Hello and welcome to The Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

This weekday, though, we in Britain are on holiday, so we've got a few stories we've been saving up for you.

In China, there's a growing trend for wearing Hanfu, clothing inspired by the traditional

dress of the majority Han ethnicity. Much of it is goofy fun, but there are ethnic

overtones to the hobby that could soon worry the country's leadership. And, for some, Scrabble is more than just a word game.

It's a globally competitive pursuit.

For many players, it can even be a way out of poverty.

Perhaps foolishly, I challenge Africa's first world Scrabble champion to a match.

But first...

Each year in sub-Saharan Africa, more than a third of girls marry before the age of 18.

In a country such as Niger, the rate is as high as three out of four.

The practice persists mainly in places that are remote and underdeveloped.

But as our Ethiopia correspondent, Tom Gardner found, some lessons on how to reduce child marriage rates can be gleaned from an unexpected place.

I went to this village in Highland, Ethiopia called Kamab. It's a sort of place that hasn't

changed a great deal over the centuries. It's still very much a traditional society, religious,

smallholder farmers. But what's interesting is it's seen particularly good results in the last

four to five years in bringing what was a relatively high prevalence of child marriage down

quite dramatically. One third of the villages in this district reported no child marriages at all last year.

And the Camat, the village I went to, only had one.

And is that unusual in Ethiopia?

Well, I mean, this broadly speaking is the story of Ethiopia.

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