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tv   Business Today  BBC News  May 13, 2024 4:30pm-4:46pm BST

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shares in gamestopjump after a tweet from one of the key drivers of the meme stock rally. on the road to recovery — one of egypt's top ministers tells the bbc how a bailout package will revive the country's struggling economy. and browse your way to happiness. using the internet improves your wellbeing — believe it or not — according to a new global study. welcome to business today. to climate change now — because the uk's ability to feed itself will fall by a tenth this year because of wet weather. a new report from a climate research group — says farmers — have been unable to plant some crops because of waterlogged fields. it says britain could become a lot more on foreign imports going forward. here is tom lancaster from the energy and climate intelligence unit, who were behind the report.
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it has been the wettest 18 months on record since 1836, one of the wettest winters in decades that many farmers can remember. it has had a huge impact on the ability to grow crops and it has been quite sudden. in 2022 we were talking about extreme heat and drought and farmers not being able to get crops out of the ground because it was baked too hard. this winter they have not been able to get them in the ground because it has been too wet, waterlogged and soft, basically. that means that the amount of wheat and winter barley, oilseed rape we're likely to harvest this year will be down a third, and looking across all the farming sectors, fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and dairy, eggs, that will be enough to drive an 8% reduction in the headline self—sufficient and seen when, self—sufficiency when measured by volume. around 86% over the period btween
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2018 and 2022 to 78% this year or that's what we estimate. egypt's economy has been struggling with the burden of high debts and an overvalued currency — it's fuelled the country's cost of living crisis. but the country recently managed to secure a $50 billion bailout from the imf and world bank to help address its economic woes. our middle east business correspondent spoke with egypt's minister of international cooperation — and asked her how the bailout would help. so basically, the past two months have been very engaging for the egyptian government. it was very, very important to restore macroeconomic stability, to be able to start a second wave of reforms related to structural reforms that focus on the green transition, private sector investment, state ownership policy, also increasing competition and competitiveness within the economy,
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and of course, continuing on the macro fiscal resilience. given that these support programmes are linked to certain structural reforms that have been brought in, how easy or challenging will it be to implement those, given the current economic scenario? many of these measures, you'll find, for example, for the first time on the electricity sector, we have a b2b legislation that was passed. when we take a look at the competition law, an executive regulation that is going to be implemented to actually increase competitiveness. all of these are structural reforms that have to do with the infrastructure related to many of the important policies that would draw in private sector investment. now, of course, because of geopolitical reasons, the economy has also taken a hit because there is a war
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going on in gaza. we have seen that two key sources of revenues for the government, whether it's the suez canal, where has been impacted, revenues on that front because of the attack from the houthis, or even tourism. how concerned are you about that? so, yes, there is very estimated or predicted impact of geopolitical situation on the suez canal. as i mentioned, restoring macroeconomic stability meant that the repercussions of this shock have been internalised within the policy discussions and the policy framework that has been endorsed by the government. all of this to mitigate the impact of that externality on the domestic economy. according to the world bank, 60% of egypt's population is living close or below the poverty line. now, that's a big challenge. how are you planning to address that? we have one of the most important social protection programmes that the world bank has. and it is a social protection and social safety net programme designed for families and also tied to education of girls. so it's a very important programme.
