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With a September interest-rate cut all but certain and attention turning to the pace of future reductions, Federal Reserve officials are coalescing around a gradual approach to the last mile of their inflation fight.A handful of policymakers at the Fed’s annual research symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, last week made the case for lowering rates in a “gradual” or “methodical” manner. That pushed back against investor expectations for at least one outsized cut this fall. Inflation hasn’t yet fully cooled to their 2% target, the Fed officials argued, and while the labour market shows signs of fragility, the absence of widespread layoffs means aggressive action isn’t yet called for.“Methodical, gradual, careful — those are the types of words you hear policymakers throw around when they’re turning the ship,” said Brett Ryan, senior US economist at Deutsche Bank AG. “It’s going to be sort of a feeling-out process that they’re going to want to take a slower approach on.”Gradualism is a strategy that the Fed has deployed before in uncertain times. It suggests they hope to cut rates by 25 basis points at a time. Yet notably absent from the chorus backing this approach was Chair Jerome Powell.The Fed chief has staked his legacy on bringing down inflation without causing severe pain in the job market. In his closely watched speech in Jackson Hole, Powell never described how quickly or slowly he expects the Fed to move after September. He also sounded more open than several of his colleagues to taking a more aggressive approach should things deteriorate rapidly on the employment front.“We will do everything we can to support a strong labour market as we make further progress toward price stability,” Powell said. “We do not seek or welcome further cooling in labour market conditions.”The Fed, like many other central banks, has taken a gradual approach during most easing and tightening cycles in the modern era, with a few exceptions.At the onset of the financial crisis and during the Covid pandemic, policymakers rapidly drove interest rates to zero. Former Chair Paul Volcker was famously unflinching in his strategy for quashing inflation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Otherwise, monetary policy has more typically been adjusted by just a quarter percentage point at a time.This approach, as detailed by then-Governor Ben Bernanke in a 2004 speech on gradualism, gives policymakers time to gauge the economy’s response to its actions.Applied now, gradualism would provide some relief from the Fed’s current level of restrictiveness, but also take into account that the inflation target hasn’t yet been achieved. After underestimating the surge in prices in 2021 and starting to tighten too late, some policymakers are still wary of reigniting inflation. At least one worries that cheaper borrowing costs will release pent-up demand from consumers and businesses awaiting lower rates.But at the same time, the labour market is finally beginning to look normal again, and by some measures a bit weak. Unemployment unexpectedly rose to 4.3% in July. Employers aren’t firing workers en masse, but they’ve slowed hiring dramatically.To some, like Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin, that’s a combination that is unlikely to continue for long.“They have a significant question around them now in terms of labour market weakening,” said Claudia Sahm, chief economist at New Century Advisors, an investment management firm. “They need to start removing the restriction.” Powell and his colleagues long argued the hot jobs market was stoking inflation by driving wages higher and giving US consumers more spending power. But Powell made clear that effect has faded. “Powell appears to be more dovish than his peers,” said EY-Parthenon economists Gregory Daco and Lydia Boussour. “Still, unless labour conditions deteriorate materially in the coming weeks, we continue to expect a majority of policymakers will favour a 25 basis-point cut in September.”As Fed officials embark on this next phase, they face another question besides how fast to go: If all goes smoothly, how far can they eventually cut rates?The so-called neutral rate of interest, where the central bank is neither holding down the economy nor stimulating it, is an estimate rather than an exact scientific calculation.

China’s annual growth target looks increasingly out of reach to economists, with UBS Group AG adding to a string of recent forecast cuts as consumer spending slows and President Xi Jinping’s government avoids major stimulus.With economic momentum held back by a real estate downturn and tight fiscal policy, the Swiss bank now expects China’s gross domestic product to expand 4.6% this year — compared with an earlier forecast of 4.9%. For 2025, UBS sees growth at 4%, down from 4.6% previously.The downgrade, coming after weak earnings reports from several top Chinese consumer companies this month, reflects an emerging consensus among the world’s biggest banks that the country might not meet its growth aim of around 5% in 2024. By contrast, the Politburo — comprising the ruling Communist Party’s top 24 officials — has remained committed to achieving this year’s “economic and social development targets” that include the GDP goal.But the real estate downturn is weighing heavily on domestic demand and confidence. China last missed its annual growth target in 2022, when Covid lockdowns and abrupt policy changes put that goal out of reach. “We expect weaker property activities to have a bigger drag on the overall economy than earlier expected, including through household consumption,” UBS economists including Wang Tao wrote in a note Wednesday.Many analysts have slashed their projections for China’s $17tn economy after it slowed to its weakest pace in five quarters from April to June. Other banks sceptical about Beijing achieving its growth target include JPMorgan Chase & Co — which also predicts a 4.6% increase — and Nomura Holdings Inc, whose forecast is even lower at 4.5%.They are among 51 of the 74 analysts tracked by Bloomberg that estimate the growth rate may come under 5% this year.While China has been easing its policies since the end of 2022 to revive the property market — with steps including reduced down-payment requirements, lower mortgage rates and fewer restrictions on home purchases — the implementation of the measures has been slow and has had limited impact, according to UBS.“China’s property demand and supply fundamentals have changed in recent years, market confidence is low amid weak household income growth, and inventory levels are high while destocking implementation has been slow,” the economists wrote. The bank downgraded its outlook for the real estate sector, and now expects a bottoming out of new starts only in mid-2026.The nation’s housing slump has shown little sign of reversing. New-home sales fell almost 20% in July from a year earlier, while first-hand home prices dropped at their fastest pace on an annual basis in nine years. New home starts also continued to plunge at a clip of around 20%.The crisis has dragged down everything from the job market to consumption and household wealth over the past two years.The economic difficulties have contributed to a prolonged rout in the world’s second-largest stock market, despite various efforts by authorities to restore investor confidence. The CSI 300 Index, which tracks onshore Chinese equities, has fallen 4.2% in 2024 and is on track for an unprecedented fourth consecutive annual loss. In contrast, a broader index of Asian shares has risen nearly 10%.The repercussions have spread to the broader financial market and swept up individual investors.Nearly half of the 27 closed-end, three-year mutual funds launched in 2021 are facing losses of at least 40% as they near the end of their cycle, according to a report by the state-run China Securities Journal on Thursday.

