Exploring Citroën's Electric Future
Electric vehicles editor Steve Fowler quizzes Thierry Koskas on the challenges and opportunities in the electric vehicle market and the potential revival of iconic models like the 2CV.
Watch more from Drive Smart on Independent TV.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
10 minutes ago
- Reuters
Telecoms giant America Movil swings to profit on foreign exchange gains
MEXICO CITY, July 22 (Reuters) - Mexican telecoms giant America Movil ( opens new tab reported on Tuesday a swing to profit in the second quarter of 2025, surpassing analysts' forecasts and fueled by foreign exchange gains from currencies across Latin America. Analysts are scrutinizing the firm's earnings results for clues to the landscape of toughening competition in Mexico, the region's second-largest economy, where rivals such as Walmart ( opens new tab and Televisa ( opens new tab jostle for subscribers. America Movil pointed in a report to 11 billion pesos in FX gains - equivalent to half its net profit - which it said had allowed it to "significantly" cut down its financing costs. Net profit for the group, controlled by the family of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, hit 22.28 billion pesos ($1.19 billion) in the three months through June, rebounding from a loss of 1.09 billion pesos in the corresponding quarter a year earlier. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected profit of $1.13 billion. Revenues for the firm, which operates across Latin America and Europe, rose 14% to 233.79 billion pesos, or $12.46 billion, also above analysts' forecast of $12 billion. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose 11% to 92.41 billion pesos. Scotiabank analysts hailed the Mexico revenues of America Movil as "remarkably resilient in light of a weak economy" and competition, adding that they believed fixed internet rivals would hit back with price cuts and improved speed and quality. Such competition is highlighted by the efforts of retail giant Walmart's (WMT.N), opens new tab mobile service Bait, which added 1.7 million new active users versus the prior three months, while broadcaster Televisa's ( opens new tab broadband service swept in thousands of new customers. America Movil said its revenue, reported in Mexican pesos, was also boosted by the currency's depreciation against most others in the regions where it operates. "The second quarter was characterized by significant uncertainty associated with the tariffs that the U.S. government seeks to impose on merchandise imports," it said. As a result, it added, the U.S. dollar also weakened against most currencies in the company's operating region. America Movil said mobile services growth was driven by its post-paid segment, which added 2.9 million customers in the three months through June, including 1.4 million from Brazil. Its pre-paid platform, however, was hit by 1.1 million net disconnections, though the firm added 462,000 new broadband connections, half in its home market of Mexico. Scotiabank analysts also pointed to a "rare" inflow from the group's pension funding in the second quarter, which they said was unlikely to continue due to union tensions over company plans to convert pension liability into stock. ($1=18.7654 pesos at end-June)
Times
10 minutes ago
- Times
Government and opposition alike must do much better
Out of the three parties that matter most, only one will be looking forward to autumn. When parliament packed up for the summer recess this time last year, the new Labour administration had a stonking majority, a sense of confidence and a clear plan of action. Twelve months on, morale has collapsed. Rarely have a government's fortunes declined so far, so fast. This is not the consequence of world events or the vagaries of the global economy: Sir Keir Starmer is to blame. He came into power with the stated aim of boosting the economy's performance to improve public services. But prioritising growth demanded a degree of discipline that he has signally failed to demonstrate. Although the government has chalked up a few achievements — for instance, in reforming the planning system — too often other considerations have taken precedence over growth. Workers' rights have been strengthened to the detriment of companies. Taxes on employers have been raised with the consequence that firms are hiring fewer people. Higher pay for public servants has contributed to the deterioration of public finances. The government's big effort to rein in spending centred on its planned reform of the welfare system, but Labour backbenchers rebelled against it. Instead of facing up to the rebels by making the issue a vote of confidence, the prime minister backed down. Predictably, this cave-in has encouraged further dissent. The prime minister's problem is that he is a conciliator rather than a leader. That is why he has proved to be an effective diplomat in his dealings with foreign leaders. With his low-key style, he has succeeded in improving Britain's relationship with Europe, in encouraging European leaders to co-operate over defence and in establishing a good working relationship with Donald Trump, despite the two men's glaring ideological differences. These external successes cannot compensate for Sir Keir's domestic failures, however. They have cost him credibility and the economy momentum. In the past two months, national output has shrunk while public debt continues to mount. In June, the government borrowed £20.7 billion. That is £6.6 billion more than in June last year and £3.6 billion more than expected. As Sir Keir has lost focus on the economy, concentrating on averting short-term difficulties rather than pursuing a coherent agenda, he has come to look like a tactical politician rather than a strategic one. Both MPs and voters are increasingly unclear about what his government is for. Labour is divided between pragmatists who want order in the public finances and leftwingers who want to spend more. The autumn budget, in which Rachel Reeves will have to reconcile the conflicting demands of the bond markets and Labour MPs' desire to protect social spending, will be a pivotal moment in the government's life. Sir Keir's greatest boon has been the state of the Conservative Party. Despite a welcome recent attempt to reassert the party's commitment to fiscal rectitude in the wake of the government's welfare debacle, Kemi Badenoch has failed to establish a clear identity around which her party can coalesce. At 23.7 per cent, its share of the vote in the last election was the lowest yet; it has declined further in polling since then, to 17 per cent. This week's reshuffle will not by itself reverse the Tories' decline: changes in personnel cannot compensate for the lack of a compelling story. The one party that has succeeded in devising one in the past year is Reform. Nigel Farage has capitalised on the loss of direction in both main parties to seize a commanding lead in the polls. Sir Keir and Ms Badenoch need to develop better ways of countering Mr Farage over the summer, or he will make short work of them in the coming year. For both, it is a case of 'must do better'.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
