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Hello and welcome to World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I'm Roger Hearing and on this edition, more than a week of protests across Indonesia as anger rises about politicians' privileges and widespread poverty.
Most of families here live paycheck to paycheck depending on informal jobs with no security.
That is why we protest because silence is no longer an option for us.
Also today, Jamaicans vote for a new parliament.
As data shows, the country has dramatically reduced its debt.
Why the actor Pedro Pascal is suing a Chilean drinks company.
And the auction of fine art that used to belong to Leonardo DiCaprio but was caught up in a gigantic financial scandal.
But let's start with Indonesia.
It's seen nationwide anti-government protests over the past week.
They were over police violence and state spending priorities and, in particular, a new set of perks for members of parliament.
They spread around the world's third largest democracy.
After a police vehicle hit and killed a motorcycle taxi driver during a disturbance.
Rights groups say at least 10 people have died.
The country's president, Prabowo Subianto, made a very brief visit to China for a military ceremony there before hurrying back to deal with the crisis.
Here's the view of one protester, Adinda, from the National Student Front.
This protest continues as the people face mounting economic burdens such as rising rice prices, increased taxes, including property tax, and VAT, cuts to social services due to budget efficiency, potential hikes in household gas prices and health insurance premiums.
Of course, the situation is severely affecting the people here, especially the slum dwellers and peasants that have been already negatively affected by land grabbing and forced evictions.
And the cost of living keeps soaring and, of course, made worse by waves of layoffs, low wages and the expansion of informal labor.
Most youth are without high school here and even primary education.
And most of families here live paycheck to paycheck depending on informal jobs with no security.
This is the burden of crisis being repeatedly pushed onto the people, while the government remains unresponsive, of course, and even arrogant in its statements.
That is why we protest, because silence is no longer an option for us.
Adinda from the National Student Front.
Well, the BBC's Jakarta correspondent, Lestia Katopati, told me what was happening with the protests.
The protest is about the you know, social inequality, and then the excessive salary and housing allowance for the MPs that you know exceed more than 30 times of Indonesian minimum wage on average.
So people...
You know, feeling this injustice, they come to the streets and then they voice their upsetness.
And then it turns violence.
After what, 28th of August, when the police tactical vehicle ran over a motorcycle taxi driver?
And it, like, erupted into violence.
People are really angry.
And then the protests spread throughout Indonesia.
So the anger, as you say, caused by the payments to MPs, but is there more to it than that?
Is there anger about wider problems, including poverty, among some people in Indonesia?
The total salary of the MPs is more than 30 times of Indonesian minimum wage.
And you know, in this economy, when people get richer, rich people get richer and then the poor people get poorer.
Seeing that the MPs get, like this, excessive salaries, and also, you know, they get housing allowance and then other benefits.
It just like fuel people anger.
Is there concern that this is going to continue at the moment?
The government hasn't sorted it out, hasn't changed things, so the protests will continue?
Well, actually the representative from the Parliamentary House met with some of the students that protested.
Last week they promised that they will fix things and they also cancelled the house allowance and also other benefits for the MPs.
But you know people still unsatisfied and they calling for the reformation of the parliamentary and then also the reformation of the police and overall government.
So is there concern that all this disruption because it's been going on for more than a week now, I think is causing problems for the economy and for people's confidence in the economy?
Experts say it could have impact of the economy, but I think in the next few days things are going to be calmer.
Lesthia Kedopati there in Jakarta.
So is there an underlying discontent in Indonesia that's been fuelling all these protests?
Jafet Quitson is at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
If you look at the domestic situation in Indonesia, they're currently going through austerity measures and higher taxes aimed at trying to fill a gap in Indonesia's debt several billion dollars in infrastructure projects and other projects by the previous administration and in a means to pay this off.
And it means to try and get that debt through.
It has been levied on the people.
And so I believe that the extra privileges that were being discussed, the additional housing stipend for members of the House of Representatives, certainly inflamed an already difficult problem for the Indonesian public perceiving inequality, perceiving corruption and perceiving kickbacks in the upper class.
Right.
