Business

Chinese product pirates recently took their art a big step further. They pirated not the products themselves — in this case, Apple computers — but rather the entire store selling them.

A book consisting of 200 blank pages has become a success in Britain — currently ranking far higher on Amazon's sales chart than either The Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. While not well-written, the book is funny. Find out what its title is.

In only 15 years, South Africa lost 20 per cent of its professionals — about 800,000 people — to emigration. White South Africans saw few opportunities at home and better pay abroad. But the 2010 World Cup began to change all that. South Africans are coming home.

"Hacktivists" — hackers who are activists — are attacking companies that have stopped supporting Wikileaks. Mastercard, PayPal and a Swiss bank are among those affected.

Brazilian and Colombian tourists are storming Miami's malls with the cry "Deme dos!", or "Give me two!" The weak dollar means that Latin Americans have started calling Miami "Marmall" (meaning mar, or sea, in the mornings, and the shopping mall at night). 

Burberry has its own miniature social-networking community, called the Art of the Trench, which draws attention to different ways to wear its famous trenchcoat. The firm now receives 30 percent of its website traffic from social-networking sites like Twitter.

Fish and chips date back 150 years, to the day when Joseph Malin sold his first portion of fried potatoes with battered fried fish to a curious customer in London's East End. Since then, fish and chips have become a British institution.

"Halloween has overtaken Valentine's Day, so that today only Christmas and Easter are bigger," Carolyn Bradley, Tesco's marketing director, told The Times. "It's even on a par with our combined sales of Mother's Day and Father's Day," she added.

Investment bank Rothschild celebrates its 200th anniversary next year by moving into new headquarters beside Bank station designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ellen van Loon. The building will offer dramatic views of London from a roof-top pavilion.