Latest News
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Morocco expects modest economic growth, but a 5.5% budget increase in 2026
The Moroccan finance ministry submitted Monday to the parliament of the country a draft budget for 2026 totaling 761.3 billion dirhams (83 billion dollars), an increase of 5.5% over a year earlier. According to the government's draft budget, the country expects the economy to grow at a slower rate next year, down from the 4.8% it grew in 2025. This is due to uncertainty on the global markets and a projected average grain harvest. In its budget for 2026, the government stated that it would prioritize improving health and education as well as reducing regional inequalities. Protests led by youth In recent weeks, anger about public services has spread throughout the Kingdom. The document shows that the Moroccan government expects the public investment to rise by 12% next year to 380 billion Dirhams, mainly due to spending on infrastructure, such as ports, airports, and railways, in preparation for the FIFA World Cup 2030. Document shows that the country's fiscal surplus is expected to decrease to 3% of its GDP by 2026, from 3.5% in 2018, as increased tax revenues continue to offset higher public investment expenditure. The estimated financing needs for 2026 are 48.744 milliards dirhams, a decrease of 23.26% compared to 2025. Reporting by Ahmed El Jechtimi, editing by Mark Heinrich & Paul Simao
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Longacre Square and AI startup InvestorSight announce partnership
Longacre Square Partners, a corporate advisory firm, has formed a partnership with InvestorSight - a startup that uses artificial intelligence to analyze investor behavior during takeovers and board battles. InvestorSight is a company co-founded by Dartmouth Professor Mark DesJardine, and data scientists. It has developed the first interactive tool that models how institutional investors and mutual funds are likely to respond to different corporate situations. This tool can be used to collect advanced data including the voting patterns of investors in previous contests to determine a company's or an activist investor's vulnerability. InvestorSight, a tool interactive that allows users to model different outcomes, is offered by many institutions including investment banks. The introduction of the new board comes as activist investors target both large and small companies, pushing them to update their boards or even consider selling themselves. Longacre was founded in 2021, by Greg Marose, Dan Zacchei and Bausch & Lomb. It advised hedge-fund Politan on its successful proxy battle at Masimo and activist investor Ancora in its campaign to elect director and push management changes at Norfolk Southern. DesJardine joins Longacre's board of advisors. (Reporting and editing by Svea HerbstBayliss)
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Prague bans shared electric scooters from 2026 due to 'chaos on the sidewalks'
The deputy mayor of Prague has criticised the electric scooter rental option as causing confusion on the sidewalks. The city council approved Monday a new regulatory overhaul concerning shared transportation options in the city with 1.4 million residents whose cobblestoned street and rich history will attract more than 8,000,000 tourists by 2024. The regulation will only apply to bikes, both electric and pedal, but not escooters. This effectively ends the sharing of escooters. "The end of the electric scooters has been approved!" Zdenek Hirb, the national Pirate Party's chairman and deputy mayor of Prague City Hall in charge for transport, spoke on X Monday. "We're introducing rules to clear the public space of uncontrolled scooter traffic. This was used more in the city center as a tourist attraction rather than a mode of transport, and created chaos on sidewalks and pedestrian zones." Prague has joined other popular European tourist destinations that have cracked down on eScooters over the past few years. In Italy, cities have implemented strict safety regulations, including helmets and insurance, while in Paris and Madrid, rentals are banned. Finland prohibits under-15s to use them. The city of Prague has responded to complaints by residents about the dangers associated with scooters that whizzed past on sidewalks, parks or blocked sidewalks and street parking spaces when they were not in use. The city wants to encourage more people to use shared bike services. However, e-scooters have a higher accident rate than bicycles. Lime, a major operator of shared electric scooters in the city, expressed regret over the decision. Vaclav Petr, Lime's director of country in the Czech Republic, told CTK that scooters can serve citizens very well when there is a "constructive dialog" between operators and cities. Lime didn't immediately respond to any further questions.
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Air France CEO: avoiding Russia airspace compounds China rivalry
Air France-KLM CEO said that on Monday, western European airlines needed more favorable regulation as the requirement to fly around Russian airspace places them at a disadvantage compared to their Chinese competitors. Ben Smith, CEO of Air France-KLM, said in an interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as well as with French newspaper Les Echos and Lufthansa Group CEO Carsten Schohr that having to avoid Russia adds two to two-and-a half hours to flights from Europe to Asia. All costs associated with the extra flight time are to be paid by the customer. Smith added that customers don't necessarily want to spend an extra two hours on a flight already very long to Asia. He claimed that Chinese airlines' faster access to Europe was a "gift", while western airlines were at a competitive disadvantage. Both Smith and Spohr supported a proposal from the U.S. Government to deny access to U.S. Airspace to any airline which continues to fly over Russian airspace.
