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Opinion: Shakira is reminding us about a universal truth | CNN

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Opinion: Shakira is reminding us about a universal truth | CNN

Editor’s Notice: Ximena N. Beltran Quan Kiu is a communication specialist and author based mostly in Chicago. The views expressed listed below are hers. Learn extra opinion on CNN.



CNN
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Final week, Shakira did to her ex, former soccer star Gerard Piqué, what each one that’s been mistreated and underappreciated by their associate needs they may do. She knocked out his ego and within the course of she reminded herself—and the world—what she’s able to.

In 24 hours, “BZRP Music Session #53,” her newest single alongside Argentinian producer and DJ Bizarrap, racked up a record-breaking 63 million views on YouTube and 14.4 million streams on Spotify. The catchy pop ballad is a formidable addition to the canon of breakup songs, however it’s greater than a diss observe about her former associate and father of her two kids. By airing out her grievances in such a public discussion board, Shakira made an explosive and important cultural assertion by refusing to hold any disgrace related to the top of their relationship.

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However therein lies the rub. Not everybody agrees along with her strategy. The headlines round her smash single have taken on a sexist tone calling her conduct “petty,” and labeling the track a “revenge hit.” Customers on social media are questioning whether or not Shakira broke an unwritten rule between ladies by dragging her ex’s new flame. Others are glad to observe the drama unfold whereas they decide her for airing out her soiled laundry.

Gerard Pique and Shakira on May 30, 2015 in Barcelona, Spain.

We’ve heard the stigmatization of girls proudly owning their heartbreak earlier than. Most notably with Taylor Swift. In a 2014 interview, Swift responded to criticism that she earnings off of her exes.

“You’re going to have people who find themselves going to say, ‘Oh, you realize, like, she simply writes songs about her ex-boyfriends,’” mentioned the singer. “And I feel frankly that’s a really sexist angle to take. Nobody says that about Ed Sheeran. Nobody says that about Bruno Mars. They’re all writing songs about their exes, their present girlfriends, their love life, and nobody raises the purple flag there.”

And he or she’s proper. Simply have a look at Unhealthy Bunny. His Spanish-language album “Un Verano Sin Ti,” broke file after file and earned him the highest spot for Billboard’s album of the 12 months. The translated title means “A Summer time With out You”—its heartbreak theme laid out proper within the title and reiterated within the majority of its 23 songs. And but on-line searches for the Puerto Rican singer, alongside along with his album title, don’t instantly yield critiques round him monetizing his love life—they applaud his genius and creativity.

In a viral tweet posted the identical day because the track’s launch, consumer Melany Mora Murillo broke down all of the refined methods Shakira takes her intimate information of Piqué and weaponizes it, leaving little doubt (if there was any) to whom she’s referring. Highlights from the thread embrace: stating how Bizarrap samples beats from “Me Enamoré,” (“I Fell in Love”), a 2017 track Shakira made about her then-relationship with Piqué and highlighting how Shakira instances her lyrics to allude to numerology of their relationship. On the 2:22 mark she sings “I’m value two instances greater than a 22-year-old,” not only a reference to Piqué’s youthful reported girlfriend (now 23; he’ll be 36 subsequent month) however the former couple’s shared birthday of February 2, 10 years aside. She additionally makes use of Piqué’s signature gesture of holding two fingers up with each palms.

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To really respect the warmth behind the track, it’s essential to watch it paired alongside the video, the place Shakira’s physique language provides one other layer of complexity. The digital camera focuses on her when she assaults her former flame, she takes up area and throws her physique round, projecting confidence and energy. It’s a far departure from “Monotonía,” launched in October 2022. In Monotonía’s music video, she spends more often than not in tears, wanting matted and singing “it wasn’t my fault, neither was it yours, monotony was accountable.”

And that is the place we actually see Shakira flip up the jets, saying (with a really pointed play on phrases on her ex’s final identify in addition) “I perceive it’s not my fault if you happen to’re criticized, I solely make music, sorry if I get you soiled.” Facetiously downplaying her influence by saying she “solely makes music,” is the one time she takes a demure strategy, appropriating gendered stereotypes of girls as weak and gentle to her benefit.