And you got to see a lot of that public anger come to play in these protests.
But Javid, you were talking about austerity measures and a big debt.
But this seems strange because this is, on the surface, a very big economy that's doing rather well.
It's one of the Asian tigers still.
Why is it that the money isn't there to cover what it needs?
Certainly it's tied to a lot of different socioeconomic issues that successive governments have tried to address.
The outgoing administration or the previous administration under President Jokowi and the current administration under President Prabowo Subianto focused a lot on bringing gains to everyday Indonesians.
If you look at President Prabowo's presidential platform, a lot of it was focused on improving daily life, from anything from free food and access to health care.
Right.
But when the people perceive that there is a failure to deliver on these things, they do get quite upset.
Despite any economic gains that can be seen on the macro level, from higher GDP to increased investment if it doesn't trickle down to the people, they can get quite upset.
At the moment.
That might even get worse, I suppose, because one of the international ratings credit ratings companies has talked about possibly dropping Indonesia's rating as a result of these protests.
So there's a risk potentially that the economy could not improve, in fact, get worse.
Yes, there's certainly a risk there in the perceptions of domestic stability, and the aftermath of these protests certainly has cost Indonesia's reputation in the short term.
Certainly, we will still be tracking what will become of negotiations between.
Another interesting issue is the involvement of students in all this.
And also back in the earlier protests earlier this year, I think, in dark Indonesia, it was called.
Is it that there are a lot of people graduating now from higher education who aren't really clear they're going to get a job?
There's certainly a large number of students exiting school trying to figure out what to do next.
I think this is a phenomenon all across the world, but especially so in Indonesia trying to figure out and make sense of an economy where they don't necessarily feel like they have a place or they feel like they may not have a place and they may not have a career and a stable source of income.
It leads to quite a bit of influx into gig economies, like the motorcycle driver who was run down, for instance.
That's sort of what brought a lot of other motorcycle drivers for ride sharing apps and delivery services into the fray is because of a perception of a lack of opportunity.
Right.
And it's this lack of opportunity that can lead to even more unrest.
Jafet Quitson there, the CSIS in Washington.
Now, Jamaica is holding parliamentary elections.
The closely fought polls have been overshadowed by a corruption investigation into the governing Labour Party, which is hoping to win a third term in power.
Its candidate for re-election.
As Prime Minister Andrew Holness says, he's reduced crime and debt while growing the economy.
The opposition has vowed to restore trust in leadership and focus on critical public services.
Meanwhile, the World Bank says Jamaica has made significant strides in reducing its public debt.
So are Jamaicans feeling optimistic at the moment?
Here's a message from one voter.
Hi BBC, this is Diane from Jamaica.
I did my civic duty and I voted this morning in our elections.
In the last year or so, the prices have been going up.
I went to town one week and two weeks later when I checked on the price, it had gone up again.
So the prices are kind of challenging.
Now, as far as the Jamaican economy as a whole.
Of course, people are feeling it.
I'm not seeing and I have not seen a lot of people in the market.
The people in the market have really gone down, especially when you go on a Friday.
You're supposed to see something a little bit more active, but I'm seeing fewer people.
You can feel that the economy is hitting every aspect of people's lives and people of many levels.
It is something that we are all dealing with.
And unfortunately, because Jamaica is so small and we do import a lot of goods, food and items it's really hitting us a little bit harder and i think we're also under terror.
So, if i'm not mistaken, it's tough, and it's not just me saying that because i'm an entrepreneur self-employed, it's just in general.
I'm hearing and feeling and seeing prices go up and not coming back down.
The views of one voter there today in Jamaica.
Well, I spoke to Milton Walker, head of news at the Gleaner newspaper in Kingston, and he told me more about the state of Jamaica's economy.
Our debt-to-GDP ratio has moved from about 120 to about 62 and we have fiscal rules, which are backed by legislation, which indicate that our debt-to-GDP ratio should be around 60.
And that is the goal.
That's what both parties have been working for for the last 13, 14 years.
And this goal makes us stop to that economic program They brought the debt-to-GDP ratio down.