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Archer Aviation signs deal with Korean Air for eVTOL Air Taxis
Archer Aviation announced on Monday that it had signed a partnership agreement with Korean Air for the commercialization of its electric air taxis throughout South Korea. The potential purchase of 100 aircraft is possible. The deal reflects a race between electric vertical takeoff and landing developers who are racing to secure airline partners, win regulatory approvals and move from prototypes into paid service. Early U.S. trading saw shares of Santa Clara-based company rise 6%. Aerospace startups and incumbents are both promoting short-haul flights and airport transfers to replace congested ground transportation. However, the sector is still battling certification issues, infrastructure development and uncertain timelines for profitability. Archer stated that the agreement targets deployments of Midnight eVTOL across "multiple applications and use cases" starting with government applications. The aircraft was designed for flights of 10-20 minutes and two of the highest altitudes were achieved in a recent series of test flights. Archer, a company backed by Boeing and Stellantis and owned by IndiGo and United Airlines in India, produces six aircrafts at two U.S. facilities. Archer, a company that has yet to make a profit and is still in the red, expects a loss adjusted EBITDA of between $110 million and $130 million for the third quarter. This loss will be higher than last year's loss of $93 million. Archer announced last week that it had won the bid to purchase Lilium's patent portfolio of approximately 300 patent assets related to advanced air mobility for 18 million Euros ($21 million), bringing its portfolio to more than 1,000 patent assets.
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Salvage operation underway for LPG tanker MV Falcon following explosion in Gulf of Aden
Maritime security sources reported that an operation is underway to salvage the MV Falcon liquefied gas tanker, which is still on fire in the Gulf of Aden after an explosion occurred on October 18. The Cameroon flagged vessel was fully loaded when the explosion happened at 0700 GMT while it was sailing near Yemen. Most of the 26 crew had to abandon the vessel. According to the European Union's Aspides naval mission and other sources, it is not clear what caused the explosion, but the early indications are that the cargo was involved. The crew of the ship is still missing. The remainder, which were recovered by passing merchant ships, has been safely transferred to Djibouti. Aspides confirmed that a private company had taken over the salvage operation. According to maritime security sources, a firefighting ship was spotted Monday alongside the MV Falcon. One source said that efforts to salvage the ship are still in progress. When the explosion occurred, the MV Falcon was traveling from Oman's Sohar Port towards Djibouti. The Houthi-run Saba News Agency reported that an official in the Houthi Defence Ministry said the group did not have any connection with the incident. Yemen's Iran aligned Houthis launched drones and missiles on ships in the Red Sea area since 2023. They claimed that their attacks were acts of solidarity with Palestinians during Israel's Gaza war. Aspides warned vessels in the area that the incident posed a danger to navigation. Reporting by Jonathan Saul, Yannis Souliotis and Renee Maltezou. Editing by Jan Harvey.
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Sources say that the attack by a Ukrainian drone on a Russian gas plant has affected Kazakh production
Two industry sources said on Monday that a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Orenburg Gas Plant has forced Kazakhstan to reduce its production at Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condensate Field by 25 to 30%. Kazakhstan's Energy Ministry said that Orenburg, one of the largest gas processing facilities in the world, was forced to stop importing gas from Kazakhstan following the attack. Ukraine confirmed that it had hit a gas station in the Orenburg area, located 1,700 km (1,060 mi) east of Russia's border with Ukraine. It also confirmed hitting an oil refinery, in the Samara Region. Since August, Kyiv's attacks on Russian refineries have increased in an effort to disrupt fuel supply and deprive Moscow funding. According to two anonymous sources, the output at Karachaganak was between 25,000 and 28,000 tons on Monday, compared to its usual 35,000-35,000 tons. Orenburg, controlled by Gazprom, could resume gas imports from Karachaganak as early as Monday. They declined to specify when normal supply levels would be restored. Karachaganak's oil and gas output are closely related, so the field cannot produce much if gas production drops. Karachaganak is not only used to process the gas at Orenburg but also for re-injection in order to maintain reservoir pressure and for local power generation. Karachaganak will produce around 263,000 barrels per day of oil by 2024. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium exports it via a Russian Black Sea Terminal, and also through the Druzhba Pipeline in Russia to Germany. The field is operated in a consortium that includes U.S. energy giant Chevron (18%), and European energy companies Shell (29.25%). Lukoil, a Russian company, and KazMunayGaz, a local company, both hold stakes of 10%. Requests for comment from the consortium, Gazprom and Kazakhstan's Energy Ministry were not answered. In 2024, the Kazakh authorities and Karachaganak shareholders agreed to build a gas processing plant with a capacity of up 4 billion cubic meters per year. The new facility is expected to begin operations in 2028. The project was suspended by the current consortium. Now, the government is looking for new investors to bring in Kazakh firms. According to industry sources, the Orenburg plant's maintenance caused a 24% drop in oil and gas condensate output at Karachaganak. Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Jason Neely, Tomaszjanowski and Guy Faulconbridge