This year’s Jackson Hole Economic Symposium of central bankers from around the world is right to focus on the monetary-transmission mechanism, the channel through which monetary policy influences broader economic and financial conditions. Although the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 500 basis points between March 2022 and July 2023, it seems that little damage has been done to the US real economy or its financial system.This low cost of disinflation is shocking (though certainly welcome). Even if we have strong hypotheses to explain ex post why the United States has been able to combine growth with disinflation for the last two years – notably high immigration, a surge in productivity, and (above all) well-anchored inflation expectations – the lack of a visible direct impact from rate increases is remarkable.Evidently, current US monetary policy is meaningfully looser than many Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members and market participants think it is. What’s more, the impact of monetary policy on the economy is more conditional, and probably on average weaker, than commonly believed. This assessment is directly relevant to the FOMC’s upcoming monetary-policy choices, but even more so to policymaking further in the future.This past June, multiple FOMC members expressed concern that monetary conditions have been tightening further as declines in inflation lead to higher real interest rates. But this view fails to account for the magnitudes and channels of monetary transmission. Here, the focus on the policy instrument, the federal funds rate, is misleading. It is a mistake to assume that the settings of the instrument are close to optimal at any given time, or that they must be fine-tuned with each twist and turn in the inflation forecast. The assessment of monetary conditions should focus more on actual financial-market outcomes than on preconceived notions of the effect of policy.As we saw with the 2008 global financial crisis, financial markets are segmented, and central banks often must intervene directly in particular markets to have an impact. For example, commercial lending by non-bank financial intermediaries is affected differently by interest rates and (the lack of) supervision than is traditional bank lending. Private equity and unlisted investments react differently to policy adjustments than commercial paper, bonds, and even traded equities do. Even in the absence of financial-liquidity constraints, regulation and international barriers impede the transmission of credit flows uniformly across jurisdictions.Thus, as a forward indicator, financial conditions are at least as important as the slightly backward-looking signals sent by the labour market. Moreover, financial indicators remain quite accommodative. Equities have returned to high valuations, and the decline in longer-term Treasury rates has persisted. Interest-rate spreads (such as those between lower-rated corporate bonds and comparable duration Treasuries) have widened somewhat but remain very low by historical standards, let alone for the end of a Fed tightening cycle.The same holds true for delinquent auto and consumer loans and for real-estate losses. These have come off their lows, but not by much. It is rather odd to call monetary policy “tight” when credit remains easy and balance sheets are barely distressed.Another problem with focusing primarily on changes in the real federal funds rate (assuming all else is equal) is that it ignores a more important benchmark for the impact of monetary policy: where that interest rate is in relation to the neutral interest rate (r*), the rate where monetary policy is neither “loose” nor “tight” for an economy growing near trend. The gap between the underlying long-term return to safe capital in the economy and what the Fed sets as the minimum lending rate for very short-term loans thus reflects the traction of monetary policy on the economy. If the neutral rate has moved up a lot, any rise in real rates as inflation declines could be more than offset.As Fed Chair Jerome Powell rightly pointed out at previous Jackson Hole conferences, the economic stars (neutral interest and unemployment rates) are not directly observable, or even robustly estimated. Yet there are overwhelming reasons to believe that r* has risen substantially above its pre-Covid levels, which means that monetary-policy settings have actually become looser over time.Foremost, US federal deficits are much higher on a sustained basis, and spending on defense, environmental, and industrial policies will keep them up. These additional outlays will drive up rates on government borrowing, which is a key determinant of r*.At the same time, Chinese and American officials alike are discouraging capital flows from Chinese investors into US markets, shrinking the pool of savings available to finance US deficits – which also increases long-term rates. But after the pandemic, US savings rates fell as consumers bought in to a “YOLO” (you only live once) mindset and internalised the lesson that there will always be government support in times of crisis (thankfully). Again, this will make rates go up as debt levels rise.Finally, if the recent acceleration in productivity growth is sustained – perhaps because AI or green-tech becomes more widespread – that, too, will raise the real return on capital, and thus r*. However one weighs these various factors, all trends point to an increase in r* by as much as 1.5%.To be sure, the fact that US monetary policy is looser than many believe should not discourage the Fed from cutting rates in September and November. From a risk-management perspective, if inflation is forecast to continue on a downward trend and unemployment is rising, loosening policy to forestall a recessionary slide is prudent (at least until the economic impact of November’s US election becomes clear next year).But warnings that Fed policy is potentially dragging the economy down are unjustified. When the US economy proves resilient yet again, and the time for rate increases returns, the FOMC should be prepared not only to raise rates more than it is used to, but also to track how its hikes transmit across diverse financial markets. — Project Syndicate• Adam Posen is President of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has confirmed that Qatar is free of any cases of Mpox (previously known as Monkeypox), thanks to a comprehensive and robust range of public health measures, including heightened surveillance aimed at early detection of cases.In a statement, the Ministry explained that while the health sector has been continuously following these precautionary measures, they have been reinforced in response to the evolving situation and the World Health Organization's declaration of Mpox as a public health emergency. MoPH reiterated that professionals in both the public and private healthcare sectors are fully alert and prepared to manage any suspected or confirmed cases.The health authorities are constantly monitoring potential developments as the situation