it usually is. Searching for an explanation for a momentary Google outage, Nicolas Kuroña found that the domain URL_TOKEN had expired and that he could buy it for a modest $NUMBER_TOKEN. The Argentine quickly scooped up the domain that, if everything broke his way, could be worth millions. The domain didn’t prove a golden ticket though, but a mistake as Google’s ownership hadn’t lapsed, and in the end, Kuroña came out of the situation a few dollars lighter. In a country that’s been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons the past few years has emerged a more positive story. Rolls-Royce and Qatar announced a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar partnership aimed to foster green technology companies. The partnership will build two campuses, one in each country; create an estimated NUMBER_TOKEN jobs; and hopefully provide the resources and facilities for sustainability-oriented startups to take off. Prošek and Prosecco are two different types of wine with two different names. Just how different the names are though, has Croatia and Italy at loggerheads. Croatia has sought to trademark the name of their Prošek with the European Commission under the assumption that consumers would be able to differentiate it from Italian Prosecco. Italian wine aficionados think differently and are fighting the move on account of potential confusion. Italians also see the effort as an attack on Italian products more broadly, as Prosecco is a denomination of controlled origin–a wine that only comes from a specific region. The world’s largest mammal, the blue whale, only feeds in a few specific regions—one of which is off the coast of Chilean Patagonia. Unfortunately for the endangered species, the water is also teeming with fishing vessels working the busy salmon farming industry, with up to NUMBER_TOKEN boats a day passing through the feeding grounds. This traffic has led to a handful of fatal collisions between boat and blue whale. With the regional population estimated to be only in the hundreds, conservationists are scrambling to figure out a compromise that gives the whales a bit more room. Bahrain is keen on finding a bit more room, too. So keen, in fact, that the archipelago nation announced plans to expand its landmass by NUMBER_PERCENTAGE_TOKEN. The island-building initiative will enlarge Bahrain’s footprint, construct five new cities, and, the government hopes, attract billions in foreign investment. The project is set to build out tourist attractions, a “sport city,” and a commercial zone. From sport cities to sports washing, it was a big year for professional athletics in Saudi Arabia. After its high-profile, highly controversial takeover of Newcastle United, the country also announced a partnership between Golf Saudi and the Asian Tour that’ll keep a Saudi stop on Asia’s preeminent golf circuit and provide prize funding for a decade to come. While a quieter development than the Newcastle deal, many denounced the move as another attempt to move conversation and attention away from the country’s human rights record with glitz and games. Issues with human rights records will be impossible to miss if the Chinese Fudan University is to follow through with building a campus in Budapest, Hungary. A majority of the city’s population oppose the project and the city’s mayor has called it an instance of “Chinese influence-buying.”
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