Even during COVID, although the rules were relaxed a bit, they certainly continued along that path.
The unemployment, based on official figures, is the lowest.
It's above, well, in about 3%.
They have reduced poverty as well.
And the other major one is crime.
Crime has been reduced significantly and homicides are down this year 44%.
Last year, it was also down not by as much as 44%, but that's a huge factor.
And the government has been taking credit.
They've been making that a huge part of their campaign.
Is what Jamaica wants to come out of this election a free election, a fair election?
Is that going to attract, do you think, greater confidence by outside investors who say this is a country that can sort itself out and also is doing the right thing in terms of debt and is advancing?
Is that going to attract investment?
Regardless of whoever wins or the outcome, I think that certainly would be so.
We've had significant levels of investment, particularly in our tourist industry as well.
But in some of the other industries, there has been significant levels of investment.
Again, one of the challenges, particularly with tourism, is that the amount of inputs that the tourist industry uses is, I think, about 40.
That comes from Jamaica, 38%.
The challenge is the country needs to get that up to perhaps double, closer to 70, 80%.
So, for example, we still import some fruits.
You know, even though we produce cantaloupes, we produce melons and many other fruits which tourists can use.
The farmers are not able to produce enough commodities and even some meats and eggs.
We're not able to produce enough to satisfy the hunger of the tourist industry.
So if we do more of that, then that would be a boost to the economy in some parishes that are producing the fruits where the egg farms are, and so on and so forth.
And that's what we need to do.
There's a tourism linkages council which was established some years ago designed precisely to do that, get stuff like that going, and it needs some improvement, but it needs to be a lot more so that, for example, the biggest industry in the concept tourism you can feel more tangible benefits on the ground.
And i guess what can't be ignored is your very large near neighbor, the united states.
And tariffs has jamaica been hit by the tariffs coming from the us?
Yes, we have been hit by I think we are 10 tariffs.
The government did not contest those tariffs.
But, you know, given our size and the fact that we depend a lot, it's our largest trading partner.
It's our largest source of tourists as well.
We are in effect holding the blade in this battle.
So I think we have to take that as it comes.
Milton Walker there speaking to me from Kingston, Jamaica.
You're with World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
Let's have a look at what's been going on in the markets now.
Susan Schmidt is Portfolio Manager at Exchange Capital Resources in Chicago and joins us now.
Susan, thanks for being with us.
Now the markets didn't really have time to digest what happened with the Google court finding yesterday, in other words, not breaking Google up.
Alphabet, the mother company, of course, of Google, how did their shares do today?
Well, today they did quite well, up almost 10%.
And investors took that news very well.
There was concern that the courts would come back down on Google saying they'd have to break up and separate their Chrome website and search engine away and delete some of that search engine revenue that they get by being able to be the dominant search engine.
That was the big concern for investors in the market.
Is it a fair market with competition?
The courts ruled that it is.
They can't pay to be the exclusive search engine, but they can pay to be distributed.
So a fine tuning of language there, but it allowed Google to keep its business position as is.
Investors rewarded that, pushing the shares up 9%, a little over 9% today.
And there was a general, pretty much, rebound on markets, I gather.
And I wonder, perhaps partly due to signals from some Fed officials of the Federal Reserve, the U.S.
Central Bank, giving rise to confidence that there will be some more rate cuts pretty soon.
That's right, and that was prompted by economic data that came out today.
We saw job openings data released this morning and the number of job openings was lower than expected, which adds fuel to the fire that the economy is slowing, the labor market is softening and that the Fed needs to take action and lower rates to help that along.
That gave investors reason to think that again in September that Federal Reserve meeting will happen and there will be a reason to lower interest rates.
As a result, markets were up.
The NASDAQ, tech-heavy, influenced by Google, up almost 1% today.
The S&P 500 up half a percent today. offsetting yesterday's declines.
And perhaps something else that might give them I don't know perhaps cause for a bit more optimism.
Also, oil prices are falling a bit, more than 2% on Wednesday.
Suggestions it's ahead of a weekend meeting of OPEC+, and what's expected from that?