She lays her troubles at his toes and gives perception into what’s protecting her up at evening—having his mom as a neighbor, the press hounding her not solely in regards to the break-up but additionally a tax evasion cost the place if convicted, she faces an eight-year jail sentence and high-quality of near $25 million (she has repeatedly denied the accusations towards her). After working by means of the obstacles she faces after his departure, issues that might be crushing beneath regular circumstances, she doubles down on her religion in herself and brings different betrayed ladies into the fold by belting out “Girls now not cry, ladies money in.”

This track may need been made as an act of survival – she calls it “cathartic” and sings she has to “undrown” herself of her ache – however there’s no denying it’s a money-maker and exhibits the world she’s nonetheless obtained it. She’s cashing in for certain. However by being so open about what she’s going by means of, she’s stepped into her energy and is triumphing. She’s rejected societal expectations and pressures to behave in a sure approach as a long-term relationship involves an finish. Within the course of she made the most important Spanish language debut in Spotify’s historical past (fairly a feat within the post-Unhealthy Bunny “Un Verano Sin Ti” period).

As a lady whose former life associate is now her ex – a painful reminder of what occurs whenever you settle for lower than you’re value – Shakira is reminding others of a common fact. There is no such thing as a playbook for the worst moments in your life. There’s an excellent likelihood you’ll be criticized by somebody for no matter you do as you heal, so that you may as properly do no matter feels proper to you.

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Joe Biden to raise solar import tariffs in bid to protect US industry

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Joe Biden to raise solar import tariffs in bid to protect US industry

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Joe Biden is set to impose tariffs on double-sided solar panel imports, as the president moves to protect US clean energy manufacturers and boost jobs ahead of November’s election.

US officials said the move would immediately end an exemption from Trump-era tariffs on imports of a type of panel unit often used in large solar projects, one of the fastest-growing forms of clean energy in the country. They will now attract a tariff rate of 14.25 per cent.

The steeper levy marks the latest protectionist move by the president, who is competing with Republican rival Donald Trump to court blue-collar voters in US manufacturing heartlands, with less than six months to go until the election.

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On Tuesday, Biden sharply increased tariffs on Chinese imports including electric vehicles and solar cells, deepening trade tensions with Beijing and thrusting trade policy to the centre of the election battle.

US officials have warned that China is producing more goods than its own market can absorb, triggering fears that Beijing could use cheap exports to undercut producers in other countries.

Ali Zaidi, Biden’s climate adviser, said the US solar “investment boom” was threatened by “unfair and non-market practices taking place overseas”. 

“The Chinese solar panel overcapacity, now projected to be double world demand, threatens to undercut panel manufacturing and solar supply chains around the world,” Zaidi said.

The announcement from the Biden administration comes as US imports of cheap solar panels and cells, largely from south-east Asia, have soared to record highs. An overproduction of solar panels from China has led to a collapse in global panel prices, threatening US manufacturing plans.

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The US imported 55 gigawatts of panels and 3.8GW of solar cells in 2023, with more than three-quarters of cell imports coming from Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam, according to BloombergNEF.

Alongside the new tariff on double-sided panels, the US is also offering some relief to domestic developers still reliant on imported cells — the units that make up panels — by increasing the amount that can be imported without levies from 5GW to 12.GW.

While some companies have announced their intent to open solar cell factories since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act — aimed at boosting the domestic clean energy industry, among other goals — the US does not have any manufacturing capacity in operation.

The relief applies to cells imported from Asian countries except China, whose cell exports to the US face a 50 per cent tariff under the new regime announced on Tuesday.

“We know that the process of onshoring, friendshoring and frankly just diversifying the supply chains is not one that can be executed overnight,” said Zaidi.

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Raising the quota would ensure manufacturers in the US would have solar cells available to them and would support expanded US solar manufacturing, he added. 

US manufacturers including First Solar and Heliene had called for the US International Trade Commission to remove the tariff exemption for double-sided panels.

But the increase in the cell quota could anger large US manufacturers that make their own cells, including First Solar and Qcells, which have petitioned for antidumping duties on south-east Asian solar cells.

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Authorities seek public's help identifying baby abandoned in shopping cart at Lomita business

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Authorities seek public's help identifying baby abandoned in shopping cart at Lomita business

LOMITA, Calif. (KABC) — Authorities are asking for the public’s help in identifying a baby who was left at a business in Lomita.