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the other is that the current budget, which was just discussed in parliament, includes a very important segment related to social programmes that would again mitigate the impact of many of these reforms on vulnerable groups. to japan now, where the world's biggest tech investment fund softbank has been reporting — clocking up a second quarter of profits, booking over $2 billion in the january to march period. but the main focus is looking forward to softbank�*s ai outlook — softbank is the main shareholder of the uk chip designer arm holdings — which listed on the new york stock exchange in a blockbuster ipo last year. there is huge excitement around arm's plans to get into artificial intelligence chips as this expert from the asian
quote
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development bank insitutue explains. i think this is really important because they are also providing services to a large us —based company. services to a large us -based company-— services to a large us -based company. services to a large us -based coman . ~ , , , company. and it is very good, this uk arm holdings. _ company. and it is very good, this uk arm holdings. ai _ company. and it is very good, this uk arm holdings. ai is _ company. and it is very good, this uk arm holdings. ai is so - company. and it is very good, this i uk arm holdings. ai is so important so with this kind of advantage, i think there is a very strong feature in the area of ai. we are used to hearing how bad being online can be for our mental health. but a new report from oxford university has found that the internet can actually increase our sense of wellbeing. it analysed data from two million people across 168 countries — and found that those who had access to the internet were more satisfied with life. the research though didn't
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specifically look into social media. professor andrew sha—bil—ski from the oxford internet institute told us more about the findings. well, it doesn't necessarily make you feel better. it's that people who have access kind of historically across the last two decades or so tend to look better off in terms of a wide range of measures of wellbeing and functioning. and so, you know, one of the things that is important to understand is that most work about technology and mental health and well—being, it's really only conducted in a handful of english speaking countries and western europe. and so, you know, it's always kind of riding the latest hype wave around whatever technology is hot at the time. but in our work, we try to kind of zoom out a little bit and look at what the global picture actually looks like. as we said, social media not included. social media often criticised for some of those things i ran through there about addiction or mental well—being or things
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like body image, too. what role does social media play in your findings? well, it's unrelated to our findings, but we have done work on this exact topic. so we have looked at how, say, the role of facebook and facebook messenger across 72 countries, not 168, across 72 countries played out. and we did also find there, small higher levels of well—being. you know, as a country became kind of a bit more saturated with social media. but the thing to keep in mind here is that a lot of things are going on in an economy or in a country when people have access to platforms in terms of things like commerce and social opportunities. yeah, and it's interesting, isn't it, because we take it for granted now that internet access is a utility like any other electricity or water. but for those that don't have it and it really is a haves and have nots and we may take it
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all for granted, but there's still a huge part of the world that doesn't have regular access. right, and so having regular access, being able to kind of access markets and opportunities and social ties kind of outside of necessarily the village or the place that you grow up is extremely important. and this isn't to say that everything on the internet is great. people are specifically harmed through different types of scams and extortion and things like that over the internet and over social media. it's just that it can be very easy to try to paint this all with a really broad brush and say kind of the internet is bringing down society when in fact, the opposite might be true. travel website booking.com faces a crackdown under new european competition rules. it has been designated a so called "gatekeeper" under the new digital markets act. the eu says it is also investigating the social media giant x. the act aims to help foster competition in the technology sector and to try to break down the stronghold of big tech companies.
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this consultant is a former official in the german government he worked on the eu ai legislation. she says consumers are already seen the benefit of more choice online. we have benefit of more choice online. - have actually seen quite a lot of changes in the last six months for those platforms that have already been designated gatekeepers. those are certain services, and those companies had to do significant engineering changes, for instance messenger services like whatsapp and others now need to be interoperable with others. some of you has might have noticed that when i open a browser, maybe with an apple device or microsoft device, now they are given a choice of which such browser they want to use and they are not locked into the browser that is offered by that significant company. so we have a ready seen quite a lot
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of consequences from that act and we have also seen some other countries copying the act. for example, japan, the uk and even the us with some anti—trust action against certain companies. india, south korea, so yes, you can see the brussels effect is already felt across the world regardless of the day's decision. in other news: dubai—based airline giant emirates has posted record profits for the second year in a row. it made more than $5 billion in the last financial year — up 71% on the previous year. emirates says profits for the past two years have now hit more than $8 billion — wiping out the losses made during the pandemic. travel website booking.com faces a crackdown under new european competition rules. it has been designated a so called "gatekeeper" under the new digital markets act. the eu says it is also investigating the social media giant x. the act aims to help foster competition in the technology sector and to try to break down the stronghold of big tech companies. mining giant bhp says that,
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anglo american has rejected a revised buyout offer valuing the company at $42.67 billion. this is the second offer anglo american has turned down since april, calling it opportunistic and significantly undervalueing its prospects. bhp claims a combination of the two businesses would deliver significant value for all shareholders. a bid by australia's online watchdog to impose a ban on posts on acts. thejudge refused to to impose a ban on posts on acts. the judge refused to extend a temporary order to take down the post showing the stabbing of a sydney priest in april. pending further legal action. we sydney priest in april. pending further legal action.— sydney priest in april. pending further legal action. we have had comments _ further legal action. we have had comments from _ further legal action. we have had comments from the _ further legal action. we have had comments from the said - further legal action. we have had comments from the said vice - further legal action. we have hadl comments from the said vice chair saying that the bank should keep off from the idea of reducing interest rates by the economy is still above inflation targets. you are up—to—date. see you very soon.
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you are live with bbc news. straight to breaking news, you may remember that bbc investigation last week where this man, wanted by police forces in several countries, including the uk, has been arrested including the uk, has been arrested in the north of iraq. he was arrested this morning. if you remember that investigation last week, the bbc tracked down and confronted one of your�*s most wanted people smugglers. he has been on the run for over a year and until that investigation, no one knew his location. the bbc tracking him down, talking to him about the people come across the channel for several years. he and his gang controlled much of their people smuggling
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trade, in boats and lorries

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