Global Business Daily: Japan growth worries, U.S. bans Chinese apps, glove makers' boom time
Patrick Atack in London
Europe;

"Our result is 178 terabits per second, so that's 30 million times faster than the UK average."

That's University College London researcher Polina Bayvel, who spoke to CGTN Europe about the future of super-fast internet connections. You can read our interview with her below. 

In today's headlines, we have an important drop in Japanese consumer prices. It's going to be a tough start to the new leader's premiership, but Yoshihide Suga said he would continue his predecessor's "Abenomics" policies. 

In the U.S., the battle between the Trump administration and Chinese-owned tech has stepped up again, with commerce minister Wilbur Ross announcing a partial ban on WeChat and TikTok will come into force on Sunday (though he added that users won't see much difference before November). 

And another update on the companies that are thriving in the pandemic – the world's latex glove makers, such as Top Glove Corporation, are posting big increases in profits. The Malaysian firm just recorded its best ever quarter. 

In today's video is a report sent from Paris by our correspondent Ross Cullen. There are a lot of easy jokes to make about the French striking, but I actually think it's quite impressive. This one had a COVID-19 angle, like everything at the moment, as private healthcare workers joined the nationwide walkout. 

And with the news that the UK government will stop making 2 pence and 2 pound coins for at least a decade, I took at look at the trends in coin manufacturing in today's graph. 

Happy reading, 

Patrick Atack

Digital business correspondent 

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Japan's core consumer prices fell at their fastest pace in almost four years this August, underscoring deflation risks and difficulties the country's new prime minister Suga faces in restoring growth in the world's third-largest economy. The weak consumer prices came after Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda said it would monitor not just price trends but jobs growth.

The White House will ban WeChat and TikTok from U.S. app stores starting Sunday night, to block Americans from downloading the Chinese-owned platforms over security concerns. However, existing TikTok users will not see a difference before 12 November. The WeChat action means users inside the U.S. will be unable to access the inbuilt payment system. 

The world's largest gloves manufacturer Top Glove Corporation said it planned to list in Hong Kong within six to nine months after "supernormal" demand for disposable gloves during the COVID-19 pandemic pushed its quarterly profits to a company record. The Malaysian company outlined the plan to list as it posted its highest-ever quarterly net profit of $311 million for its fourth quarter, which ended on 31 August.

New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra posted a bumper annual profit, putting the world's largest dairy exporter back in the black after two years of heavy losses. It announced a net profit of $445 million for the year to 31 July, rebounding from a $410 million loss the previous year. It also reduced its debt by more than $675 million and paid a final annual dividend of five New Zealand cents per share – up from zero in 2019.

A director at Citigroup has been suspended after it emerged he was behind one of many websites promulgating the "QAnon" conspiracy theory. Fact-checking website logically.ai named Jason Gelinas as the operator behind Qmap.pub. Citigroup said he had been suspended for breaking its code of conduct, which states "employees are required to disclose and obtain approvals for outside business activities."

U.S. unemployment figures are continuing on a staggered route to recovery, with 860,000 new applications for unemployment aid in the week to 12 September, down from 893,000 (revised). Although the figure is falling from March and April highs, it is not falling as quickly as economists forecast. 

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, the conglomerate that owns some of Europe's biggest shopping malls, has published a new $10.6 billion recovery plan including selling $4.7 billion of assets and raising $4.1 billion through share sales. The firm, which owns 89 malls including Westfield London and the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, hopes to save significantly on expenditure for the rest of the cash.

U.S. electric car maker Tesla won its case against a former employee who was fired for hacking and transferring company data. In 2018, Elon Musk's company claimed Martin Tripp, who formerly worked at the Tesla Gigafactory in Nevada, had admitted to writing software that hacked the manufacturing operating system, transferring several gigabytes of its data to third parties and making false claims to the media.

A broad group of travel and tourism organizations, including airline group IATA, has written to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urging her personal action as the sector struggles to overcome the COVID-19 downturn. "This chaotic situation requires your immediate personal involvement," the letter read.

 

WATCH: Members of French unions went on strike and some took to the streets to protest against the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

02:26

 

Polina Bayvel, who led a team of scientists from University College London's Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department that created the fastest ever internet speed, spoke to CGTN Europe about the research and the future of the internet

 

What did your research find was possible in terms of internet connection speeds? 

The average internet speeds in the UK have increased to an average of 60 Mbps, so that's 60 million bits per second. Our result is 178 terabits per second, so that's 30 million times faster.

 

How does that compare with the rest of the world? And is the technology close enough for us to imagine using it? 

The average I think in China is about 300 Mbps, maybe, a few hundred Mbps. If you pay, it's also possible to buy Gbps speeds. But the technology we're proposing is not a million miles away, it's not complicated technology. I think if the operators were willing to invest the money, it could be made available within a very short time. 

 

So what could this super-fast connection be used for, when it arrives? 

“It's not [just] entertainment, we often say, 'Netflix in a second,' but it's not about that. It's every aspect of life, it's education, it's medicine, it's treatment, remote treatment, remote surgery. But you need to have very good and very high bandwidth and very, very low delays before that becomes a reality… this is what we're working towards."