8 ms·
"Asia" didn't roll out anything. Thailand, Vietnam, The Philippines, and Pakistan rolled out independent measures.
by niek_pas 7mo ago
"Asia" didn't roll out anything. Thailand, Vietnam, The Philippines, and Pakistan rolled out independent measures.
- butILoveLife 7mo agoRight? Weird title.
- nhubbard 7mo agoMaybe a better title would say "Asian nations [independently] roll out 4-day weeks, WFH to solve fuel crisis"?
- alephnerd 7mo ago^ "Some" Asian nations. It's still 5/6 day workweeks in the office in China, India, SK, Japan, HK, and Singapore. Same in the Gulf.
- wolvoleo 7mo agoWell, the gulf probably won't be affected? As they can just be supplied by fuel truck or pipeline instead of ship.
- alephnerd 7mo agoSame for exports as well depending on the country. For example, India worked with Oman, the UAE, and Iran to build export hubs like Duqm, Fujairah, Sohar, and Chabahar (the US has ignored Indian operated Shahid Beheshti port and is hitting Konarak on the other side of the Chabahar Bay) that aren't blocked by Hormuz. By making sure Indian SOEs were equity partners in those projects, this meant India got first right of refusal on exports. China, Japan, and South Korea all implemented similar projects as well. Other Asian countries could have implemented similar redundancies as well, but they didn't despite this exact situation happening 3-4 years ago during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.
- tarentel 7mo agoRight this is a terrible title. An equally bad and catchy title would have been Asia orders people to take stairs instead of elevators.
- bsimpson 7mo agoEspecially because it sounds like the Philippines is pushing for a 4 day workweek, but the rest of SEA is asking people to work from home, use less AC, take the stairs…
- alephnerd 7mo agoIt's also Vietnam, Thailand, and unofficially Pakistan. The reality is the bigger Asian nations like China, India, SK, and Japan that worked on building resilient alternatives after the 2022-23 ONG shock due to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine aren't as dramatically impacted. The others didn't or were hit by other crises at the same time. For example, in Pakistan's case, their government raised fuel taxes by around 33% because they didn't meet their IMF loan terms [0] but somehow found $11M to buy a private jet [1] for the CM of Punjab who is also the niece of the PM and the daughter of the former PM and Pakistan is in the middle of a war with Afghanistan [2]. Edit: can't reply > gas cylinder booking... The gas cylinder/LPG issue is due to consumer habits - induction and electric stovetops have been available in India for decades, but there has been a cultural aversion to adopting electric. Even Indian Americans in the US prefer using Gas Stovetops over Electric for cultural reasons (eg. I've had my parents say the "taste" of food is worse on electric instead of gas stovetops despite living here since Clinton was president). And dhabas and restaurants used to use coal briquettes or kerosene until those were banned in the 2000s-2010s for pollution reasons (much help that did /s) and to promote LNG and CNG, and will most likely revert back to those. Additionally, India has shifted from Qatari to Omani LNG [3], which was what India was already using before the India-Qatar FTA led to a diplomatic thaw between the two. It's the same situation in Vietnam as well. > freight is pretty much fucked Indian diesel prices are being subsidized and kept constant [4]. That said, this is a good forcing function to begin India's shift to electric trucks. And freight and passenger rail is already around 98-99% electrified in India [5] which reduces the need for diesel. [0] - https://www.dawn.com/news/1979709 https://www.dawn.com/news/1979709 [1] - https://www.arabnews.com/node/26978/pakistan https://www.arabnews.com/node/26978/pakistan [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Afghanistan%E2%80%93Pakistan_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Afghanistan%E2%80%93Pakis... [3] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-gail-buys-oman-lng-cargo-sources-say-2026-03-11/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-gail-buys-oman... [4] - https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/petrol-diesel-prices-to-remain-stable-despite-iran-war-risks-government-sources-11204150 https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/petrol-diesel-prices-to-rema... [5] - https://infra.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/railways/indian-railways-achieves-near-100-electrification-reduces-diesel-use-by-62/128239209 https://infra.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/railways/ind...
- neaden 7mo agoThe thing I feel like is really important to remember whenever thinking about the world and demographics is that most people are Asian. As in more people live in Asia then outside of it. Conversely when a headline or something mentions Asia, it is rare they actually mean the majority of the continent or people living there.
- bombcar 7mo agoIt's too broad a term - it covers too many disparate countries and ends up being like using Americas to refer to Canada and the USA or similar. I read the headline and assumed it was "Japan and China" but it wasn't.
- EA-3167 7mo agoThe equivalent term is "The West."
- neaden 7mo agoTBF the entire Western Hemisphere is about the population of China, so it's actually far far worse.
- aleph_minus_one 7mo agoIt is quite unclear how big China's population really is; see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFbMWq-xvXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFbMWq-xvXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymmaYswXm78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymmaYswXm78
- fulafel 7mo agoIt's a common pattern in HN headlines to assign agency to non-US continents and countries. We hear Europe and China doing stuff all the time as well. It's strange.