The super-rich have done what protesters never could: taken over the US embassy in London
Until seven years ago, one of the key centres of American power in Europe was a few minutes' walk from the consumer frenzy of Oxford Street in London. Reassuring or enraging, depending on your view of American hegemony, for more than half a century the enormous US embassy, by far the largest in the capital, provided diplomatic, immigration and intelligence services – and an irresistible target for protesters. Its strikingly skeletal grey building on Grosvenor Square, which opened in 1960, became steadily more surrounded by fences, concrete blocks, bollards and other defences: signs of the increasing effort required to maintain the US's worldwide ascendancy. So it's strange to visit the square and find that all the defences have gone. You can walk right up to the building, as protesters never managed to in large numbers, on to pavements once menacingly guarded by the embassy's detachment of US marines, and peer through the rows of windows at an interior eerily transformed. Like the exterior, it has been almost entirely dismantled and then reconstructed over several years, its grey bones warmed and softened with a lavish new colour scheme based on gold. The signal being sent to visitors and passersby is not subtle. The building's new role is to serve those around whose needs and wishes the centres of London and other prestigious cities are increasingly being reshaped: the 1%. Staying at the Chancery Rosewood, as the former embassy is now known, will cost between £1,520 and £24,102 a night – the latter half the annual median salary in London – when the hotel's first guests arrive on 1 September. Among other amenities, they will have an 'immersive wellness area', 'courtesy Bentley cars' and a 'curated art exhibition with art concierge'. The combination of material ostentation, health micromanagement and exclusive cultural opportunities required by the very wealthy these days will be provided by a formerly American hospitality chain, now owned by a conglomerate based in Hong Kong. The building itself is owned by Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. As so often in Britain, the ambition of some non-western countries to reverse their relationship with the old imperial powers is hiding in plain sight. Enclaves for ultra-wealthy guests are proliferating across a widening swathe of central London. Some of these hotels, such as Raffles London at the OWO (Old War Office) and the Waldorf Astoria London Admiralty Arch, follow a similar formula to the Chancery. Famous, well-located properties sold off by the state – the Old War Office and Admiralty Arch disposed of during the deep spending cuts by David Cameron's government – are having their history and faded grandeur commodified into something glitzier. By its final years, parts of the Grosvenor Square embassy were actually quite shabby, with worn carpets and frayed office furniture. Maintaining large government premises in expensive city-centre locations, exposed to protests or potential terrorist attack, can ultimately become unappealing for the state, not least because its revenues are limited by the reluctance of many of the 1% to pay their taxes. So the London boom in luxurious office-to-hotel conversions may have been partly prompted, in an indirect way, by the self-interest of some of those who now stay in them. As so often in the 21st century, the behaviour of the 1% feels impervious to satire or condemnation. Fifty-seven years ago, at the height of protests against the Vietnam war, Grosvenor Square filled with demonstrators, among them the leading activist Tariq Ali. In his memoir of the 1960s, Street Fighting Years, he recalls that he and his more excitable comrades 'dreamed' of forcing their way into the building, and 'using the embassy telex to cable the US embassy in Saigon and inform them that pro-Vietcong forces had seized the premises in Grosvenor Square'. Only mounted police charges and mass arrests saved the London embassy from invasion. Yet now luxury capitalism has managed to do what protesters could not, and take over the building from the spooks and diplomats. With Donald Trump transparently running the US for the benefit of the rich, it feels fitting that the building has become a place for them, rather than Americans in general. The hotel will be open just in time for his September state visit. Perhaps some of his wealthier supporters will take the opportunity to stay. For any guest who worries about the potential provocation of yet another elite hotel, operating at a traditional protest site, in a country in which most people are struggling with a seemingly endless cost of living crisis, the Chancery does have some discreet security. Cameras cover the hotel's perimeter, and guards circle the building after dark. Meanwhile a couple of miles to the south, in a new London landscape of residential towers and windswept roads at Nine Elms, the successor to the Grosvenor Square embassy stands in the middle of its own, far more extensive security zone, including a partial moat and a defensive wall disguised as a waterfall. The huge pale cube of the current US embassy dominates its neighbourhood even more than its predecessor did. It's also much further away from the usual routes of London political marches. Some protesters have already adjusted. Thousands of people supporting Palestine walked to the embassy in February, to show their fury at Trump's backing for Israel. The symbolic contrast between their defiant flags and flimsy placards and the fortress-like building did not work in the US's favour. The Grosvenor Square embassy may be gone, but the business of challenging the US goes on. Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist
