Alibaba.com’s U.S. expansion hinges on wooing mom-and-pop shops

11 September 2024 at 05:00

E-commerce giant Alibaba.com is setting its sights on America’s mom-and-pop businesses. Founded in 1999 by Jack Ma and 17 of his friends, Alibaba.com became an e-commerce behemoth that connects suppliers...

President of Alibaba Kuo Zhang in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Thursday September 5th 2024.

Extreme weather is making life harder for Vietnam’s delivery riders

Rest of World

By: Rest of World

10 September 2024 at 05:00

Just this month, northern Vietnam has been hit by super typhoon Yagi, the strongest in decades. Earlier this year, Ho Chi Minh City residents experienced the longest heat wave in...

Pakistan’s China-style firewall is rattling its tech industry

Rest of World

By: Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

9 September 2024 at 05:00

Pakistani entrepreneur Ahmed Khan has spent the past nine years building Cheetay, a last-mile delivery startup. Khan had previously co-founded Daraz, a leading e-commerce platform in South Asia which was...

Filipinos are embracing electric three-wheelers faster than officials can regulate them

Rest of World

By: Jhesset O. Enano

6 September 2024 at 05:00

Manila’s gridlock can exasperate even the most patient drivers, but it does not faze Kyla Adlawon, who weaves between the traffic on an electric tricycle. The red three-wheeled vehicle has...

Drivers in Tijuana are facing a surge in violence

Rest of World

By: Alicia Fàbregas

5 September 2024 at 05:00

On July 24, Uber driver Adara Paulina Hernández left home at dawn to start a new shift. She didn’t make it back. One week later, she was found dead. Hernández...

Around the world with Rest of World

Rest of World

By: Rest of World

5 September 2024 at 05:00

News and information can be shared around the world in an instant. But what if the information superhighway didn’t exist? Test your knowledge of the world’s geography, using Rest of...

Malaysia’s homegrown car brands bank on cheaper models to compete with Tesla and BYD

Rest of World

By: Ushar Daniele

4 September 2024 at 05:00

Like many Malaysians, Adit Rahim has grown up around — and owned — Proton and Perodua, the national car brands. He has been thinking about switching to an electric vehicle,...

A event for Proton's first electric vehicle, the e.MAS 7.

How Bangladesh’s tech industry navigated an unprecedented political crisis

Rest of World

By: Faisal Mahmud and Nayem Shaan

3 September 2024 at 05:00

Fahim Ahmed was working late at his office in Dhaka on July 18 when he realized the internet had stopped working. Ahmed, the CEO of Pathao — one of Bangladesh’s...

Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates

Rest of World

By: Stephanie Wangari

30 August 2024 at 05:00

Charles has been an Uber driver in Nairobi for nearly five years. But the last couple of years have been hard, with stubbornly high gas prices eating into his earnings. In...

Uber driver Emmanuel Bitok prepares for the day in the home he shares with his girlfriend Winny (23) in Nairobi’s Mathare neighborhood, Kenya, on October 16, 2020. Previously a workshop manager for a furniture company, Emmanuel began driving for Uber three years ago. Emmanuel checks the Uber app as he waits for his first ride of the day.

Uber came to Kenya, a country of densely populated cities without efficient public transport systems, and aggressively signed up drivers while simultaneously increasing ridership by dropping prices and making taxis a more affordable option.

The Uruguayan company teaching people how to turn regular cars into EVs

Rest of World

By: Daniela Dib

29 August 2024 at 05:00

In 2010, Uruguayan president-elect José Mujica made headlines for the bright blue mini-truck he rode to his inauguration ceremony. The vehicle, which looked like any ordinary pickup truck, was used...

Nicolas is in charge of the cab wiring of the cars.

When EV startups shut down, will their cars still work?

Rest of World

By: Tianyu Fang

28 August 2024 at 05:00

When one of China’s once-popular electric vehicle startups went bust, car owners encountered an unexpected problem: Their vehicles went “offline.” Richard Qian didn’t know what to expect when he heard...

Buy-now-pay-later plans lead to rampant scams and bad debt across Southeast Asia

Rest of World

By: Lam Le and Jitsiree Thongnoi

27 August 2024 at 05:00

Dang Thi Han, who works at a spa in southern Vietnam, was short of cash in early June. So she turned to a Facebook group she had heard of —...

Building a food delivery app in the internet shutdown capital of the world

Rest of World

By: Gafira Qadir

26 August 2024 at 05:00

Jibran Gulzar was all set to move to London to pursue a master’s degree in 2019. On August 3 that year, he arrived in his hometown, Srinagar, to renew his...

Delivery riders leave to pick up their orders for delivery. In Kashmir, it’s often challenging to find delivery workers as the profession is not widely accepted. The team at Gatoes, as per one of the emplyees, is trying to chnage perceptions and make delivery work a respectable career choice.

A beauty contest controversy turned Uber into an unlikely battlefield between Nigeria and South Africa

Rest of World

By: Damilare Dosunmu

23 August 2024 at 05:00

Over the past two days, ride hailing apps Uber and Bolt have become battlegrounds for a conflict between Nigerians and South Africans over a beauty pageant contestant. Earlier this month,...

Participants gather on stage as the 2024 Miss South Africa Final begins at SunBet Arena in Pretoria on August 10, 2024.

Teens are making thousands by debating Trump vs. Harris on TikTok

Rest of World

By: Viola Zhou

22 August 2024 at 05:00

On the afternoon of August 19, Democrat Liam Keyes entered a TikTok battle. Against a blue background, the 19-year-old lashed out at his Republican opponent, fellow TikToker “Jackson,” who donned...

Download this: The world’s favorite apps

Rest of World

By: Rest of World Staff

22 August 2024 at 05:00

The average person spends almost four hours on their phone each day, scrolling through apps that offer endless entertainment and information. Rest of World has written extensively about the traditional...

Indigenous creators are clashing with YouTube’s and Instagram’s sensitive content bans

Rest of World

By: Gabriel Daros

21 August 2024 at 05:00

Shortly after Diamantha Aweti Kalapalo posted a video of a funeral ceremony in her village on YouTube in 2016, the platform took it down for violating its policy on child...

Microsoft is building a data center in a tiny Indian village. Locals allege it’s dumping industrial waste

Rest of World

By: Almaas Masood and Ananya Bhattacharya

20 August 2024 at 05:00

By 7 a.m. each day, the state-run milk collection center in the village of Mekaguda is busy as dairy farmers stream in to deposit their stocks of raw milk. The...

Indonesia’s plan to fight cheap online imports from China

Rest of World

By: Adi Renaldi

19 August 2024 at 05:00

Devita Ariyanti has been selling hijabs for four years from a small store in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta. Her biggest challenge used to be delayed shipments. Now, she is...

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