ECONOMY
ECB may cut growth outlook
The European Central Bank (ECB) is likely to lower its growth forecasts for the eurozone, governing council member and Austrian central bank Governor Ewald Nowotny was quoted as saying yesterday. “There won’t be any improvement [in the prognosis], more likely there will be a worsening,” Nowotny was quoted as saying by Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of an economic conference in Alpbach, Austria, late on Thursday. The ECB is due to issue its new quarterly forecast at its meeting on Thursday next week.
TRADE
Lamy sees below 4% growth
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy confirmed on Thursday that growth in global trade would remain below 4 percent this year and urged governments against protectionism. Annual growth in world trade has averaged 6 percent over the past 15 years, but this year “we will be below 4 percent,” Lamy told France’s BFM radio, blaming the slowdown on a sluggish world economy. In April, the WTO warned that global growth would weaken again this year and rise by 5.6 percent next year.
AIRLINES
Lufthansa crews on strike
Lufthansa flight attendants are on strike at Germany’s busiest airport, causing the cancelation of dozens of flights. The cabin crews walked off the job early yesterday morning at Frankfurt airport in an eight-hour strike that is to last until early afternoon. The UFO union says it will continue staging short-term strikes until its demands for better pay and conditions for about 18,000 cabin crew are met. Lufthansa says it has canceled about a quarter of the 360 flights at the airport that were scheduled during the strike hours, all short and middle-distance routes.
TOYS
Girls’ toy lifts Lego profits
Danish toy maker Lego says a new series it created specifically for girls has proved popular despite being criticized for fueling gender stereotypes and has propelled first-half net profits to 2 billion kroner (US$336 million), up 35 percent from the same period last year. The family-owned firm says sales rose 24 percent to 9.1 billion kroner. The company sold twice as many LEGO Friends sets as expected during the first half.
MEDIA
Bertelsmann cautious
German media giant Bertelsmann yesterday issued cautious full-year forecasts despite posting strong profits in the first six months of the year. “The subdued economic prospects and the euro crisis, whose repercussions are challenging to gauge, make it difficult to predict future developments at this time,” Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Rabe said in a statement. In the first six months, Bertelsmann’s net profit jumped 52 percent to 279 million euros (US$349 million) on a 5 percent rise in revenues to 7.572 billion euros.
OIL
Russia is PRC’s top source
Russia is shipping more oil than Iran to China for the first time since at least 2004 after the world’s largest energy user financed a pipeline and field expansion in the former Soviet Union to secure fuel supplies. China, which will account for a third of this year’s global growth in oil demand, boosted imports from Russia by 37 percent in the first seven months of the year, according to the Beijing-based Customs General Administration. Exports from Iran dropped 22 percent in the same period as Tehran’s output slumped and international sanctions took effect.
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
Luxury fashion powerhouse Prada SpA has acknowledged the ancient Indian roots of its new sandal design after the debut of the open-toe footwear sparked a furor among Indian artisans and politicians thousands of miles from the catwalk in Italy. Images from Prada’s fashion show in Milan last weekend showed models wearing leather sandals with a braided design that resembled handmade Kolhapuri slippers with designs dating back to the 12th century. A wave of criticism in the media and from lawmakers followed over the Italian brand’s lack of public acknowledgement of the Indian sandal design, which is named after a city in the
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for
NEW MODELS: AI researchers are facing challenges in managing deceptive behaviors, with limited regulation and testing, as the race for advanced models intensifies The world’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models are exhibiting troubling new behaviors — lying, scheming and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals. In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic PBC’s latest creation, Claude 4, lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatening to reveal an extramarital affair. Meanwhile, ChatGPT creator OpenAI’s o1 tried to download itself onto external servers and denied it when caught red-handed. These episodes highlight a sobering reality: More than two years after ChatGPT shook the world, AI researchers still do not fully understand how their own creations work. Yet the race to
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