AFP

Seeking to address “over-tourism” at popular destinations, Airbnb unveiled Wednesday a new feature that encourages users to search by trip category, not only destination.

The goal is to “redistribute” users away from traveler-jammed venues, such as Venice, Paris or the biggest US cities, Airbnb executives said.

Under the new Airbnb program, consumers can pick from up to 56 categories such as “beach,” “countryside,” “iconic cities” or “design” the latter showcasing homes featured in architectural magazines. Some four million properties are tagged, with more categories to be added over time. 

The revamp is an alternative from the search box long used by Airbnb and other online travel sites where users enter in a destination and travel dates.

Airbnb users will still be able to search the conventional way, but the category option provides an alternative to steer demand away from oversold locales, said Chief Executive Brian Chesky.

“We felt everyone was just going to the same places. They’re just typing in Los Vegas and Orlando and Miami and Rome and Los Angeles and New York,” Chesky said at a briefing unveiling the changes.

“We’re trying to spread everyone out over as many places and as many dates as possible,” said Chesky, who described the plan as “good for Airbnb” but added that it would also “alleviate some of the issue of over-tourism.”

Users can go to the categories tab at the top of their screen, pick dates and then scan through pages of options at different price points in different cities or countries. 

In developing the new feature, Airbnb urged some owners to upgrade their photos so that the property’s profile page for “amazing pools” had a pool and that “skiing” properties were shown with snow, Chesky said

“Over-tourism isn’t too many people in the world traveling… it’s too many people going to the same places at the same time,” said Chesky, who also pointed to Airbnb features for those with flexible time frames away from the most in-demand times.

Responding to a trend of longer stays, Airbnb is tweaking the system to perform “split stays” where users can book two successive trips at once. 

Another change is to allow users three days to rebook or get a refund if a property falls short of what was promised; under the current system, users have just 24 hours to complain.

The deployment of unprecedented sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine war has left companies with a complex legal minefield to navigate, prompting them to hire more lawyers to avoid costly missteps.

The European Union alone is inching towards its sixth sanctions package, while the United States, Britain, Japan and even traditionally neutral Switzerland have imposed restrictions on trade with Russia.

Unprecedented in their scale and speed, Western measures against Moscow have ranged from freezing assets to export bans on strategic products like semiconductors and financial sanctions.

Alex Zuck, managing director for product strategy at Moody’s Analytics, said the company in recent weeks had spoken to “hundreds” of compliance executives “struggling with and thinking about the sanctions exposure”.

Some companies have to expand their legal teams in response to the ever-shifting landscape, said a source in the European banking industry.

“There is a layer of complexity exacerbated by the fact that we get new sets of sanctions almost every week,” the source said.

Conforming to the sanctions is even tougher because Russia had been closely integrated into the world economy and was seen as a promising market by many Western businesses.

Those firms are now on a legal “war footing”, said Elodie Valette, a lawyer at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, which aids companies in the car manufacturing and energy industries, among others.

“They set up teams which sometimes manage almost only that because, for some, their daily activity was put in a difficult position,” she told AFP.

Suddenly inundated with work, lawyers scrambled to examine the sanctions, categorise them by activity and invite clients to make audits as they found themselves “a little lost” at the start, she added.

“Now the companies are starting to see how they can strengthen their programme for the future,” said Zuck.

“I don’t believe many people think there will be an abrupt end to the sanctions — they are going to last, probably increase.” 

– Tricky task –

The call to economic arms began with the outbreak of war in late February, with the first measures obliging companies to compile an inventory of their Russian partners.

Business relations have to be scrutinised individually and painstakingly, including a review of clients, providers and partners, to see who really lies behind Russian structures.

“You need to go to the IT systems and conduct investigations. Having a name is just the tip of the iceberg, you need to find all the connections and the links,” the banking source said.

Zuck said the task is tricky as the United States and the European Union, for example, have different definitions of the level of control a Russian entity needs to have to trigger sanctions.

The manual approach of asking counterparties to disclose beneficial owners is sometimes “very difficult” due to the opacity of many Russian structures, he added.

“I dont believe many people think there will be an abrupt end to the sanctions. They are going to last, probably increase,” Zuck said.

Banks, especially those with close financial relations with Russia and countries on friendly terms with the Kremlin, are on the frontline of the economic war.