evolves and are taking the necessary measures, the statement stressed noting that the MoPH is working with the relevant authorities to ensure the early detection of cases entering Qatar from the affected countries.The Ministry stressed that community members are extremely unlikely to contract the Mpox virus unless they have recently travelled to the endemic countries in the African region or been in close contact with someone who has the virus.The MoPH will continue to monitor the global and regional epidemiological situation and take all necessary precautionary measures, the statement emphasised.These heightened public health measures follow the World Health Organization's declaration of Mpox as a public health emergency due to the rapid increase in Mpox cases in the affected geographical areas within East and Central Africa.Mpox is a viral disease that occurs primarily in tropical rainforest areas of Central and West Africa and is occasionally exported to other regions. It is transmitted through close contact with an infected person, animal, or material contaminated with the virus, and it causes fever, rashes, flu-like symptoms, and lesions. Most cases are mild, but they can be severe in children, pregnant women, and individuals with weakened immune systems.After its global spread .. Dr. Ahmed Amara:6 measures to avoid infection with monkeypoxMonkeypox is a viral disease and a type of the genus Orthopoxvirus.Symptoms may initially appear in the form of high fever and headache accompanied by muscle pain, and those infected are also likely to suffer from a lack of energy in the first five days after contracting the disease. They may also include back pain, swollen glands, tremors, fatigue, and joint pain.With the World Health Organization recently announcing the spread of monkeypox in a number of African countries, which constitutes a global health emergency, while scientists say they are concerned about the spread of a new strain of the virus.38,465 cases of infection with the virus and 1,456 deaths were recorded in 16 African countries, with a 160% increase in infections in 2024 compared to last year.In this interview with Dr. Ahmed Jaber - Cardiology Consultant at Naseem Medical Center,we learn about monkeypox, its symptoms, causes, types, methods of transmission, incubation period, the virus, its complications, methods of diagnosis, treatment methods and prevention of the epidemic..What is monkeypox? - Monkeypox is a rare viral disease that is transmitted from animals to humans. It was first discovered in 1958. Monkeypox virus is a virus belonging to the Orthopoxvirus family ( ( and contains a double-stranded DNA between 200 and 400 nanometers in size, making it one of the largest viruses known and a complex structure, which helps it to resist harsh environmental conditions as the virus is characterized by the presence of a protein coat.• What are the types of monkeypox virus?- There are two main types of monkeypox virus:1. West African type: It is considered less severe and has a lower mortality rate2. Central African type (Congo): It is considered more severe and has a higher mortality rate• How does monkeypox virus spread?Monkeypox infection occurs as a result of exposure to the virus, and this virus is transmitted from animals to humans, and rodents (such as mice and squirrels) are often the natural reservoir of the virus.Monkeypox virus is transmitted from person to person in the following ways:Direct contact with the rash or Scabs or fluids from the body of a person infected with monkeypox or direct and prolonged exposure(more than four hours) to respiratory droplets of a person infected with monkeypox,Also, methods of transmission include using clothes or bedding or blankets or any other objects that have come into contact with the rash or body fluids of a person infected with the virus.Monkeypox is also transmitted from animals to humans in the following ways:Exposure to a bite or scratch from an infected animalEating the meat of wild animals or birds that are cooked to be eaten, and using products made from infected animals, such as hides and fur, and direct exposure to the rash or fluids from the bodies of animals infected with monkeypox.• What is the incubation period?- The incubation period for the virus ranges from 5 to 21 days, with symptoms usually starting on the seventh to fourteenth day after exposure or infection with the virus.• What are the symptoms of monkeypox and what is its nature?- Monkeypox symptoms may begin to appear, as we mentioned in the previous question, within a period ranging from 5 to 21 days of exposure to the virus. The period between exposure to the virus and the onset of symptoms is called the incubation period and includes symptoms of Monkeypox symptoms include: fever, headache, muscle aches, and a rash that appears on the face and body, developing into fluid-filled blisters that turn into crusts before healing, and finally swelling of the lymph nodes.• What are the causes of the outbreak of the epidemic in 2024?- The year 2024 witnessed an increase in the number of recorded cases, and therefore the World Health Organization issued its warnings during the month of August. The causes of the outbreak of the epidemic aredue to several factors, including:Increased travel and movement: After easing restrictions related to Covid-19, international travel increased, which contributed to the spread of the virus.Environmental changes: Such as loss of natural habitats and climate change, may increase the risk of transmission of the virus from animals to humans.• Are there serious complications of monkeypox?- Yes, and complications of monkeypox infection include the following:Deep scars on the face, arms or legs,Blindness loss, other infections, andDeath, in rare cases.• What are the most prominent diagnostic methods?- Monkeypox is diagnosed througha clinical examination of symptoms, in addition toa test to detect the virus's DNA ».“ PCR• What is the treatment for monkeypox?- There is no specific and approved treatment for monkeypox,but some antiviral drugs can be used, and vaccines used against the traditional virus may provide protection against monkeypox, and new vaccines have been developed to be more effective, as well as health awareness and educationare essential elements in controlling the spread of the disease.* What can I do to avoid getting infected with monkeypox or transmitting it to others?- To prevent infection with monkeypox and avoid transmitting it, we must follow the following steps:1. Avoid close contact with people who have a rash similar to the rash associated with monkeypox.2. Avoid touching any clothes, bedding,blankets, or other objects that have been in contact with an infected animal or human.3. Isolate those infected with monkeypox from healthy people.4. Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after touching any infected person or animal. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. 5. Avoid contact with animals suspected of carrying the virus. Some smallpox vaccines may help prevent the epidemic.

