Category: Semafor

The disruption from the Strait of Hormuz will yield a “structural shift” in the energy consumption of the billions of people who remain disconnected from the digital economy, Shell Foundation CEO Jonathan Berman said at Semafor’s The Next 3 Billion on Tuesday. Forecasts estimate it will be about three years ...

Nigeria’s trade minister on Tuesday described the country’s relationship with the US as “actually quite good” despite a 12.5% tariff Washington imposed on Nigerian exports in July as part of a broader action targeting 60 countries. “The US-Nigeria relationship is actually quite good,” Jumoke Oduwole, Nigeria’s federal minister of industry, ...

The Scoop Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is emerging as a frontrunner for President Donald Trump’s new “AI czar” position, three sources familiar with the matter told Semafor. Bessent has long played a central role in the Trump administration’s AI policy, and this week he’s already held a critical early dialogue ...

US President Donald Trump is due to address the UN General Assembly and meet with a raft of global leaders in New York, with the specter of his war in Iran hanging over the world economy. Along with holding talks with Venezuela’s interim leader, the US president will also meet ...

UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ final general assembly as the body’s leader opens today, capping a tumultuous decade in which the global, rules-based order it represents has been called into question. A former Costa Rican vice president is the frontrunner to replace him, meaning the UN could be led by a ...

Venezuelan officials are looking to strike debt, energy, and mining deals at this week’s UN General Assembly, underscoring the country’s ambitions to return to international markets. Caracas was a pariah state for years, and foreign direct investment flows plummeted. But investors have begun returning since the Trump administration took effective ...

Chinese tech firms showcased advances in chipmaking, despite US curbs on access to cutting-edge semiconductor technology. Alibaba shares rose after it unveiled what it called China’s most powerful chip ever, part of a bid to expand across the hardware and software components of the AI ecosystem. Its announcement came just ...

The News Saudi Arabia’s auto manufacturing startup CEER unveiled its first cars, two luxury electric vehicles that will go on sale early next year as the kingdom doubles down on a bet that the industry can help drive its economic diversification. The futuristic Exobot sedan and SUV have gull-wing doors ...

The News The countries trying to broker an end to the Iran conflict — Oman, Pakistan, and Qatar — are themselves facing military attacks and economic strain from the war, an unusual dynamic that factors into the incentives and urgency behind their mediation. Strait of Hormuz disruptions have hammered Qatar’s ...

Markets risk underpricing the scale of monetary tightening, analysts argued, as central banks around the world adjust to a worsening inflation outlook. The world is entering a “globally synchronised rate hiking cycle,” Deutsche Bank analysts wrote, and “recent trends in commodity prices will push inflation higher still.” Perceived as being ...