- achierius 7mo agoIsn't that a good deal more reasonable though? China, as a polity, does indeed have agency. It's strange to suggest they don't, as if only America can do things on the world stage.
- speefers 7mo ago[dead]
- fulafel 7mo agoSure, the usages aren't all flawed. But it's far more likely to see "Europe" doing something than "US" doing something in the headlines in similar cases, I feel. Same goes for China, if a couple of companies do something, often in the headline it's just the general "China" doing it. For example we'll see China doing something with EVs whereas for the US we'd see Tesla doing something with EVs.
- graemep 7mo agoEurope usually is (inaccurately) used to mean the EU. Even if not, it never seems to include the biggest European country by land area and population (even if you count just the European part of it). China is a country so what is the problem there.
- hshdhdhj4444 7mo agoIf someone attributed something to Europe but the only a handful of nations, which didn’t even include the largest ones, were engaging in the behavior, it would also be incorrect. “Parts of Europe” or “Europe increasingly” etc would be ok (the latter if there was an expected progression of these policies to other European nations). This headline is similarly misleading.
- 7mo ago
- thewhitetulip 7mo agoCan't expect Western media to write well. I saw a funnt reel today. It's Italy to Americans but Eye-ran and Eye-raq...
- quesera 7mo agoThere's no reason for Italy and Iran/Iraq to be pronounced similarly. (Cf Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Idaho?) But FWIW, the EYE-rack thing is because GWB (most prominently, but others before and after) intentionally mispronounced the name of the country, in a "real american" kind of way, and also to annoy SAD-dumb Hussein as a kind of "we're stupid but we're going to kill you anyway" kind of psyop. Or maybe just "we disrespect you in advance of killing you"? Americans of other political persuasions usually pronounce the names correctly.
- esseph 7mo agoI've lived in over a dozen states and I've never heard either called anything other than EYE-(ran/raq) in conversation. The extremely, I mean extremely rare occasion when someone pronounces it differently on TV, it's almost like they get side-eyed by other people as trying to "talk fancy".
- quesera 7mo agoWell, I've lived in four states in the last 20 years. Anecdotally, the pronunciation popularity has split neatly along statewide-prominent political lines. For my four example states, three were correct/respectful, and one wrong/disrespectful. Correct pronunciation has also had an inverse correlation with the rates of active/former military employment, which might be more directly indicative. And a positive correlation with education levels. So the answer is in there somewhere, I suspect. National TV "news" programming might have a style guide which dictates pandering to the audience by speaking in real american, no matter how well-educated the hosts might be.
- esseph 7mo agoI've been thinking about this a bit more and I think we're actually talking about two (or more) different pronunciations. There is a VERY hard "I" that Lindsey Graham does. I think that's the specific version you're talking about, and that one is intentionally offputting. It's like "EYEEE RACK", but that does sound different from "AYERAK" or "EYEROQ".
- Razengan 7mo ago"Asia" is one of the dumbest archaic misnomers still in use by Western people
- recursive 7mo agoWhat do you call it? It's a continent, right?
- nobodyandproud 7mo agoThe phrasing and implication is all wrong. “4-day week, WFH roll-outs in Asia to solve fuel crisis caused by Iran War” is better.
- andrewflnr 7mo agoCalling Eurasia a continent would make more sense. "Asia" doesn't have a really sensical physical boundary. May as well say Mexico is a different continent from the US just because there's a big cultural and ethnic difference across the border.
- bombcar 7mo agoThe term "North America" almost always means US or US and Canada, hardly ever the technically correct "US, Canada, Mexico" except in things like NAFTA. And "Central America" often means "Mexico and countries south that speak Spanish" even though LATAM might be a bit closer.
- andrewflnr 7mo agoOther nonsensical terminology also existing would imply nothing about the usage of "Asia". That said, I'm not sure I see the same incorrect usage of North America as you do, either.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- 1718627440 7mo ago
- Jeffrin-dev 7mo ago[flagged]
- thelastgallon 7mo agoI wish India did this. Millions of copy paste workers, would ease up traffic.
- linhns 7mo agoI’m living in one of these countries. Abject failure from powers that be to even consider 4-day workweek as an alleviation. Not the first time it happens yet they learn nothing.
- alephnerd 7mo agoTbf, from what I've heard within my professional network and extended family, most bureaucrats who are not associated with BCA are functionally paralyzed right now because of the political changes going on - no one wants to put their name on some initiative that falls under the anti-corruption radar. This paralysis has been going on for 2-3 years now and I know of an EV battery FDI project that shifted to Indonesia as a result of this paralysis. Even VinGroup and VinGroup tier companies aren't immune.
- ifwinterco 7mo agoParticularly funny because of course Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran are all themselves in Asia
- qingcharles 7mo agoI remember when I first visited Cyprus and realized I was in Asia.
- neonstatic 7mo agoAnd Korea. And Japan. And Bangladesh. At least according to the article. Sure it would be more precise if they said "some countries in South, South East, and East Asia".
- ricksunny 7mo agoeither the business press is very US-bound or parochial, or more likely, it believes its readership is.