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Recent major tech failures
Amazon's cloud service unit AWS suffered a major outage Monday, affecting major websites and applications globally. This was the first major internet interruption since CrowdStrike's malfunction last year. In chronological order, here are the most recent tech outages. BRITISH AERIALWAYS IAG's British Airways suffered a major computer failure in May 2017, which left 75,000 passengers stranded over a long holiday weekend. The incident caused a PR disaster, and the airline promised to do better going forward. Media reports claim that a maintenance worker accidentally turned off the power. A Google outage that occurred on December 14, 2020, affected some of Google's most popular products including YouTube, Gmail, and Google Drive for one hour. According to the outage monitoring site DownDetector more than 12,000 YouTube customers were affected around the world including in the United States of America, Britain, and India. FASTLY On June 20, 2021, the cloud-based company Fastly in the United States was responsible for a global outage lasting an hour. This issue affected many high-traffic sites, including Reddit.com, Amazon.com, CNN, PayPal.com, Spotify, Al Jazeera Media Network, and The New York Times. Outages ranged from a few moments to an hour. AKAMAI Websites for dozens of Australian financial institutions and US airlines were temporarily down on 17 June 2021 due to server-related glitches. The firm said that the bug was the cause of the problem. META Meta's social media platforms Facebook WhatsApp and Instagram were down for six hours in October 2021. 10.6 Million users reported problems around the world. The company claimed that the outage was due to a configuration error. X Corp's social media platform Twitter was affected by a major outage in December 2022. For several hours, users were unable to use the platform or access its features. At the height of the disruption, Downdetector identified more than 10,000 users affected from the United States. About 2,500 users were from Japan and approximately 2,500 people from the UK. CROWDSTRIKE On July 19, 2024, a software update from global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused global computer system outages lasting several hours for Microsoft customers. Globally, services from healthcare to shipping and finance have been affected. After the outage, businesses were left with a backlog of delayed or canceled flights, medical appointments, missed order and other issues. Amazon's cloud service unit will be affected by an outage in October 2025. This will disrupt operations around the globe and take down popular apps such as Fortnite and Snapchat. AWS stated in an update posted on its website at 0711 GMT that it had noticed increased "error rates" and "latency" for several services. It said in a later post that the issue had been fully resolved and most operations were running normally. Reporting by Philippe Leroy Beaulieu in Gdansk and Eva Orsolya Papp; Editing by Mark Potter, Milla Nissi and Prussak
EIA reports record US natural gas exports into Mexico
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported on Monday that U.S. natural-gas pipeline exports to Mexico in May 2025 averaged 7.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd), the highest monthly volume ever recorded, as Mexico's natural-gas demand increases.
The EIA reported that the annual average of U.S. natural-gas pipeline exports to Mexico in 2024 was 6.4 bcfd, which is a 25% rise compared to 2019 and also the highest ever recorded in data dating back as far as 1975.
The EIA reported that "Total consumption in Mexico has increased from 7,7 bcfd in 2019-2024 to 8,6 bcfd in the same period. Most of the growth is concentrated in the electric power sector in Mexico." It also noted that natural gas enters Mexico through four main corridors: South Texas, West Texas Arizona and California.
The combined capacity of these four export corridors is approximately 14.8 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) with an approximate utilization of 43% by 2024.
The EIA reported that in 2024, pipelines exports from West Texas and South Texas would account for 91% (or more) of U.S. pipeline exports to Mexico.
This report stated that there are many factors that limit the exports of gas, the main ones being the limited capacity for storage and the lack of pipeline infrastructure in Mexico. It also noted that the recent commissionings of connecting pipelines throughout central and southwest Mexico have helped to facilitate this record-breaking rise.
(source: Reuters)