That's right.
We are expecting with the continuation of global turmoil.
The supply in oil makes a big difference in price, but also sentiment around demand.
And so with the cooling labor market, there is thought that there will be plenty of supply, a little less demand, oil prices easing as a result of that.
And as oil prices fall, that puts less price pressure on the economy.
Lower inflation another reason that the Fed can potentially lower interest rates.
All leading in the same direction, Susan.
Thank you, Susan Schmidt there of Exchange Capital Resources in Chicago.
Now, in Chile, one of the most popular drinks is something called Piscola.
It's a highball cocktail.
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...made with Pisco and a soft drink, most commonly cola.
It certainly shouldn't be confused with the famous Hollywood actor Pedro Pascal.
But a Chilean entrepreneur, David Herrera, came up with an idea creating a Pisco brand called Pedro Piscal.
And it's been marketed for $12 a time since 2024.
The actor... isn't very pleased about this.
Pedro Pascal has brought a legal action saying it's indisputably inductive to error or confusion, with consumers being led to believe the actor is behind this product.
Well, joining me now is Cristobal Alarcón, journalist for Megamedia Radio in Santiago.
Cristobal, thank you so much for being with us.
It's Pedro Pascal versus Pedro Pascal, isn't it?
That's what we're talking about.
Yeah, yeah.
We're talking about that.
It's been like such a revolution because Pedro Pascal right now is really popular here in Chile and all over the world.
So it was kind of like a fun story when it started everything.
Like in 2022, when this guy started selling this Pisco that you know.
It's like Guinness for you guys in the UK, or a pint of beer.
It's really common for us to go on a party and drink Pisco with cola.
And people started to sell this and was like wow, Pedro Pascal is going to be really mad about this.
Does it taste nice?
I mean, what does it taste like, this Pedro Piscal?
Yeah, Pedro Piscal, I tried once.
It was like 13, as you were saying, and it was really nice, but it's not so so good as a premium cocktail.
It's like a cocktail that you buy in a supermarket or a mini store, you know?
And it's very easy to... Oh, are you there?
Oh, gosh, Cristobal, have we lost you?
There you go.
Oh, dear.
We've lost Cristobal for the moment.
Can you hear me, Cristobal?
No, it sounds like we've actually lost the line there.
We'll try and reconnect in a moment and talk a bit more about Pedro Piscal as opposed to Pedro Pascal, just to finish the story.
In fact, the actor is suing the company that's made this and hoping to, I think, stop them from using a name that sounds a bit like his because, of course, Piscal and Pascal are pretty similar.
In fact, I think we've managed to re-establish with Cristobal.
Cristobal, are you there?
Yeah, yeah, I'm here.
Sorry.
Yeah, no, don't worry.
These things happen.
Now, you were telling me it tastes all right, but perhaps not high end.
But just tell me about the case itself, because Pedro Pascal is suing.
But what's happened?
What stage have we reached in the legal process?
Well, this is starting in 2023 when Pascal and his lawyers started to see this like it's being sold.
And when this guy went to the National Institute of Property here in Chile, that is like a institution where everyone can go and say okay, this is my brand and this is my name, so I make it mine.
And then Herrera, that is this guy that started to sell this Pisco in 2024 got presented a well, like you say, against Pedro Pascal, Pedro Pisco, sorry.
And they told him to get out the site, like the Dominium, where you can enter piscocl to buy this Pisco.
And right now in 2025, like this month, this case right now is in like a stage of testing.
Right, so they're testing the idea at the moment in the Chilean court.
Any idea which way the judges are likely to go?
Are they going to say yes or are they going to say no to Pedro Pascal?
Oh, they're waiting.
It's kind of weird, but the defense of Herrera is waiting for Pedro Pascal to be in the judge like, of course, not presentially, but on Zoom, for example, and no one is saying yes to that because of course, Pedro Pascal has a really busy agenda.
But Yeah, right now here in the media, until I work in the media also, I make radio.
We used to make some jokes about this and we tried to buy it, but right now it's kind of difficult because it's well, it's a legal problem.