Boeing Co’s delays in fulfilling orders has forced Africa’s biggest carrier, Ethiopian Airlines, to lease aircraft to stay on track with its expansion.The Addis Ababa-based company has waited since April to receive 737 Max jetliners and 777 freight carriers, Chief Executive Officer Mesfin Tasew Bekele said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. Boeing hasn’t provided a revised schedule for the deliveries, he said.“We are waiting to hear from them and definitely, late delivery of airplanes will affect our growth plan,” Tasew said. “In parallel with that, we didn’t wait for Boeing to deliver the ordered airplanes, and now we are leasing airplanes,” he said.Boeing didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.Commercial aircraft deliveries by Boeing, which is working through one of the most difficult periods in its history, showed signs of stabilising in July, with deliveries in the month mirroring those in the same month a year earlier.Arlington, Virginia-based Boeing and rival Airbus SE are delaying airplane deliveries as they struggle with persistent parts shortages and workforce turnover that have lingered since the Covid-19 pandemic. The US planemaker faces added uncertainty with a possible strike looming that could shut down its Seattle-area factories next month.Several airlines have warned that Boeing’s late-arriving jets are taking a toll on operations and finances.Ryanair Holdings Plc reiterated frustration with the manufacturer’s delays on Tuesday as Europe’s biggest low-cost carrier may miss its annual passenger target depending on the extent of Boeing’s 737 Max jet delays.Flydubai and Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA also said their growth will be affected by Boeing’s delivery delays as the US manufacturer has struggled to ramp up production and works to bolster quality controls following an accident in January.The African carrier has remained a customer of Boeing despite their troubled history following the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max in March 2019 that killed all on board. Last year, the state-owned company announced it was ordering 11 of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliners and 20 of its 737 Max airplanes as part of a fleet overhaul.Ethiopian Airlines is scheduled to receive 16 aircraft in its current fiscal year that ends in June, Tasew said. It’s due to get four A350-1000 from Airbus, with the first due in October and the last in March, he said.“The next promised delivery dates that we received from Boeing for the 777 freighter is for the quarter of September,” Tasew said. “Boeing didn’t tell us a schedule or a revised schedule for delivery of the next 737 Max airplanes.”Boeing will open an office in Addis Ababa in October, and plans to strengthen cooperation for joint production of aircraft components.Ethiopian Airlines is exploring plans to expand on the continent, where it has already partnered with operators in Togo, Malawi and Zambia.“A few African governments have requested us to go there to form airlines in partnership,” Tasew said. Others “have requested us to manage their own airlines without equity partnership, which we are considering as well,” he said, adding that his company will have “some sort of partnership with at least two African nations in the coming 12 months.”This could involve investing in existing operators or starting brand-new airlines together with an African government, he said.Meanwhile, plans to establish a carrier together with institutional investors and the Nigerian government have ended, Tasew said.“It was not welcomed,” he said. “Our intention was to help the country, but since they objected to the idea, there is no need for Ethiopian Airlines to go there.”The proposed carrier would have given Ethiopian Airlines a foothold in Africa’s most populous country, where about 23 domestic airlines compete for influence. Previous government attempts to start a flag carrier have failed.

With a September interest-rate cut all but certain and attention turning to the pace of future reductions, Federal Reserve officials are coalescing around a gradual approach to the last mile of their inflation fight.A handful of policymakers at the Fed’s annual research symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, last week made the case for lowering rates in a “gradual” or “methodical” manner. That pushed back against investor expectations for at least one outsized cut this fall.Inflation hasn’t yet fully cooled to their 2% target, the Fed officials argued, and while the labour market shows signs of fragility, the absence of widespread layoffs means aggressive action isn’t yet called for.“Methodical, gradual, careful — those are the types of words you hear policymakers throw around when they’re turning the ship,” said Brett Ryan, senior US economist at Deutsche Bank AG. “It’s going to be sort of a feeling-out process that they’re going to want to take a slower approach on.”Gradualism is a strategy that the Fed has deployed before in uncertain times. It suggests they hope to cut rates by 25 basis points at a time. Yet notably absent from the chorus backing this approach was Chair Jerome Powell.The Fed chief has staked his legacy on bringing down inflation without causing severe pain in the job market. In his closely watched speech in Jackson Hole, Powell never described how quickly or slowly he expects the Fed to move after September. He also sounded more open than several of his colleagues to taking a more aggressive approach should things deteriorate rapidly on the employment front.“We will do everything we can to support a strong labour market as we make further progress toward price stability,” Powell said. “We do not seek or welcome further cooling in labour market conditions.”The Fed, like many other central banks, has taken a gradual approach during most easing and tightening cycles in the modern era, with a few exceptions.At the onset of the financial crisis and during the Covid pandemic, policymakers rapidly drove interest rates to zero. Former Chair Paul Volcker was famously unflinching in his strategy for quashing inflation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Otherwise, monetary policy has more typically been adjusted by just a quarter percentage point at a time.This approach, as detailed by then-Governor Ben Bernanke in a 2004 speech on gradualism, gives policymakers time to gauge the economy’s response to its actions.Applied now, gradualism would provide some relief from the Fed’s current level of restrictiveness, but also take into account that the inflation target hasn’t yet been achieved. After underestimating the surge in prices in 2021 and starting to tighten too late, some policymakers are still wary of reigniting inflation. At least one worries that cheaper borrowing costs will release pent-up demand from consumers and businesses awaiting lower rates.But at the same time, the labour market is finally beginning to look normal again, and by some measures a bit weak. Unemployment unexpectedly rose to 4.3% in July. Employers aren’t firing workers en masse, but they’ve slowed hiring dramatically.To some, like Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin, that’s a combination that is unlikely to continue for long.“They have a significant question around them now in terms of labour market weakening,” said Claudia Sahm, chief economist at New Century Advisors, an investment management firm. “They need to start removing the restriction.”Powell and his colleagues long argued the hot jobs market was stoking inflation by driving wages higher and giving US consumers more spending power. But Powell made clear that effect has faded.“Powell appears to be more dovish than his peers,” said EY-Parthenon economists Gregory Daco and Lydia Boussour. “Still, unless labour conditions deteriorate materially in the coming weeks, we continue to expect a majority of policymakers will favour a 25 basis-point cut in September.”As Fed officials embark on this next phase, they face another question besides how fast to go: If all goes smoothly, how far can they eventually cut rates?The so-called neutral rate of interest, where the central bank is neither holding down the economy nor stimulating it, is an estimate rather than an exact scientific calculation. Some Fed officials and economists argue that in the post-pandemic economy, where labour productivity is up, that level may be higher than it once was.Given the uncertainty, that makes moving gradually all the more attractive.If officials could somehow know with confidence where the neutral rate lay, said Barkin, they could just move there and declare victory. But it’s not that simple in real life.“You sort of want to feel your way there,” he said in an episode of Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast recorded last week. “You’ll learn based on whether inflation has settled or is accelerating. You’ll learn based on whether the labour market is growing or shrinking. You’ll learn those things as you go and you’ll adjust rates as appropriate.”Others at the Fed, like San Francisco’s Mary Daly, think it’s too early to worry about neutral.“The really relevant thing now is that even when we make adjustments to the policy rate to make sure it’s right, we will still be in restrictive territory,” she said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “We have a long ways to go.”

