Code of practice to help companies with AI rules may come end 2025, EU says
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
Hong Kong's de facto central bank intervenes to defend currency peg
A Hong Kong dollar note is seen in this illustration photo May 31, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration/File Photo HONG KONG: Hong Kong's de-facto central bank said it intervened twice on Friday and sold $3.78 billion against the Hong Kong dollar after the local currency hit the weak end of its trading band. The city's currency is pegged between 7.75-7.85 to the U.S. dollar, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) intervenes at both ends to underpin the peg. The aggregate balance, the key gauge of cash in the banking system, will shrink by a total of HK$29.6 billion to HK$114.5 billion next Monday, HKMA said in a statement. This follows $2.25 billion sold earlier this week and $1.2 billion last week to defend the peg. The Hong Kong dollar traded at 7.8479 against the greenback in early Asia trade. - Reuters
The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
Oil falls as Iran affirms commitment to nuclear treaty
NEW DELHI: Oil futures fell on Friday after Iran reaffirmed its commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and amid expectations that major producers are set to agree to raise their output this weekend. Brent crude futures were down 35 cents, or 0.51%, to $68.45 a barrel by 0730 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 25 cents, or 0.37%, to $66.75. Trade was thinned by the U.S. Independence Day holiday. U.S. news website Axios reported on Thursday that the U.S. was planning to meet with Iran next week to restart nuclear talk, while Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Tehran remains committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "Thursday's news that the U.S. is preparing to resume nuclear talks with Iran, and Araqchi's clarification that cooperation with the U.N. atomic agency has not been halted considerably eases the threat of a fresh outbreak of hostilities," said Vandana Hari, founder of oil market analysis provider Vanda Insights. Araqchi's comments came a day after Tehran enacted a law suspending cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. "But the price correction may have to wait till Monday, when the U.S. reopens from a long weekend and takes in Sunday's OPEC+ decision, which is likely to be another 411,000 barrels per day target hike in August," Hari said. OPEC+, the world's largest group of oil producers, is set to announce an increase of 411,000 bpd in production for August as it looks to regain market share, four delegates from the group told Reuters. Meanwhile, uncertainty over U.S. tariff policies was renewed as the end of a 90-day pause on higher levy rates approaches. Washington will start sending letters to countries on Friday specifying what tariff rates they will face on goods sent to the United States, a clear shift from earlier pledges to strike scores of individual trade deals. President Donald Trump told reporters before departing for Iowa on Thursday that the letters would be sent to 10 countries at a time, laying out tariff rates of 20% to 30%. Trump's 90-day pause on higher U.S. tariffs ends on July 9, and several large trading partners have yet to clinch trade deals, including the European Union and Japan. The U.S. imposed sanctions on Thursday against a network that smuggles Iranian oil disguised as Iraqi oil and on a Hezbollah-controlled financial institution, the Treasury Department said. Saudi Arabian Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman met with President Trump and other officials at the White House, however, to discuss de-escalation efforts with Iran, media reports said. Trump also said on Thursday that he would meet with representatives of Iran "if necessary". Separately, Barclays said it raised its Brent oil price forecast by $6 to $72 per barrel for 2025 and by $10 to $70 a barrel for 2026 on an improved outlook for demand. - Reuters
The Star
2 hours ago
- The Star
Blistering heat, empty chairs and the C-word mar UN's flagship development event
SEVILLE (Reuters) -Brutal heat scorched Spain this week, a blistering reminder of the climate change that is battering the world's poorest countries - stretching their finances even as government debt climbs to new heights. But at a once-a-decade UN development finance conference in Seville, two key ingredients were in less abundance: money and power. Just one G7 leader - France's Emmanuel Macron - attended the event, where he and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez addressed rooms filled with dozens of empty chairs. Organisers initially said they expected 70 heads of state; that was whittled to 50 as the conference got underway. Back in Washington, Paris, London and Berlin, rich-country leaders are slashing aid and cutting bilateral lending in a pivot to defence spending and rising debt at home. "The mood is ... I would say realistic, but also a sense of unity and of pragmatism," said AlvaroLario, president of the International Fund of Agricultural Development, adding the question on everyone's mind this week was how to do more with less. "How can we come together, or think out of the box, or create new type of ways of really stretching it more?" The Financing For Development meeting is a flagship UN conference, charting the trajectory to help tackle changes the world must make to tax policies, aid spending or key areas such as debt, health and education. Its outcomes guide global aid funding and UN policies for the decade to come. EMPTY CHAIRS, MISSING LEADERS Few disagree over the need for action; hundred-year floods and storms are happening with alarming regularity, and rising debt-servicing costs are siphoning money away from health, education and infrastructure spending in the developing world. But even top developing-world leaders Mia Mottley, the Barbados prime minister and prominent global climate champion, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, currently chairing the Group of 20 major economies, backed out of the event at the last minute. The media room was stacked with bored-looking Spanish press gossiping about a domestic political scandal while disillusioned civil-society leaders stalked the halls, upset with the watered-down agenda and the lack of fiscal or political firepower. "We are facing a backsliding of many agendas that we had advanced a few years ago," said Henrique Frota, director of ABONG, a Brazilian association of NGOs. "Developed countries are reducing their investment in (official development assistance) and European countries are not fulfilling their commitment ... they are giving less and less money right now for every kind of agenda." Event leaders were relieved to produce an outcome document - despite gnawing fears in the past months that Washington would torpedo any deal. In the end, U.S. officials backed out altogether. "The entire community was very afraid of coming herebecause one country wasn't attending," said UN Assistant Secretary General Marcos Neto. "But the document ended up working out ... I'm leaving happy, with more optimism than I thought I would leave with." Neto highlighted significant steps toward implementing climate and development goals, including the Seville Platform and multiple agreements from public and private sectors to leverage funds for the biggest possible impact. The Seville Commitment included tripling multilateral lending capacity, debt relief, a push to boost tax-to-GDP ratios to at least 15%, and get more rich countries to let the IMF use "special drawing rights" money for countries that need it most. But in Seville, only host nation Spain signed on to commit 50% of its "Special Drawing Rights" for the purpose. THE C-WORD UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed acknowledged that the attendance was not as star-studded as hoped, and that public funds are under pressure. "But there's innovative financing, there's the private sector, there's the triple lending of MDBs ... so the resources are there," she said. "We just have to have the political will to leverage through these mechanisms that have come out of the platform of action and continue moving with them." U.S. President Donald Trump, despite his country's absence, loomed large over the event; his climate change scepticism, hostility toward diversity initiatives and pledge to review U.S. participation in multilateral organizations made some keen to strip the "c-word" - climate change - and rebrand initiatives as focused on resilience, education or health. Still, some say the gloomy backdrop should not deter leaders focused on progress. "Ultimately the important thing is doing it," said Jose Vinals, former group chairman of Standard Chartered and co-chair of both the FFD4 Business Steering Committee and the Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance. "The private sector is, for the most part, still willing to walk the talk." (Reporting by David Latona in Seville; Additional reporting by Karin Strohecker, Simon Jessop and Marc Jones in London; Writing by Libby George; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