Despite some divergences between US, EU and UK sanctions regimes, the political objectives are the same and banks with the biggest exposure to Russia must reinforce their compliance teams, said the European banking industry source.

Violating sanctions can cost companies dearly. In 2014, the United States ordered French bank BNP Paribas to pay almost $9 billion for violating US embargoes against Iran, Cuba and Sudan.

“Today, everyone wants to apply the sanctions strictly,” said Valette.

Cyber experts are urging Africa to up its game in the face of criminals targeting the continent’s fast-growing internet economy with scams and theft.

Countries south of the Sahara are some of the world’s fastest-growing online markets — which makes them both attractive and vulnerable to cybercrime, say specialists.

“The issue of cybersecurity has to be raised to the core duties of the state,” Chadian economist Succes Masra said at a cyber conference in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s economic hub, which ended on Tuesday.

“If you do that, you will get follow-through. There’s incomplete awareness about this problem, and we have to speed things up.”

Half a billion people in Africa are connected to the internet, according to Interpol — a figure that in raw numbers places the continent ahead of other regions such as South America or the Middle East.

There is plenty of room for growth, as more than 60 percent of the continent’s population is still offline.

Major attacks on the internet itself are very rare in Africa, the most spectacular being a brief takedown of the web across the West African state of Liberia in 2016.

Instead, say experts, fraud and theft are flourishing, inflicting an estimated economic cost of $4 billion a year.

“Less than five percent of the attacks which we have in Ivory Coast are pure attacks on computer systems,” said Colonel Guelpetchin Ouattara, in charge of the country’s anti-cybercrime unit.

“Ninety-five percent come from online fraud or money transfers via a mobile, video blackmail, etcetera.”

Many Africans use their mobile phones to make instant transfers of money, often through shops, in order to avoid the expense and time of using a bank.

The trends in Africa are a lesson to the continent not to follow other parts of the world in how they tackle online crime, said Ouattara.

“We have to shape our response to the local problem. You can’t compare Africa with other parts of the world which have their own specificities, their own digital environment, their own risks,” he said.

Several countries in Africa have already implemented a strategic plan for cybersecurity, setting up units with specialised investigators and launching awareness campaigns.

– Security ‘reflex’ –

In Ivory Coast, for instance, the Platform for Fighting Cybercrime (PLCC) has 200,000 followers on its Facebook page, where it provides the public with tips and informs them of emerging threats and arrests.

“Digital security has to become a reflex for the public, exactly the same as when you lock your door at night,” said Ouattara.

The software protection market is also booming.

According to the consultancy PWC, sales rose to $2.32 billion in 2020 from $1.33 billion in 2017.

“There’s an awareness and real demand,” said Franck Kie, who organised the Cyber Africa Forum.

Seminars at the two-day event ranged from the risks to Africa’s financial industries and e-commerce, to enhancing data protection and beefing up pan-African cooperation in fighting cybercrime.

Around 20 companies promoted their products or services on the sidelines of the conference.

Solomon Islands’ prime minister dismissed criticism of a new maritime investment deal with China on Wednesday, saying there was nothing “sinister” in the draft agreement.

The new agreement, a copy of which has been leaked to the media, comes after a controversial security pact was signed last month.

The security pact gave Beijing a military foothold in the South Pacific, and sparked alarm in Australia and the United States.

On Wednesday, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare shrugged off criticism about the separate leaked memorandum of understanding on maritime investment, describing it as a “normal bilateral development initiative” that is yet to be formalised.

“There is nothing sinister nor trivial about the Blue Economy Memorandum of Understanding,” his office said in a statement.

A day earlier, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison had expressed concern regarding the memorandum, which covers undersea cables, port wharves, shipbuilding and other areas.

Morrison said he was “very concerned, as many other Pacific leaders are, about the interference and intrusion of the Chinese Government into these types of arrangements”.

Solomon Islands’ warming ties with China have been a key issue in Australia’s election campaign since a draft of the Solomons security agreement with China was first leaked on social media in March.

That draft allowed for Chinese naval deployments in the Solomon Islands, eliciting a warning from the United States that it would “respond accordingly” if China installed a military base in the Pacific archipelago. 

In April, Solomon Islands PM Sogavare said that his government would not allow a Chinese military base to be built in his country “under its watch”. 

The latest leaked maritime investment deal, dated just “2022”, covered investment in wharves, shipbuilding and ship repair, offshore gas and oil exploration and other “blue economy” industries.

Sogavare’s Wednesday statement said the memorandum of understanding was a broad document, which would be followed by a more detailed agreement.

“The Rock”, the biggest white diamond ever to be sold at auction, will go under the hammer in Geneva on Wednesday and could fetch up to $30 million — or more.

The 228.31-carat stone, larger than a golf ball, is “a truly exceptional pear-shaped diamond”, said Max Fawcett, head of the jewels department at Christie’s auction house in Geneva.

It is “the largest white diamond ever to be offered at auction”, he told AFP at a preview.

The Magnificent Jewels auction at the luxury Hotel des Bergues in Geneva begins at 1400 GMT. 

The Rock, currently in the hands of an unnamed owner from North America, is lot 26 in the sale and could break records at the sale. 

“It’s perfectly symmetrical and is estimated at $20 to $30 million — and I expect there to be fireworks” at the auction, Fawcett said.

The equivalent in euros is 19 to 28 million.

The expert said that there were only a handful of diamonds of similar size and quality to The Rock. The Christie’s record for a similar white diamond is $33.7 million, fetched in Geneva in 2017 for a 163.41-carat gem.

The large diamond was extracted from a mine in South Africa in the early 2000s and has been shown in Dubai, Taipei and New York ahead of the sale in Geneva.

– Red Cross gem –

The Rock is up for grabs alongside a historic intense yellow diamond associated for more than a century with the Red Cross, which will receive some of the profits from its sale.

The Red Cross Diamond is a cushion-shaped, 205.07-carat canary yellow jewel, which has a price estimate of seven to 10 million Swiss francs ($7.09 to $10.13 million).

“I expect that it will achieve much more on the day of sale,” said Fawcett.

A large chunk of the proceeds will be donated to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is headquartered in Geneva.

The original rough stone was found in 1901 in a De Beers company mine in South Africa and is said to have weighed around 375 carats.

As well as ranking among the largest diamonds in the world, a striking feature is its pavilion, which naturally bears the shape of a Maltese cross.

The stone was first put up for sale on April 10, 1918 at Christie’s in London. It was offered by the Diamond Syndicate in aid of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St John.

The Red Cross Diamond fetched £10,000 — approximately £600,000 ($740,000) in today’s money. It was bought by the London jewellers S.J. Phillips.

It was sold again by Christie’s in Geneva in 1973, fetching 1.8 million Swiss francs, and is now being offered by the auction house for a third time.

– Russia restrictions –

Several other diamond rings, necklaces and bracelets could fetch over $1 million at the auction.

Also being sold is a tiara that belonged to princess Irma of Furstenberg (1867-1948), a member of one of the most pre-eminent aristocratic families in the Habsburg Empire.

It is estimated to go for 400,000 to 600,000 Swiss francs.

“The diamond market at the moment is very, very strong,” said Fawcett.

He said rising demand, supply constraints due to “geopolitical issues” and inflationary pressure on commodities, including precious stones, was pushing the market to highs not seen since its 2013-2014 peak.

The Russian invasion in Ukraine has had a major impact.

More than 40 percent of the world’s diamonds are mined in Russia, including the famous Alrosa mine, but international markets no longer have access to Russian gems, said Fawcett.

The supply constraint has created major price hikes and with the sanctions imposed on Moscow following the February 24 invasion, “prices will only continue to increase”, he said.

Malaysia’s central bank raised its key interest rate on Wednesday for the first time since 2020, in a surprise move aimed at taming inflation.

Bank Negara Malaysia joins other central banks around the world in tightening monetary policy as the cost of everyday goods is pushed higher by supply chain problems and surging commodity prices.

The bank lifted its main rate 25 basis points to two percent, despite most economists having predicted no change until later in the year.

It was the first hike since July 2020, when rates were slashed to a historic low to combat the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. 

“Inflationary pressures have increased sharply due to a rise in commodity prices, strained supply chains and strong demand conditions, particularly in the US,” the central bank said in a statement. 

With life returning to normal as the pandemic abates, the Malaysian economy is now on a “firmer footing”, giving policymakers room to start tightening policy to head off inflation, it said. 

Malaysia’s headline inflation was 2.2 percent in March, lower than in many other countries, but food inflation jumped four percent and economists expect further increases.

Fears are growing that inflation could accelerate further worldwide as China’s pandemic lockdowns heighten pressure on global supply chains and the Ukraine war pushes up commodity prices.