The Paris Paralympics begin today with a spectacular opening ceremony in a city still on a high after the highly successful Olympics. A new generation of Paralympians will join seasoned veterans competing in many of the same venues that hosted Olympic sports.A total of 18 of the 35 Olympic venues will be used for the Paralympics, which run until September 8, including the Grand Palais which scored rave reviews for its hosting of the fencing and taekwondo under an ornate roof. The La Defense Arena is back as well, hosting the 141 gold-medal events in para-swimming, as is the Stade de France where track and field again takes place.The Games will open with a ceremony in Place de la Concorde, the square in the centre of Paris where skateboarding and other ‘urban’ sports took place during the Olympics. Just as for the Olympics ceremony on the River Seine, the ceremony takes place away from the main stadium for the first time at a Paralympics.The Paralympic flame was lit at Stoke Mandeville hospital in England, the birthplace of the Games, and brought to France through the Channel Tunnel. Theatre director Thomas Jolly, who also oversaw the Olympics opening ceremony, said there was a deep symbolism in putting the Paralympics ceremony in the centre of the French capital – a city whose Metro system, in particular, is completely unadapted to the needs of wheelchair users.“Putting Paralympic athletes in the heart of the city is already a political marker in the sense that the city is not sufficiently adapted to every handicapped person,” Jolly said.Organisers say Paris buses, in contrast, are wheelchair-friendly and they have laid on 1,000 specially adapted taxis as well. Sluggish ticket sales have picked up since the Olympics and organisers say more than 1.9mn have now been sold.Every Games creates new stars, and this edition will be no exception, so look to American above-the-knee amputee sprinter/high jumper Ezra Frech, who at 19 has already attracted a burst of publicity about his journey to Paris.More familiar names return too – British amputee sprinter Jonnie Peacock was one of the highest-profile athletes of London 2012 and dusted off his running blade last year to make a comeback in his bid to win a medal at a fourth consecutive Paralympics.Away from the track, Iranian sitting volleyball legend Morteza Mehrzad, who stands 8ft 1in (2.46m) tall, will attempt to take gold again. The Paralympics though always have a far wider message than simply sport and International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons said earlier this year he hopes the Paris edition will restore the issues facing disabled people to the top of the list of global priorities.Parsons believes the Games “will have a big impact in how people with disability are perceived around the world”. “This is one of the key expectations we have around Paris 2024; we believe that we need people with disability to be put back on the global agenda,” the Brazilian said.He argued that disability had fallen behind sexual and gender identity in recent years. “We do believe people with disability have been left behind. There is very little debate about persons with disability.”Paralympic powerhouse China will send a strong squad – the Chinese dominated the medals table at the Covid-delayed Games in Tokyo three years ago winning 96 golds. Britain were second with 41 golds. Riding the wave of its Olympic team’s success, host nation France will be aiming for a substantial upgrade on the 11 golds it won in 2021.Ukraine, traditionally one of the top medal-winning nations at the Paralympics, will send a team of 140 athletes spread over 17 sports despite the challenges they face in preparing as the war against Russian forces rages.The 96 athletes from Russia and Belarus will compete under a neutral banner but are barred from the opening and closing ceremonies. The Russian and Belarusian federations were both suspended following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 but their competitors are allowed to compete as neutrals providing they have not shown any support for the war.

