Variety store

A variety store (also pound shop, dollar store, and other names) is a retail store that sells a wide range of inexpensive household goods.

Variety stores often have product lines including food and drink, personal hygiene products, small home and garden tools, office supplies, decorations, electronics, garden plants, toys, pet supplies, remaindered books, recorded media, and motor and bike consumables. Larger stores may sell frozen foods and fresh produce.

Variety stores arose in the early 20th century, with Woolworth's model to reduce store overheads by simplifying the duties of sales clerks. They may now be found all over the world.

A variety store often sells all goods at a single price, in which case it may be called a price-point retailer. The name of the store often reflects this, and in different markets it may be called a dollar store, pound shop, euro store and so on.

Economics

Some items are offered at a considerable discount over other retailers, whereas others are at much the same price point as conventional retail establishments. There are two ways variety stores make a profit:

100-yen shop

100-yen shops (百円ショップ, hyaku-en shoppu) are common Japanese shops in the vein of American dollar stores. Stocking a variety of items from clothing to stationery, housewares to food, each item is priced at precisely 100 yen. Some examples are Daiso, Seria and Cando. A recent variation of the 100-yen shops are 99-yen shops. Daiei also operates 88-yen stores. Some shops, such as SHOP99, specialize in certain items, such as groceries or natural goods, but this is less common than the variety store model. The current Japanese sales tax of 8% is also added, making a 100-yen purchase actually cost 108 yen.

One supporter of 100-yen shops is Hirotake Yano, the founder of Daiso Industries Co. Ltd., which runs "The Daiso" chain. The first store opened in 1991, and there are now around 1,300 stores throughout Japan. This number is increasing by around 40 stores per month. One of the largest 100-yen Shops is the Daiso in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. It spans four stories and over 10,500 square feet (980 m²). Larger still is the five story Daiso Giga Machida in front of Machida Station, Tokyo.

.africa

.Africa is the proposed Internet generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) for the African and Pan African communities and users wherever they may reside. The .africa gTLD serves as a regional domain for individuals and entities based in and out of Africa.

Status

The .Africa gTLD has not yet been delegated to any organization as registry operator. The .Africa application that was submitted by DotConnectAfrica Trust is now the subject of an unresolved disagreement with ICANN (DCA Trust vs ICANN) following an Independent Review Panel (IRP) Process that was invoked by DCA Trust under ICANN’s accountability mechanism in October 2013. The IRP was administrated by the International Center for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) of the American Arbitration Association (AAA) New York, US.

DCA Trust had passed all the new gTLD applicant evaluation criteria, but before the Initial Evaluation (IE) result was issued, a Governmental Advisory Committee GAC Objection Advice that had been issued in Beijing in April 2013 was later accepted by the ICANN Board in early June 2013 which caused the ICANN Board to instruct ICANN staff that DCA Trust’s .Africa new gTLD application will not be approved. This had caused the non-completion of the evaluation of DCA Trust’s application; which then led DCA Trust to challenge the ICANN Board decision through a series of accountability mechanism.

Africa (Toto song)

"Africa" is a 1982 song by the American rock band Toto. It was included on their 1982 album Toto IV, and released as a single in late 1982. It reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart in February 1983 and number three on the UK Singles Chart the same month. The song was written by the band's keyboardist/vocalist David Paich and drummer Jeff Porcaro.

Background

The initial idea for the song came from David Paich. Jeff Porcaro explains the idea behind the song: "a boy is trying to write a song on Africa, but since he's never been there, he can only tell what he's seen on TV or remembers in the past."

David Paich said: "At the beginning of the '80s I watched a late night documentary on TV about all the terrible death and suffering of the people in Africa. It both moved and appalled me and the pictures just wouldn't leave my head. I tried to imagine how I'd feel about if I was there and what I'd do."

Musically the song took quite some time to assemble, as Paich and Porcaro explain:

Africa (Petrarch)

Africa is an epic poem in Latin hexameters by the 14th century Italian poet Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca). It tells the story of the Second Punic War, in which the Carthaginian general Hannibal invaded Italy, but Roman forces were eventually victorious after an invasion of north Africa led by Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the epic poem's hero.

Background

Africa and De viris illustribus were partially inspired by Petrarch's visit to Rome in 1337. According to Bergin and Wilson (p. ix). It seems very likely that the inspirational vision of the Eternal City must have been the immediate spur to the design of the Africa and probably De viris illustribus as well. After returning from his grand tour, the first sections of Africa were written in the valley of Vaucluse. Petrarch recalls

The fact that he abandoned it early on is not entirely correct since it was far along when he received two invitations (from Rome and from Paris) in September 1340 each asking him to accept the crown as poet laureate. A preliminary form of the poem was completed in time for the laurel coronation April 8, 1341 (Easter Sunday).