Latin America is blessed with abundant and cheap renewable energy. It is one of the world’s biggest food exporters. It is at peace, far from global conflicts and its nations are mostly robust democracies. It is close to the US, ideally placed to profit from the moving of production from China. Yet Latin America’s presidents
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If you’ve worn, touched or seen a diamond which was cut and polished in the past decade or so, the chances are it passed through Surat, India. India boasts more than 90 per cent of the world’s diamond manufacturing, and this historic trading city on the north-west coast is the industry’s capital. Surat’s polishers, who
The writer is a science commentator People who are very rich or very clever, or both, sometimes believe weird things. Some of these beliefs are captured in the acronym Tescreal. The letters represent overlapping futuristic philosophies — bookended by transhumanism and longtermism — favoured by many of AI’s wealthiest and most prominent supporters. The label,
When Gavin Patterson moved to become a top executive at San Francisco-based tech company Salesforce in 2019 after a sometimes bruising few years running BT, there was one clear perk. “On a personal level, you get to earn more money in the US,” he said. “And there is no public outcry if you are successful.”
Profits in the US banking sector reached an all-time high of roughly $80bn in the first quarter, up 33 per cent from a year ago, even as the industry contended with the aftermath of two bank failures and the most significant stress since the 2008 financial crisis. The banking turmoil was in large part responsible
The writer is president of Queens’ College, Cambridge, and an adviser to Allianz and Gramercy The US banking tremors are evolving. The first phase of the turmoil, when sudden and massive deposit outflows from poorly-managed and inadequately-supervised banks caused spectacular failures, has been stabilised. The current phase, which focuses on funding cost and balance sheet
A British citizen pleaded guilty on Tuesday to US computer hacking charges, including a 2020 attack on Twitter that took over dozens of celebrity accounts to solicit more than $115,000 in cryptocurrency. Joseph James O’Connor, known online as PlugwalkJoe, was extradited from Spain to the US on April 26. “O’Connor used his sophisticated technological abilities . . . to
Advances in artificial intelligence will threaten white-collar workers and create “a serious number of losers” over the next decade, according to one of the co-founders of AI lab DeepMind who has pioneered the technology. “Unquestionably, many of the tasks in white-collar land will look very different in the next five to 10 years . . . there are
Donald Trump has been found liable for the sexual abuse of a journalist in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s, in a significant legal defeat for the former US president as he mounts a third bid for the White House. A nine-person jury deliberated for just a few hours before unanimously finding Trump liable
High-spending holidaymakers are spearheading a boom in first-class and business-class flight bookings, leading big airlines to bet on a new era of luxury travel with investments in their cabins and lounges. Lufthansa this month said the “very strongest demand” for travel this year had been in its premium cabins and that leisure travellers had “almost
A war of words has erupted between John Allan, the Tesco chair, and a law firm instructed by the CBI in the latest embarrassment to hit the scandal-hit lobby group. Fox Williams disputed on Tuesday Allan’s assertion that it had chosen not to investigate allegations of inappropriate conduct made against Allan, a former CBI president,
Rishi Sunak’s plan to double down on his five core policy priorities after the Tories’ dismal local election results suffered a setback on Tuesday as the government acknowledged it had missed a key target on cutting NHS waiting lists. Health secretary Steve Barclay made clear some patients in England have been unable to secure hospital
In 1900, the UK had 3.3mn horses. These animals provided pulling power, transport and cavalry. Today, only recreation is left. Horses are an outmoded technology. Their numbers in the UK have fallen by around 75 per cent. Could humans, too, become an outmoded technology, displaced by machines that are not just stronger and more dexterous
He is only 25 years of age, but Lewis Judd looks a natural at the wheel of a 40-tonne truck, performing a tricky reversing manoeuvre in the training yard of the East Midlands haulage company where he soon hopes to have a full-time job. Under the watchful eye of his instructor, Judd successfully backs up
Fox chief executive Lachlan Murdoch on Tuesday defended his decision to settle litigation over the network’s role in airing conspiracy theories about election fraud, telling investors it “in no way alters Fox’s commitment to the highest journalistic standards”. Fox last month agreed to a last-minute deal to pay nearly $800mn to settle a lawsuit from
Investment banks are turning more bullish on sterling as it trades close to a one-year high against the dollar and a five-month high against the euro, on expectations that the UK economy is performing better than many had feared. The pound was trading at $1.2618 on Tuesday, close to the $1.2688 it hit on Monday,
Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair has struck a multibillion-dollar deal to buy up to 300 Boeing aircraft, signalling a big expansion of its fleet in the latest sign of the travel industry’s revival. The agreement for the 737 Max-10 aircraft, including 150 options, is valued at more than $40bn at current list prices, although the airline
No less a figure than Bill Gates expected the Covid-19 pandemic to resemble a world war. Armistice came last week, on the fifth day of the fifth month, when the World Health Organization declared the official end of the emergency. “Armistice”, I say, not victory, because a global death toll in the tens of millions
Good morning. I promised a more detailed set of thoughts on the local elections once all the results were in, and so that is the topic of today’s note. As a consequence, you’re all spared my grumbling about the Metropolitan Police’s policing of the coronation, for today at least. That said, I feel certain that
European stocks fell at the open on Tuesday as traders turned cautious ahead of the release of US economic data likely to inform the Federal Reserve’s future decisions on interest rates. Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 benchmark fell 0.3 per cent in the first hour of trade and France’s CAC fell 0.4 per cent. Meanwhile, contracts
Good morning. Just a few years ago, if you mentioned the Federal Reserve’s Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey — even in the FT newsroom — people’s eyes would glaze over by the time you got to the word “officer”. Now that we’re all waiting for a Fed-induced credit crunch, everyone is tossing around the term