Month: May 2026

Intra-African commerce could reach 53% if the African Continental Free Trade Area was fully implemented, up from 18% currently. The AfCFTA, which aims to create the world’s largest single market by progressively eliminating tariffs on most goods, came into force in May 2019. But major mobility and connectivity hurdles remain, ...

Germany overtook the US as the second-largest buyer of South African goods after US President Donald Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs took effect, new data showed. The South African Reserve Bank said the tariffs hit South Africa’s value-added goods the hardest, with the country’s vehicle and transport equipment sector absorbing the ...

Doha has launched a new technology fund and signed up a slate of five partners from Asia, the Gulf, and the US — part of a long-running strategy of pursuing an impact investment niche alongside the Qatar Investment Authority’s large deals. The $30 million Tech Venture Fund is being run ...

Mubadala Energy backed a $13 billion liquefied natural gas export project on the US Gulf Coast, the latest sign of growing Arab Gulf interest in America’s energy industry. The LNG project in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, is expected to produce 9.5 million tons of LNG a year when it starts commercial ...

The unofficial arrival of summer brings some outstanding sales on our favorite warm-weather gadgets, beauty products and running gear 14 of the very best deals from REI’s 2026 anniversary sale, vetted by an outdoor enthusiast Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things ...

Home care workers want the city council to end policy of 24-hour shifts for which they are paid for only 13 hours Last month, 15 home health workers camped outside New York’s city hall for six days. They refused to eat, only ending their hunger strike after securing a promise ...

Mordecai Kurz argues tech oligarchs erode democracy through monopolies – and predicts how the trend may end The billionaires of today are unusually aggressive in their hoarding of cultural and technological influence, according to Mordecai Kurz, a Stanford economist whose research connects monopoly power with political and economic inequality. In ...

Energy security comes from using local, renewable resources to power, heat and cool communities, as Ukraine is doing Donald Trump’s unjustified war on Iran and the resulting global fuel crisis is a continuing reminder that true energy security and independence will continue to elude us so long as we remain ...

As you scroll around the web, how often to you think about the physical infrastructure—the miles of cables, acres of land—that makes up the internet? This is where real power lies, and there are ways to imagine it differently, as serving the people who use these utilities instead of big ...

University of Washington researchers planned to have preschool teachers wear cameras that would record everything they saw from a first-person perspective, including the children they were teaching, then use that footage to develop AI models. Crucially, the program was presented as opt-out, rather than opt-in, meaning that parents had to ...