All posts tagged: rattles

Sri Lanka stuns with 100-bp rate hike as Iran war rattles currency, fuels inflation

Sri Lanka stuns with 100-bp rate hike as Iran war rattles currency, fuels inflation

Published by Sam Flores

COLOMBO, May 26 : Sri Lanka’s central bank stunned markets by raising its policy rate by an outsized 100 basis points on Tuesday, the biggest hike in four years, as policymakers scrambled to stem inflation and support a currency buckling under soaring energy prices.  Economic growth in the South Asian nation, only just recovering from a devastating 2022 financial crisis that left businesses and households deeply scarred, is expected to take a hit from the turmoil in the Middle East. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) raised the overnight policy rate to 8.75 per cent from 7.75 per cent, blaming higher inflation and a depreciating rupee due to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.  Seven out of a dozen economists and analysts polled by Reuters had forecast only a 25 basis-point or slightly higher change to the rate, citing the deepening impact on foreign reserves from the conflict and the rupee currency’s 8.7 per cent tumble since early March.  “Today’s sharp increase in interest rates in Sri Lanka highlights the country’s vulnerability to the crisis …

Nigeria Needs New Export Markets As UAE’s Exit Rattles OPEC

Nigeria Needs New Export Markets As UAE’s Exit Rattles OPEC

Published by Jenni Sidey

By Tsvetana Paraskova of Oilprice.com Nigeria should market its crude oil to new buyers as the UAE’s decision to leave OPEC is dislocating the balance that the cartel and the OPEC+ group have been seeking for years, according to Wole Ogunsanya, chairman of the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN). The official urged Nigeria’s state oil and gas firm NNPC and other producers of Nigerian crude to tap new markets. “When OPEC gives you a quota, it’s left for you to find who is going to buy it,” Nigerian outlet This Day quoted Ogunsanya as saying. “And we have one of the best crude oil in the world. So we need NNPC and all producers to market Nigerian production,” the official added. The abrupt exit of the United Arab Emirates from OPEC and OPEC+ would disrupt the balance the groups have been keeping for years, according to Ogunsanya. “The decision by the UAE, which they have a sovereign right to do, is for their country’s interest. Our opinion is that it’s going to cause a …

As Hormuz crisis rattles the world, eyes are on another key waterway

As Hormuz crisis rattles the world, eyes are on another key waterway

Published by Sam Flores

HONG KONG — As the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz drags on, guardians of another critical waterway are worried about the precedent it sets for any future clash between the United States and China. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. “If they go to war in the Pacific, what you are witnessing now in the Strait of Hormuz is just a dry run,” Singaporean Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said last month. Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia all flank the Strait of Malacca — a waterway roughly five times longer and 10 times narrower than the Strait of Hormuz at its tightest point. It carries more than a quarter of global trade, including most of the oil that flows from the Persian Gulf to key Asian markets. Goods from China are heavily reliant on the strait, which links the Indian Ocean with the Pacific Ocean via the South China Sea, but it also serves as the primary energy lifeline for U.S. allies such as South Korea, …

Israel and Iran attack gas facilities, in a major escalation that rattles markets : NPR

Israel and Iran attack gas facilities, in a major escalation that rattles markets : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

US President Donald Trump walks to the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, as he returns from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware after attending a dignified transfer solemn event on March 18, 2026. Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images Iran attacked the world’s biggest liquified natural gas complex in Qatar, targeted a gas field and facility in the United Arab Emirates, fired missiles and launched drones on Saudi Arabia on Thursday following Israel’s bombing of Iran’s South Pars gas field a day earlier. The attacks on the gas facilities in the Gulf marked a major escalation as the war with Iran approached its third week, with Iran engaging in direct assault on its Gulf neighbors Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Kuwait News Agency also reported a drone attack, confirmed by Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, on one of the units in Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery, one of the largest in the Middle East, on Thursday morning. The strikes on some of the world’s major …

ASEAN ministers urge halt to Middle East war as crisis rattles energy and trade

ASEAN ministers urge halt to Middle East war as crisis rattles energy and trade

Published by Sam Flores

MANILA: ASEAN foreign and economic ministers on Friday (Mar 13) called for an immediate halt to the war in the Middle East, and said the effects of surging oil prices and disrupted trade are already hitting Southeast Asia’s economies. Several members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have begun rolling out measures to counter the economic impact, with governments moving quickly to conserve energy, stabilise domestic markets and protect vulnerable sectors such as tourism. “We expressed serious concern over the situation in the Middle East and its impacts in the region, and emphasised the importance of the immediate cessation of hostilities,” Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Ma Theresa Lazaro told a press conference after a special meeting on the crisis, adding that ASEAN called on all parties to exercise the utmost self-restraint. The Philippines, which is chairing ASEAN this year, convened the special meeting as concerns over the Iran conflict deepened. The ministers called for global energy supply chains to be kept open and to activate regional mechanisms to mitigate the economic fallout. Singapore’s Minister …

Developer’s Honest Assessment of AI at Work Rattles the Official Narrative

Developer’s Honest Assessment of AI at Work Rattles the Official Narrative

Published by José Betancourt

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images A veteran programmer shared his brutally honest opinions about AI’s role in the workplace, and it’s as much an indictment of the tech as it is of the organizations lazily deploying it. In an X rant that’s being praised in online programming circles, the programmer, Dax Raad, said that what’s holding back software companies isn’t the speed they’re able to churn out code, but the quality of their ideas — an issue AI isn’t going to solve, despite the industry’s fixation on emphasizing its supposed ability to supercharge productivity. “Your org rarely has good ideas. Ideas being expensive to implement was actually helping,” wrote Raad, whose own company OpenAuth sells AI tools. And workers aren’t using AI to be ten times more effective, he continued; instead, “they’re using it to churn out their tasks with less energy spend.” Worse yet, the “two people on your team that actually tried are now flattened by the slop code everyone is producing, they will quit soon.” “Even when you …

After dozens died in Israeli jails, death penalty law rattles Palestinians | Israel-Palestine conflict

After dozens died in Israeli jails, death penalty law rattles Palestinians | Israel-Palestine conflict

Published by Sam Flores

Ramallah, West Bank – Dozens of Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli prisons over the past two and a half years, some during torture while others as a result of medical neglect by prison authorities, rights groups say. Now, Israel is making plans for the execution of possibly hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held on charges of fatal attacks against Israelis, according to an Israeli media report, under what legal experts have called racist legislation that has rattled the families of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails. A facial injury is visible on a Palestinian prisoner during the families’ reception of the released detainees from Israeli jails on October 13, 2025, in Ramallah, West Bank [Faiz Abu Rmeleh/Getty] Israel’s Channel 13 reported last week that the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) has embarked on logistical preparations to implement a draft law, outlining plans for a dedicated facility to carry out any executions and to prepare and train staff to implement the punishment. The draft law calling for the execution of Palestinian prisoners convicted of killing Israelis passed …