Portfolio_Mar11

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This i55ue

Feafu res 50 A New Monopoly There's no cheat ng in the computerised version of

Monopoly. Hasbro, the maker of the game, says people don't want to read rules but simply play, Critics say it takes all the fun out of the game.

54 New Uses for Old Bunkers Switzerland's mountains are peppered with carefuly concealed miltary bunkers. They were built to protect the country's sovereignty, but critics claim that they are

obsolete and cost too much money.

40 A Bold Proposal Charif Souki, the chairman and chief executive of Cheniere Energy, built a huge terminal to import gas into the US. Now, he plans

to use

rt

to export gas as local prices tumble

due to oversupply.

is outstripping the rest of lndia. Many believe that the chief

minister of the state, Narendra Modi, is behind this success.

44 China's African Focus A million Ch nese, from engineers to chefs, have moved to work in Africa in the past decade. This trade boom has

changed lrves on a global scale.

56 Wiki's Gender Gap Wikipedia has hundreds of thousands of contrlbutors, but ess than 15 per cent of thenr are women. The reason why men outnumber women on the site runs far deeper than

48 Back from the Brink

Wikipedia.

Rachel Ashwell had a turbulent time during the global f

nancial crjsis and had to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

But now her Shabby Chic range is bouncing back.

52 Inspiring Growfh Gularat's annual 1 1 per cent gross domestic product growth

60 Tough Task Tina Brown, the renowned former editor of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Talk, has been given the task of turning Newsweek into a profitable magazine. That s a lot to ask according to media insiders,

Essenfials

65

Riding rhe Dragon Hoi An's temples, pagodas, markets, food and people ensure that you get all the best of Vietnam in one tiny

place

- an opinion

shared by UNESCO who put it on

their World Heritage List for precisely that reason.

70

The Super Concierge When it comes to getting exactly want you want, without having

to lift a finger, Indispensable

is the worldwide

answer. The man providing the global magic is the sawy

Concetto Marletta.

74

Message In a Botrle Every year, billions of empty water bottles end up in landfills around the world. The little Australian town of

Bundanoon has totally banned the selling of bottled water, and the idea is catching on.

78

The Sound of Free Scores The Internet Music Score Library Prolect is the world's largest free source of musical scores. Like many other similar sites, it has ignited copyright concerns and is challenging traditional business models.

82

An Unhealthy Legacy?

The promise by the 2012 organisers to get two million more English people involved in sport has faltered. But that's not the first time the Olympic legacy has not lived up to its billing.

Deparfmenfs 11

86 On Patrol

Nofebook

The new Nissan Patrol offers all the luxury while

World business in a nutshell.

maintaining its solid off-road credentials. Just don't 17

push the accelerator too hard.

Observer Spotting and analysing business trends.

88

22

Other Business

Column: Thomas L. Friedman

Porlfolio takes a light-hearted look at the latest

Serious in Singapore

bUSINESS NEWS.

Editor-in-Chief Obaid Humaid Al Tayer Group Editor & Managing Partner lan Fa rseruice Group Senior Editor Gina Johnson Senior Editor Guido Duken Editorial Assistant Hilda D Souza Art Director Tarak Parekh General Manager Production & Circulation S Sasdharan Production Manager C Sudhakar Senior Advertisement Manager Jaya Balakrishnan Ema l: jaya@motivate.ae General Manager - Grcup Sales Anthony Mi ne Email: anthony@motivate.ae Business Development Manager Nicola Hudson Advertisement Manager Rameshwar Nepal

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NEW USES FOR OLD BUNKERS Switzerland's mounfains are peppered wifh carefully concealed military bunkers. They were built to profectlhe.counfry's sovereignfy, buf critics claim fhaf they are obsolefe and cosf foo much monev, reporfs Christopher Solomon'

THE MOUNTAIN, NEAR GSTAAD' DIDN'T look cluite light. Up close, its lock lace n'trs the givear.r,av with its fading makettp of camotlflage

322 tonnes and

paint that seemed uot to h:rve becn retottchecl since the Colcl War'. Tl-re gualcl seemecl ottt of

out-stt'eauriug

-

place' too, standirrg setltt'f iu his black unilblrr ovel a clttiet cleat'irrg near this Su'iss ski resort

better knosn tbl its fi'ee-r'ange billionaircs' This oddness u'as ittst beginnirlg. The guar-d pnnched a t'en,buttous, and a rveathereci hatch in the t.uouutain opened. Inside, at the end of ai llal'r'ow caveru of a halhval', therc lvas il seconcl thick door that led to I'et another door', tl-ris one

looking ns if it should be

guarciing a bank vault.