Coco Gauff launched her US Open title defence with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Varvara Gracheva on Monday, firing 10 aces and saving eight break points to advance. The 20-year-old American worked through some tight moments early on to polish off the victory in 66 minutes on Arthur Ashe Stadium, where she captured her first Grand Slam title last year.She was breezing through the second set when France’s Gracheva, ranked 66th in the world, mustered a pair of break points in the final game. Gauff saved both with aces as she booked a second-round meeting with Tatjana Maria of Germany, a 6-2, 6-3 winner over Argentina’s Solana Sierra.“It is definitely a lot of pressure this tournament but I’m just enjoying it,” said Gauff, who is seeded third behind world number one Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka. “Last year was incredible, so I’m just bringing those vibes and whatever happens, happens.”Meanwhile, Paris Olympics champion Zheng Qinwen rallied from a set down to beat Amanda Anisimova 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 and reach the second round. China’s Zheng, seeded seventh, next faces Erika Andreeva of Russia, who beat China’s Yuan Yue 6-3, 7-6 (9/7).“Obviously she’s hitting the ball really good today,” Zheng said of Anisimova, who is on the upswing since returning from a mental health break in January – when she was ranked 373rd in the world. A run to the final at Toronto this month saw her return to the top 50 and gain a wild card invitation into the main draw.“Every ball (from Anisimova) went inside in the beginning and I couldn’t do anything,” Zheng said. “More as the match goes I started to find my rhythm on hard court. Little by little I started to get into the rhythm.”Zheng, who finished runner-up to Sabalenka at the Australian Open in January, has said she didn’t want the same let-down that followed that performance happen in the wake of her groundbreaking Paris Games triumph. Asked on court about her run to gold – which made her China’s first Olympic tennis singles champion – she was gracious but already looking forward. “I’m happy what I did in the past, but right now I just want to focus on what I do here,” said Zheng, who could face Sabalenka again in the quarter-finals. Former champion Thiem’s Grand Slam career overDominic Thiem’s Grand Slam career came to an end at the US Open on Monday on the same Arthur Ashe court where he won his only major in 2020. The injury-plagued former world number three went down to a 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 defeat to American 13th seed Ben Shelton, his eighth first round exit at his last 10 Slams.Thiem had already announced his intention to retire from tennis on home ground in Vienna in October, giving up on his fruitless battle to fully recover from a persistent wrist injury. When Thiem captured his first Slam by defeating Alexander Zverev from two sets down in the 2020 US Open final, it appeared that he was finally poised to challenge the likes of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal at the highest level.It also ended a sequence of three defeats in three Slam finals – to Nadal at the 2018 and 2019 French Open and against Djokovic in five sets at the 2020 Australian Open.However, his career went into a tailspin in the summer of 2021 when he suffered a wrist injury at the Mallorca ATP tournament.Thiem suffered serious ligament damage and was forced to sit out the rest of 2021. He played just two Slams in 2022 and his ranking fell to outside the top 100 for the first time in over a decade.“I just want to say thanks for all the support. It’s been 10 years since I first played here, I had my greatest success on this court,” said Thiem whose 2020 triumph was witnessed by just a handful of people with the tournament played out at the height of the Covid pandemic.“But when I won in 2020, it was weird. It was under very strict conditions and I had my success without any of you here. “So I am super-happy to get the chance to play in front of you and on this court. Thanks to you for making up the time that we missed.”Heading into the US Open, Thiem had won just two main draw matches all year, the most recent was at Estoril in the first week of April. He needed a wildcard to play in New York with his ranking having slipped further to 210.Shelton was full of praise for Thiem, the winner of 17 career titles and more than $30mn in prize money. The pair exchanged warm words at the net before Shelton guided the crowd to applaud his rival.“I want to say congrats to Dom for an outstanding career. Four Grand Sam finals and a title, it’s the kind of things kids dream of sitting at home on the couch,” said Shelton.That was me not too long ago. It’s always great seeing Dominic around, he’s always smiling. So many people love him.”

Officials from three of the world’s major central banks signalled they are firmly on course to lower — or continue lowering — interest rates in the coming months, marking the beginning of the end for an era of high borrowing costs as the global economy slips out of the grip of post-Covid inflation.“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell told an annual gathering of global policymakers and economists in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, all but committing the US central bank to lowering rates when officials meet in September.Getting the Fed’s start date fixed, and having many of the world’s big central banks paddling in the same direction, removes some anxieties for investors.Still, tremendous uncertainty and risks remain. Neither Powell nor his counterparts offered much guidance on how quickly they intend to proceed in lowering rates over the next several months. Meanwhile, against that uncertainty, emerging weakness in labour markets and overall growth are replacing inflation as the chief threat for policymakers.In addition to Powell, several members of the European Central Bank (ECB)’s Governing Council were also present for the wonky talk and breathtaking scenery in Grand Teton National Park. Finland’s Olli Rehn, Latvia’s Martins Kazaks, Croatia’s Boris Vujcic and Portugal’s Mario Centeno all indicated they would support another reduction in interest rates next month – after a landmark cut in June.Rehn described the disinflation process in the euro area as “on track,” while warning that “the growth outlook in Europe, especially manufacturing, is rather subdued.” He added, that “this enforces the case for a rate cut in September.”Centeno called a decision to ease again in less than three weeks “easy,” given the data on inflation and growth.Euro-area policymakers also now appear more concerned about growth, which has stumbled after a strong first half of the year.They’re also signalling worry over a softening of labour markets and less about inflation, even though the ECB’s mandate doesn’t include employment.Among the ECB officials, some consensus appeared to emerge around two more cuts this year, including a September move, as long as inflation remains in line with the bank’s projections, which see it coming down to the 2% target in the second half of 2025.Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey was also due to address the Jackson Hole gathering on Friday. In prepared remarks released ahead of his speech, he signalled an openness to further rate cuts when he said the risks of persistent inflation appeared to be waning.

Qatar-based Silatech, in partnership with Unicef Brazil and Generation Unlimited, has played a pivotal role in advancing the "One Million Opportunities" (1MiO) initiative, a statement said Monday.Since the start of their partnership in November 2022, Silatech has achieved a significant milestone by securing 371,332 job placements for youth in the private sector and since the inception in 2020, it has created over 500,000 opportunities for youth skill development and livelihood access.The 1MiO initiative, launched in October 2020, targets vulnerable Brazilian youth, focusing on skill development, learning, internships, employment, and civic participation, with support from the Federal Government, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and the UN Global Compact.The initiative has effectively addressed the severe unemployment challenges faced by Brazilian youth, exacerbated by the 2015 recession and the Covid-19 pandemic. With a comprehensive focus on skill and competency development across five categories—foundational, job-specific, transferable, digital, and entrepreneurial—1MiO has equipped young people with essential workforce skills while promoting entrepreneurship as a viable alternative for social and economic inclusion.Hassan Ali al-Mulla, CEO of Silatech, stated: “Through our joint work in fostering entrepreneurship, nurturing innovation, and connecting young people to employment opportunities, we strive to create a powerful ecosystem that enables youth to reach their full potential. We are confident that our mission can be achieved through fruitful international collaborations and partnerships.”The 1MiO platform has become a critical tool for job seekers and employers. Over 105,358 young individuals registered in the past year alone, and the ecosystem welcomed 56 new member companies. This has led to a more inclusive and equitable employment environment across Brazil, the statement added.