It's all tied up in the courts at the moment, isn't it?
Yes.
We're going to have to leave it there, Cristobal, but thank you so much for talking to me.
Cristobal Alaconda joining me on the line from Santiago.
Now, there's an unusual auction going on in the US at the moment.
A Picasso still life, two works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, and a print of a Diane Arbus photograph.
And what makes it unusual is that these are among items owned by the man behind the 1MDB scandal.
That was one of the biggest corruption cases in the world.
The Malaysian financier Joe Lowe stole billions of dollars of his own government's money.
He has now disappeared, but before that he gave some very valuable artwork to the actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
He handed it back to the US government, which is now selling it at auction, with a receipt set to go back to the citizens in Malaysia affected by the fraud.
Well, I got the details on all this from Bloomberg's federal court reporter, Patricia Huotado.
It stems from a multi-billion dollar looting.
Some 45 billion were looted from the Malaysian Wealth Development Fund from Malaysia, and it involved bankers in Goldman Sachs as well as this Malaysian financier.
Shady background and his name is Joe Lowe.
And Joe Lowe and his companions went on a spending spree where they took the money and then bought lots of goodies with it.
And included is this artwork, which is a great way if you want to think about laundering money.
You buy the art and you buy it for a great price, and then you get to have bragging rights.
Of course.
But actually, now it's being sold.
It's been surrendered to the U.S. government or the authorities, I understand.
And they're selling it at a $3 million discount.
Why is that?
It's extraordinary too, because the government, the US government seized it as part of a civil action.
And three of the artworks, it was a Basquiat oil painting that's very large.
It's almost seven feet in height, as well as a Picasso oil painting, a still life and then a Diane Arbus famous photograph of a boy holding a toy hand grenade in Central Park from 1962.
So all these three works were given by Joe Lowe to Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in a movie called The Wolf of Wall Street, which also had to do with fraudsters, which the government says was used.
They used purloined funds from 1MDB to help make the movie.
I was going to say, so the discount is linked to the fact that it's multiple-owned?
Is that what it is?
Well, I guess the discount is linked because the US government seizes it and then, as a way of repatriating ill-gotten gains, they are selling it now.
But the United States government is not in the habit of hiring Christie's to sell fine art, including the Basquiat that was bought for let's see 94 million in 2012 by Joe Lowe at auction at Sotheby's.
He gives it to Leonardo DiCaprio, and it's now top price right now is $6 million.
So that's a $3 million discount.
So that's a big deal.
I mean, a big sale.
And it's handled by a company in Texas.
It's a family-run business that has the exclusive contract to sell assets that are seized by the US government, including diamonds and Birkin bags and all kinds of swag.
I suppose the key question in all this Patricia, is who's going to get the money from this?
Proceeds go to the people of Malaysia.
It's repatriated back to the victims.
It's unclear if Donald Trump's DOJ is going to still do that, but that's where all the other money has gone.
So we do understand that at least $1.4 billion has been repatriated back to Malaysia.
And I guess to be to be seen what happens with this one.
The auction ends tomorrow.
But if anybody wants a good price on a Picasso, I would suggest going online.
It's almost like eBay.
And Leonardo DiCaprio.
Poor guy got it as a gift, had to give it back and got nothing from it.
I guess.
Well, he had ownership for a while, which is not a bad thing.
He also enjoyed a friendship with Joe Lowe or the relationship they hung out with each other.
I covered a trial where there was testimony that he was paid a half million dollars to hang out with him in Las Vegas.
But he limited the amount of time he how many billiard games he could play.
I guess you guys call it snooker.
I think we call it billiards and snooker.
But, yes, being paid half a million dollars for that, well, that's quite something.
Patricia Hurtado there, Bloomberg's federal court reporter, telling me about that rather extraordinary auction.
And I've actually got a picture of the Basquiat in front of me.
It's called Red Man 1.
It is well, let's say, I don't know, perhaps something that some people might want and other people might not.
But it looks like it can make quite a few million.
As people say, if you're buying from the government...
You can't be buying laundered goods.
Bye-bye.
