were united with two of their grandchildren, aged one and two, who were repatriated from Iraq. The toddlers were ill when they arrived. One was covered with sores, having caught scabies in the squalid prison in which he was born. He survived on his aunt’s milk.

At their apartment in Esenler, a conservative district in Istanbul, Suheyla fights back tears as she flicks through photos of her daughters on her...

IT IS 20 years this month since then-President Boris Yeltsin appointed a shadowy security chief called Vladimir Putin as Russia’s prime minister. The next New Year’s Eve, the ailing Mr Yeltsin would install the ex-KGB man as his successor. On the anniversary of his ascent to power, Mr Putin has little reason to celebrate.

On August 10th, as they have for the past five weekends, Russians took to the streets of Moscow to demand that opposition politicians unfairly barred from next month’s city-council polls should be allowed to run after all. Waving white, red and blue Russian flags, an estimated 50,000-60,000 protesters flooded a broad avenue. “Russia will be free!” they chanted. It was the biggest opposition rally since 2012—after Mr Putin’s pals again bamboozled a ballot.

The city council has little power. But the blatant interference has transformed what should have been mundane elections into a political crisis for the Kremlin. Although often derided as fringe figures, many of the aspiring opposition candidates were poised to win seats. Mr Putin seems determined to deny his critics even a foothold on Russia’s electoral ladder.

The mounting protests come at a dangerous time for Mr Putin, whose ratings have been sliding since his government introduced a five-year increase in the national pension age last summer...

IN THE BALTIC STATES, Soviet-era apartments have taken on a gritty glamour. In Lithuania, Instagrammers hunt down Fabijoniskes, the neighbourhood where a recent television series about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster was filmed (see picture). In Estonia and Latvia, they form a backdrop to art shows and hip-hop videos. Nicknamed khrushchyovka (after Nikita Khrushchev), these uniform blocks of prefabricated panels were built to house workers across the Soviet Union from the 1960s onwards.

Many were meant to last no more than 30 years. Yet in the Baltic states —where 68% of people live in apartments, the highest level in Europe—many people still call them home. Living inside history is less appealing than looking at it, alas. For, like the Soviet Union itself, they are drab, joyless places.

For one thing, they are poorly insulated and expensive to heat. In Lithuania, for example, heating a two-bedroom apartment in the coldest months can cost 20% of the average salary. Soviet districts are generally occupied by the elderly and the hard-up, who are least able to bear the cost. Most also depend on centralised district heating, with no option to disconnect or change providers. In the winter, bitter inter-apartment battles are fought over the thermostat.

It’s not just chilly residents who need...

HUBRIS IS AN occupational hazard for political leaders. Two of Italy’s recent prime ministers, Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Renzi, stumbled just when it seemed they could do whatever they wanted. (Mr Renzi wanted to change the constitution; Mr Berlusconi wanted to hold “bunga bunga” sex parties. In both cases, voters objected.)

Now Matteo Salvini, the leader of the populist Northern League, wants to ditch his coalition partners in the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), bring down the government that is led by Giuseppe Conte, an independent, and hustle the country into a snap election so as to give himself what he has termed “full powers”. This would enable him to impose, among other things, a radically expansionist budget for 2020. Mr Salvini claims that a “fiscal shock” is needed to jolt the moribund Italian economy back to life. Critics fear it could instead pitch the country, which has debts of over 130% of GDP, into a new financial crisis, along with the rest of the euro zone.

So the stakes were high when, on August 9th, the League tabled a Senate motion of no confidence in Mr Conte. Mr Salvini, a deputy prime minister, did not, however, withdraw either himself or his ministers from the cabinet—a move that would have made the fall of the government inevitable. And on August 13th, a hastily reconvened upper...

Představenstvo společnosti ABB jednohlasně jmenovalo Björna Rosengrena generálním ředitelem. Do společnosti ABB nastoupí k 1. únoru 2020 a dne 1. března 2020 nahradí ve funkci generálního ředitele Petera Vosera. Peter Voser zůstane ve společnosti ABB nadále jako předseda představenstva.