2025-01-22
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The Economist hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist.
I'm Jason Palmer.
And I'm Rosie Blore.
Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.
From what you tend to hear about about artificial intelligence, it's easy to assume that all the serious innovation is happening in America with China playing the role of distant runner up.
But that gap is closing fast and China is doing it very much on the cheap.
And our correspondent heads into the rainforest of Ghana to visit a distillery.
Booze has a long history in West Africa, but now some entrepreneurs are trying to take it up market.
First up though, the Bab el Mandab Strait is the most important strait you've never heard of.
It's a 25 kilometer wide gap that separates Djibouti and Yemen, Africa and Asia, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and in a very real sense, tribe trade between Asia and Europe.
Ships have to pass through the strait when using the Suez Canal.
That allows them to cut off thousands of miles of treacherous ocean around the Cape of Africa.
About 12% of world trade normally flows through it, but since October 7, 2023, attacks by a Yemeni militia called the Houthis have made the shipping route far, far more dangerous and expensive.
The Houthi rebels have been attacking commercial ships in the Bab el Mandab for more than a year.
Corbyn Duncan is our global correspondent.
But they are a peculiar outfit.
They have an office and an email address and if you ask them very nicely, they may offer you safe passage, sometimes for a price.
So you can really email a group of Houthis and actually get a pass to travel through this strait?