"If vou put

E

herc yott can f'eel some -u-'our hancl ai

r,'

sericl

Chlistoph Oschrv:rld,

lafing his ptrlm ovet'a seaur iu the closed hatch, so nny gas attack ol anl'thing is uot possible"' Oschrvalcl rvtrs giving tr tottr of'rvhat he callccl the Su'iss Fort I{nox, oue of trvo tbrmcr r-rrilitar'1'bunket's in the borvels o1'the Alps that companics lun b1'Oschu'alcl and his business perrtncr, Hauspeter Battutantt' havc leased fi'om tl-rc Ss,iss

militarv. Where ollicers once pt'epaled

to def'end theil cottntt'r', Oschrvald ancl Battt.uzrtln l'ot tlLtlltr

35

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This former military bunker near Gstaad has been leased from the Swiss military and *..--.

+ - - ..r-Qgr'ff6tr56$-eS.ft6rm..l"'Aprll 201

I

Ulrich Schluer,

a mer-nber of pallizrment's

star-rding committee

fiom

tl.re

Ibl

secru'itv policv

light-s'irrg Su.iss People's Partl'.

Tl-rtrt n-right seer"n eccentric, but the

bunkels and otl-rer lbrtresses occup)'a special placc in Ss iss historl. Tlre filst one \\'as started

in I885 at tlre slrategic

St. Gotthard Pass to disconrage invading

amries {r'om using the ncrv railrvav route acloss the Alps. said.lrrrg StrrssiLautcrbut'9. a Srriss histoliarr.

GERMANY

h-r

World Wal II, s.ith Switzerland

I'earful of an invasiou bl' 1r1u.t Germanl',

Butler Ruedi Gasser gets ready for work in the Zero-Star-Hotel, which is housed in a military bunker near the town of Sevelen.

Sr.r'itzelland cleveloped the Reduit, or r-ecloubt, strategy: Swiss tblces

fortilied

themselves in the r-r-rountains and squatied on the trvo lail connections to the south, r'r'hich r'r'ere cmcial to thc Nazis'passinp; coal and steel to tl-reir Italian allies. The message u'as simple, Stussi-Lzrutelburg

said: "The day you attack us, the lines rnill be cut, then you will

1.rar,e

to light fbl

them, and u'e r'vill defend them, and in

"Today, as a neutral

the end we lvill destloy them."

country wrth no immediate threats to its borders. SwLtzerland is undergoing a prolonged soul-searching over the role of its military, including the need for the bunker system "

ill

The detelrent he$ed, he added.

Although the Nazis dres up invasiorr plans for Sr.r.itzerlar-rd in 194,0 and t943, the1, never acted on

the'r.

DURING THE Cold War, the bunkers, containing everl'tl-ring fi'om antiaircralt guns to conmand posts, \\.ele mair-rtained and modernised, and still rnore rvere

built, often with extraordinarv ejlbrts at conceahnent. Todzq', a visitor can halcllr, go lirl a hike u'ithout passirrg a t rrlious

todali as a neutra.l countr)' s'ith no immediate thleats to its bordcrs, zu'mies. But

Christoph Oswald is one of the entrepreneurs behind the Swiss Fort Knox, a data farm.

-Sn'itzerland

is unclelgoing a prolonged

soul-sealching or,er the role ol its r-nilitalr,', norv clainr to opel'ate somc of the r"nost secul'e

u,or-lcl'.s

conrputcr scLveL titt'nts,

plotecting the tcrabrtes of ntitltinational colpolations ancl incliviciuals alikc.