A photo of the child was released, along with a surveillance image of an unidentified pregnant woman who authorities say abandoned the infant inside the store.

The child is believed to be seven to nine months old.

Deputies responded around 5 p.m. Tuesday to a business in the 2000 block of Pacific Coast Highway. When they arrived, a store employee told them a pregnant woman with a baby had entered the store and asked for a taxi.

The woman went to the bathroom as the employee arranged for a taxi. When the taxi arrived, authorities say the woman got in the car and left the child behind in a shopping cart.

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The woman’s whereabouts are unknown, and the child is in the care of the Department of Children and Family Services, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Lomita Sheriff’s Station at 310-539-1661. Anonymous tips can be made by calling Crime Stoppers at 800 222-8477.

Copyright © 2024 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.

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When the customer is not always right

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When the customer is not always right

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One of the world’s best known luxury brands recently conducted a survey of its global store network, sending local platoons of secret shoppers to assess the level of customer service. Despite their stellar reputation, the outlets in Japan fared dismally.

“The problem was not the service. It was the shoppers,” relates the senior director in charge. “In reality, we knew the service in our Japan stores was by far the best anywhere in the world, but the Japanese customers that we sent found faults that nobody else on earth would see.”

Many will see an enviable virtuous circle in this tale — a parable of what happens when a service culture seems genuinely enthusiastic about and responsive to the idea that the customer is always right. High service standards have begotten high expectations, and who would see downside in this?

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The trouble is that, in Japan as elsewhere in the world, the “customer is always right” mantra is having a bit of a wobble. Perhaps existentially so.  

The concept has always come with pretty serious caveats; fuller versions of the (variously attributed) original quote qualify it with clauses like “in matters of taste” that shift the meaning. But in a tetchier, shorter-fused world the caveats are multiplying.

Japan’s current experience deserves attention. After many decades at the extreme end of deifying the customer (Japanese companies across all industries routinely refer to clients as kamisama, or “god”), there is now an emerging vocabulary for expressing a healthy measure of atheism. 

The term “customer harassment” has, over the past few years, entered the Japanese public sphere to describe the sort of entitled verbal abuse, threats, tantrums, aggression and physical violence inflicted by customers on workers in retail, restaurants, transport, hotels and other parts of the customer-facing service economy. One recurrent complaint has been customers demanding that staff kneel on the floor to atone for a given infraction.

However tame these incidents may appear in relative terms — comparing them with often violent equivalents in other countries — the perception of a sharp increase in frequency means the phenomenon is being treated as a scourge. The Japanese government is now planning a landmark revision of labour law to require companies to protect their staff from customer rage.

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The real breakthrough, though, lies in legislating the idea that customers can be wrong — a concept that could prove more broadly liberating.

Luxury goods and virtuous circles aside, customer infallibility has not necessarily been the optimal guiding principle for Japan, and is arguably even less so now that demographics are squeezing the ability to deliver the same levels of service as before. Excessive deference to customers came, during the country’s long battle with deflation, to border on outright fear that the slightest mis-step risked losing them forever.

So much deference was paid to the customer that companies were reluctant to raise prices even as they themselves bore the cost of maintaining high standards of service. Japan, during its deflationary phase, became one of the great pioneers of product shrinkflation: a phenomenon that, from some angles, made deference to customers look a lot like contempt for their powers of observation.

Perhaps the biggest dent left by Japan’s superior standards of service, though, has been the chronic misallocation of resources. The fabulous but labour-intensive service that nobody here wants to see evaporating has come at a steadily rising cost to other industries in terms of hogging precious workers. That has become more evident as the working-age population begins to shrink and other parts of the economy make more urgent or attractive demands. As with any large-scale reordering, the process will be painful.

Worldwide, though, the sternest challenge to the customer is always right mantra arises from its implication of imbalance. Even if the phrase is not used literally, it creates a subservience that seems ever more anachronistic. In a research paper published last month, Melissa Baker and Kawon Kim linked a general rise in customer incivility and workplace mental health issues to the customer is right mindset. “This phrase leads to inequity between employees and customers as employees must simply deal with misbehaving customers who feel they can do anything, even if it is rude, uncivil and causes increased vulnerability,” they wrote.

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Japan may yet be some way from letting service standards slip very far. It may be very close, though, to deciding that customers can have rights, without being right.

leo.lewis@ft.com

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