The first 10,000 mpox vaccines are finally due to arrive next week in Africa, where a dangerous new strain of the virus — which has afflicted people there for decades — has caused global alarm.The slow arrival of the shots — which have already been made available in more than 70 countries outside Africa — showed that lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic about global healthcare inequities have been slow to bring change, half a dozen public health officials and scientists said.Among the hurdles: It took the World Health Organisation (WHO) until this month to start officially the process needed to give poor countries easy access to large quantities of vaccine via international agencies.That could have begun years ago, several of the officials and scientists told Reuters.Mpox is a potentially deadly infection that causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions and spreads through close physical contact. It was declared a global health emergency by the WHO on August 14 after the new strain, known as clade Ib, began to proliferate from Democratic Republic of Congo to neighbouring African countries.In response to Reuters questions about the delays in vaccine deployment, the UN health agency said on Friday it would relax some of its procedures on this occasion in an effort to now accelerate poor countries’ access to the mpox shots.Buying the expensive vaccines directly is out of reach for many low-income countries. There are two key mpox shots, made by Denmark’s Bavarian Nordic and Japan’s KM Biologics. Bavarian Nordic’s costs $100 a dose; the price of KM Biologics’ is unknown.The long wait for WHO approval for international agencies to buy and distribute the vaccine has forced individual African governments and the continent’s public health agency — the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) — to instead request donations of shots from rich countries. That cumbersome process can collapse, as it has before, if donors feel they should keep the vaccine to protect their own people. The first 10,000 vaccines on their way to Africa — made by Bavarian Nordic — were donated by the United States, not provided by the UN system.Helen Rees, a member of the Africa CDC’s mpox emergency committee, and executive director of the Wits RHI Research Institute in Johannesburg, South Africa, said it was “really outrageous” that, after Africa struggled to access vaccines during the Covid pandemic, the region had once again been left behind.In 2022, after a different mpox strain spread outside Africa, smallpox shots were repurposed by governments within weeks, approved by regulators and used in roughly 70 high and middle income countries to protect those most at risk.Those vaccines have now reached 1.2mn people in the United States alone, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).But no shots have been available in Africa outside clinical trials. A key reason: Vaccines needed to be greenlit by the WHO before they could be bought by public healthcare groups including Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Gavi helps poorer countries buy shots, supplying childhood vaccines in this way routinely. It administered a global scheme for all vaccines during Covid-19 and has up to $500 million to spend on mpox vaccines and logistics. The Africa CDC has said 10mn doses may be needed across the continent.But the WHO only this month asked vaccine manufacturers to submit the information needed for the mpox shots to receive an emergency licence — the WHO’s accelerated approval for medical products. It urged countries to donate shots until the process was finalised, in September. The WHO said it is working with the authorities in Congo to put together a vaccination plan, and on Friday said Gavi could start talks while it finalised its emergency approval.Sania Nishtar, chief executive of Gavi, said the WHO’s aim to now act quickly on approvals and improvements in funding showed “the somewhat brighter side of where we are compared to Covid.” Asked to comment on the approval delays, she said, “hopefully this is another learning moment for us.”The WHO’s role in approving medical products has revolutionised supply in low-income countries, which often lack the facilities to check new products themselves, but it has also faced criticism for its slow speed and complexity. The Geneva-based UN health agency said on Friday it did not have sufficient data during the last mpox emergency in 2022 to start an approval process for the vaccine, and it has been working with manufacturers since then to see if the available data warranted an approval.Mpox, which includes several different strains, has caused 99,000 confirmed cases and 208 deaths worldwide since 2022, according to the WHO. The tally is likely an underestimate as many cases go unreported.Infections have been brought under control in rich regions by a combination of vaccines and by behaviour change among the highest-risk groups.With the main earlier mpox strain, men who have sex with men were most at risk, but the new clade Ib variant seems to spread more easily through other close contact, including among children, as well as through sexual contact among heterosexual people.The country currently hardest hit by mpox is Congo. Since January 2023, there have been more than 27,000 suspected cases and 1,100 deaths there, according to government figures, mainly among children.But the first 10,000 vaccines donated by the United States are not destined for Congo but for Nigeria, as a result of several years of talks between both governments, according to a source involved in the process who was not authorised to speak to the media. Nigeria has had 786 suspected cases this year, and no deaths. The Nigerian health ministry did not respond to a request for comment; the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said it has also donated 50,000 doses to Congo but the arrival date is not yet finalised.In Congo, the country’s administration is another part of the problem. Grappling with conflict and multiple competing disease outbreaks, its government has yet to ask Gavi officially for vaccine supplies and took months to talk to donor governments. Its medicines regulator only approved the two main vaccines in June.Neither Congo’s health ministry nor Japan’s, which is working to donate large amounts of KM Biologics vaccines, responded to requests for comment for this story. Bavarian Nordic said this week it needs orders now to produce vaccines in volume this year.Congo’s government has told reporters it hopes to receive vaccine donations next week, but three donor sources told Reuters it is not clear if that will happen. Europe’s pandemic preparedness agency said by email its 215,000 doses will not arrive before September at the earliest. Bavarian Nordic and Congo are still discussing pre-shipment requirements necessary to ensure proper storage and handling, said a spokesperson for USAID. The vaccines have to be kept at -20C, for example.In eastern Congo, around 750,000 people are living in camps after fleeing conflict, including seven-year-old Sagesse Hakizimana and his mother Elisabeth Furaha. He is one of more than 100 children to have been infected by mpox in one area near the city of Goma, in north Kivu, according to doctors.