If onh'thc r-nilitalv coulcl find nrore ten:urts like Oschrvald. At a cosr or tens of utilliorrs, rl' dollars

maintains

arr rr uirllr.

inclucling tl-re need lbr the bur-rkel s1'stem.

svstcllt of nbout 26,000

the Batczrve, or a laux chalet rvith tlonrpe l'oeil shuttcrs. access to

Brrt tirnes have changed.

"Thev're useless," Chlistiar"r Catrina,

Last autumn, De{ence Minister Ueli

head of securib' policl' fbr the t'cderal

Mtrurer laised a storm by suggesting that it n,as tirne to h:n'e "an honest debate"

Departrnent of De1'ence, Cir.il Plotection nnd Sport, said in an inten-iel'. "Ther"re

about closing r-nost ol the bunkers or

useless and necd monev."

converting thcrn to other uses. it

door in a mountainside that looks like

"Oul positior-r is that

as

long

In fact, the government has been rrrotlrball i ng

as

brrr

rkels lol severa |'r'cars:

Su'itzerland is engaged outside thc

todar; fomrel brurkels l-rousc thir-rgs like

bnnkers and tbrtiiicntions throughout

collntr)',

mLlseunls and a'Zcro-Stal

the Ss'iss Alps metrnt to cleter attackinli

tl-re clef'ence sJ,stcm

zr

it'.s

out of the qucstion to u.eaken

fbr out' countr'1',"

szrid

Hotel'in the

torn"r of Sevelen. But nou. the nrilitarv l\rt tir;lirr

t

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hopes to speed the plocess. "You'd rather

.=

get rid of thern today than tomorrow;

Gstaad, Oschwald, a dapper 54-year-old

stopped in a room with a huge machine

3

o

in most

forrner air force special forces officer, led a visitor on a tour of the kind of recycling

that filtered incoming air. "This here is

the defence minister might embrace:

biological, chemical," he said. As the tour

an underground nuclear blast-resistant bunker that Oschwald's companies have spent millions upgrading to serve as a

footfalls in the chilly stone hallways could

cases we'd be glad

if someone

would take them off oul hands fbr no price," Catrina said. "But that's in-rpossible because of environmental regr-rlations.

You

can'tiust close the door and throw

au,ay the key."

-

BACK UNDER the mountains of

provide crucial cooling to the servers. He

a big version of a gas mask

-

atomic,

progressed, the echoes of Oschwald's have been the soundtrack of the Cold War

hardened server farm. It opened in 1996.

itselfl 'A lot ofpeople say that it feels like

$1

billion or ntore, Maurer estimated which fal slrrpasses the n-rillions needed

His companies have also leased part of a second bunker that he said

James Bond movie," he said.

annually to rnaintain them.

was completely protected from the

Closirrg thern down is expensive

For many conservatives and many older Swiss, the bunkers are a symbol of their nation's determination to remain independent and neutral. "The

fbltifications are psvchologically very important," said Kurt Spillmann, an expert in Swiss security policy at the Swiss Federal Institute ofTechnology in Zurich.

electromagnetic impulses that could play

with servers. It opened in 2OO3, but because it is still owned by the Swiss military it remains offlirnits to, among havoc

others, note-taking iournalists.

Oschwald pointed out the network of insulated pipes that tapped a subterranean pool ofglacial water to

a

In still another room behind a locked door sat four hulking safes. In or-re of them

- "I'm not going to tell you which one," he said - rested the'digital genome,'a sort of Rosetta Stone created by several European academics so that future generations would be able to read data stored on obsolete fbrmats like floppy disks.

Alrd. of course, behind still more locked doors stood rows of computer servers,

blinking silently.

Do a bunch of ones and zeros really

warrant the protection of a spare nuclear bunker? "Information

-

data

-

is

everything today," replied Oschwald, and not just for companies.

One married billionaire keeps his electronic "little black book" on the servers at Swiss Fort Knox, Oschwald

said. If someone were to get her hands on that book, he pointed out, it could cost

him millions.

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