Article Details

When food delivery apps reached Indonesia, everyone put on weight. PLUS: Salt Typhoon and IT worker scammers sanctioned; Alibaba Cloud’s K8s go global; Amazon acquires Indian BNPL company. Asia In Brief When food delivery “superapps” started operations in Indonesia, users started putting on weight – and that’s not an entirely bad thing. So argue the authors of a University of Bonn Center for Development Research paper [PDF] published this month. Titled “Impact of Super Apps on the Nutrition Transition in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Evidence from Indonesia”, the paper considers health data from Indonesia covering the years 2015 to 2018 – a time that coincides with widespread the widespread adoption of “superapps” Grab and Gojek. The authors found that the debut of food delivery apps saw an increase in body mass index (BMI) scores, “particularly among individuals who are already overweight and obese”. Those increases were “more pronounced in cities … and among individuals with employment, above median income, and education beyond primary school.” The wealthy, the paper suggests, had money to spend on prepared food and bought more of it. The authors also found evidence of a reduction in numbers of underweight people, and an increase in consumption of fruit and meat. The researchers therefore think superapps have the potential to both worsen and improve health, quite the challenge for policy makers! Alibaba Cloud’s K8s goes global Alibaba Cloud last week announced its Cloud Container Compute Service (ACS) was made available to customers outside China. ACS aims to simplify Kubernetes implementation and operations. Alibaba Cloud claims migrating existing Kubernetes to its cloudy service is not onerous but can reduce compute costs by up to 55 percent. Half of Alibaba Cloud’s 28 regions are outside mainland China, if your risk appetite makes working with a Chinese cloud palatable. US sanctions alleged Chinese and North Korean crooks The US department of Treasury last week sanctioned alleged cyber-crooks from China and North Korea. Treasury sanctioned Department 53 of North Korea’s Ministry of The People’s Armed Forces, which it claims operates front companies that offer IT services and software development, plus associated companies Korea Osong Shipping Co and Chonsurim Trading Corporation which are accused of employing techies who seek remote jobs around the world but are really agents of Pyongyang. Those who land jobs are accused of funneling their wages to North Korea and/or conducting cyberattacks on their offshore employers. Two individuals who direct those efforts were also sanctioned. Chinee company Liaoning China Trade Industry Co., Ltd was sanctioned for supplying Department 53 with “notebook and desktop computers, graphics cards, HDMI cables, and network equipment.” The Register cannot recall a previous sanction for supply of HDMI cables. Treasury also targeted Yin Kecheng, described as “a Shanghai-based cyber actor who was involved with the recent the agency. Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology Co., LTD was also listed for its role in the Salt Typhoon attacks on American telcos and ISPs. The sanctions mean any assets the abovementioned entities and individuals have in the US are blocked, and that it’s now effectively forbidden for Americans to do business with them. India, US, sign cybercrime investigation MoU India and the USA last week signed a memorandum of understanding that will see relevant government agencies “step up the level of cooperation and training with respect to the use of cyber threat intelligence and digital forensics in criminal investigations.” It’s hoped the MoU will help both nations to combat terrorism and violent extremism, terror financing, drug trafficking, organized crime, human trafficking, illegal migration, money laundering and transportation security. Vietnam uses tech for tax reform Vietnam last week reportedly instructed local banks to start skimming tax from transactions made with tech giants like PayPal and Airbnb, which may not have local offices and are therefore hard to tax. The move comes as the nation’s tax authorities discussed many measure to improve their efficiency through a digital transformation program. Amazon buys Indian consumer credit outfit Indian buy now, pay later (BNPL) and personal loan outfit Axio has been acquired by Amazon. Axio has over ten million customers and its BNPL service power’s Amazon India’s offering in the field, and those of other local ecommerce players. An Axio announcement states the deal was done in December and awaits regulatory approval. The value of the acquisition has not been disclosed, and Axio has indicated it will continue to operate independently and pursue its mission to make credit accessible to more Indians.