“Imagine fleeing a war and then losing your child to this illness,” said Furaha, 30, rubbing ointment on her son’s rash and adding that his symptoms were easing. He was being treated last week in a repurposed Ebola treatment centre.“We need a vaccine for this disease. It’s a bad disease that weakens our children.”Even when shots arrive, questions remain about how to use them: Bavarian Nordic’s vaccine — the most widely used worldwide — is only available for adults. The KM Biologics vaccine can be given to children but is more complex to administer.Adding to those questions, scientists have not yet agreed what groups should be vaccinated first, although a likely strategy is ring vaccination, where contacts of known cases are prioritised.“We saw with Covid-19 that the vaccine was available but the population didn’t want it,” says Jean Jacques Muyembe, co-discoverer of the Ebola virus and director of the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) in Kinshasa.He and other scientists said other public health measures like awareness raising in Africa and better diagnosis were also key to stopping the spread of mpox; vaccines are not the only solution.Some global health experts say the WHO and others should have focused earlier on improving access to mpox vaccines as well as tests for the disease and treatments.“The processes [at WHO for vaccines] and funding for diagnostics for mpox should have started a few years ago,” said Ayoade Alakija, who co-chairs a global health partnership aiming to make the mpox response more egalitarian.She said her comment was not a critique of the WHO, which can only prioritise what its member states want. “It is a matter of what the world considers to be a priority, and [that is not] diseases that primarily affect black and brown people.”In a statement, the WHO said it was “urging all partners including countries, manufacturers and communities to mobilise efforts, increase vaccine donations, reduce prices and provide other necessary support to protect people at risk during this outbreak”.Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, said he is working to get African vaccine manufacturers involved to boost supply and lower prices, but that will take time. — Reuters

UK Government's expected pro-business and pragmatic programme may represent relevant measures to increase long-term economic growth in the United Kingdom, according to QNB.After 14 years of Conservative rule in the UK, the landslide victory by centre-left Labour Party represents a major shift in the country’s political scenario.“Prime Minister Keir Starmer is now at the centre stage, and is expected to advance a pro-business and pragmatic programme that will prioritise economic growth. Improving the UK’s economic performance is a daunting challenge, given the country’s track record of decelerating growth in recent decades,” QNB noted in an economic commentary.In recent decades, the UK’s average real GDP growth rates have weakened from 3% during 1995-2007 (before the Global Financial Crisis), to 2% during 2010-2019 (before the Covid-pandemic), and are expected to average 1.2% during 2023-2028. Given this trend, economic growth has now become the “national mission” for the newly elected government.Critically, there is limited fiscal space for the new administration to shift the economy into a higher gear. Government debt as a percentage of GDP stands near 100%, the highest level in over 60 years, QNB said.Furthermore, the tax burden (measured as the ratio of government revenues to GDP) is close to its highest in over 70 years. Additionally, the new administration had pledged not to increase corporate, income, national insurance, and VAT taxes, which together account for 75% of revenues.Thus, fiscal conditions are currently tight relative to the UK’s historical values, with limited room for aggressive fiscal policy.In this article, QNB discusses three priorities for the new government in its mission to achieve a stronger long-term growth performance.First, several proposals are in the pipeline to boost the country’s housing infrastructure, support new investments, reduce red tape, and lower project costs. The UK construction planning system is widely considered costly and overly stringent.Unpredictable and lengthy planning permissions increase development costs significantly, hindering residential and commercial construction, as well as infrastructure projects. The system has been extremely costly for the economy: the country has seen no increase in the amount of built-up land per capita since 1990, which is in stark contrast to other G7 economies.It has also contributed to a depressed rate of business investment relative to peers with less stringent planning regimes. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves vowed to overhaul the National Planning Policy Framework and to “get Britain building again,” proposing a target of 1.5mn homes in the next 5 years. This overhaul would represent one of the major pillars in the strategy to improve UK’s growth performance.Second, a newly created National Wealth Fund will be established to mobilise capital and increase investments in priority sectors. Since 2000, both public and private investment as a share of the economy in the UK have remained persistently below the average for the G7.Therefore, it is not surprising that the new administration is taking measures to increase investment. Although the mandate and organizational structure of the new fund are still to be defined, it is expected to cooperate closely with private financial institutions to channel resources to key economic sectors such as ports, steel, carbon capture and green hydrogen, and factories.The government has made a commitment of £7.3bn ($9.7bn) to this project, and expects to “crowd in” investment from the private sector, by attracting three pounds for every one pound invested by the government.By leveraging private sector resources, the National Wealth Fund would be able to circumvent fiscal limitations, and increase investment to levels consistent with higher economic growth rates.Third, the government plans to boost trade as a central part of the strategy to deliver stronger growth. New legislation is set to facilitate the alignment of product standards with the EU.This regulatory alignment will reduce the uncertainty and the additional costs for firms of adapting to EU rules. Furthermore, after a pause in negotiations imposed by the elections, the UK has restarted talks with India, the GCC, South Korea, Switzerland, Israel and Türkiye to reach new trade agreements.Given the importance of global value chains, obstacles to trade impact commerce with all partners. Higher trade barriers affect the costs of foreign supplies, reducing the competitiveness of UK-based production, and the ability of firms to reap the benefits of international trade, QNB noted.The improved alignment of product standards with the EU and the new trade agreements will improve external competitiveness and open new markets for business, providing an additional impulse to growth.“The details of the government’s plans are still to be refined and implemented, and therefore it is still too early to assess the overall impact on the economy.“However, in our view, an overhaul of the planning system, the creation of a national fund to increase investment, and improved trade relations with the EU and other commercial partners represent relevant measures to increase long-term economic growth in the UK,” QNB added.