i'm steve lai. let's begin in the united states, where federal reserve boss jerome powell has made his much—anticipated speech at an annual gathering of central bankers. he said the time has come for the fed to cut interest rates, as the world's largest economy continues to grow at a solid pace with inflation and jobs data supporting a rate cut. the up—side risks to inflation have diminished. and the down—side risks to employment have increased. as we highlighted in our last fomc statement, we are attentive to the risks to both sides of our dual mandate. the time has come for policy to adjust. the direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks. us stock markets edged higher on powell's remarks. but here in asia, markets are trading lower on monday, with japan's nikkei 225 index losing around 1%. investors widely expect

a rate cut in september, and some believe the fed will keep cutting rates through the end of the year and into 2025. pushan dutt, professor of economics and political science at insead, gave us his thoughts on the road ahead. when inflation was growing up, the fed was behind the curve. they thought it was temporary and waited quite a long time to raise interest rates, so i think they learnt the lesson and this time they're getting ahead. what has happened in the data is that unemployment rates have actually started to creep up, and if you look historically, once the unemployment rate starts rising, it actually rises subsequently for many quarters, but i think they're trying to get ahead of the curve. now, jerome powell did say that it depends on the data. the problem that he faces is that the data is very mixed. just recall, a few days back, a few weeks back, there was a big recession scare, markets tanked, and then we have seemed to have gotten over that, so there are certain indicators

which are signalling a recession, there are certain indicators which are saying the economy is fine, but i think, overall, the fed will achieve a soft landing. they seem to have learnt the lessons from the past, and they are being quite cautious about it. with their course of action seeming to be decided, what do you make of the fact that we are heading into an election in the us coming in november? will that uncertainty or any uncertainty there affect the markets? definitely. i think one of the problems the fed is facing is that while we are still sort of in an inflationary environment, monetary policy has been contracting, but fiscal policy has been expansionary in the sense there is the chips stocks and a lot of manufacturing investment being rolled out in the us, so, as a result, they actually kept interest rates higherfor longer. going ahead, the fed will have to think about two things. one is the political aspect and the other is the macroeconomic aspect. the politic aspect — if they cut interest rates

very rapidly, i am pretty sure donald trump will howl in protest and make the fed's life a little bit more difficult. on the macroeconomic front, i think they have to think about if which of the two parties wins with fiscal policy will be more contractionary versus expansionary. both parties do not seem to have any ideas about bringing the budget deficit under control, but i would see the republicans are in favour of tax cuts and spending, whereas the democrats want more spending, but they are also leaning towards higher taxes on the rich and increasing corporate taxes, letting some corporate taxes expire, so i think from the fed's perspective, it would be more useful if the democrats going to power. that is on the domestic front. china's economy has been sluggish. does this have any bearing on how the fed sees it?

absolutely. china has been a great help to the central banks around the world. once the chinese economy slowed down drastically and the property bubble burst, china decided to export its way out of trouble, continues to do so. if you look at their export data, the export data, we see the value of exports is rising faster... slower than the volume, which means prices of exports are falling and this creates a... allows deflation to be exported by china to the rest of the world, keeping a lid on inflationary pressures. as the fed cut interest rates, the yuan is likely to depreciate and this will get exacerbated so unless china pivots and started to look more at this domestic consumption they will make the fed's life easier in terms of bringing inflation under control. the president

of the bank of china has stepped down from his role effective sunday. in a regulatory filing, the central bank said liu jin�*s resignation was due to "personal reasons". ge haijiao, who heads the boc�*s board, has been named as its acting president. the us has put sanctions on more than a0 chinese companies over their alleged links to russia. the move has drawn strong words from china, who called the us to stop its "typical unilateral sanctions". china added that it would take the necessary measures to protect the interests of domestic companies. turning to africa, where infrastructure investment is increasingly becoming a priority. but estimates show there is a gap of financing of more than $100 billion a year. the bbc�*s lukwesa burak sat down with the chief executive of the africa finance corporation to find out why. so the first thing is that we don't really have access. why not? because our risk is perceived higher, which is not true, you know, because several studies have indicated that the default rates

in africa are one of the lowest in the world, actually. same rate with western europe. the only region with a lower default rate is the middle east. africa has much lower default rate than north america, latin america, and asia. yet our interest rates are much higher. we pay what i call the prejudice premium. you know, some people call it zip code premium, but it'sjust prejudice premium as far as i'm concerned. you know, and we think that it has to be more nuanced. that's one. two, you know, the methodology that is used to rate african countries really is just needs updating. itjust needs to be updated. you know, so that the credit risk can be better. who's responsible for that, though? i think it's education from both sides. i think it's, you know, africa making its case and the rating agencies listening, you know, and try to listen, you know. and then hopefully we can get a sense of the real credit risks, you know, and the real defaults.

we also need to invest in data ourselves, you know, to provide information about what the case is. another example i always use is insurance. you know, political risk insurance is hardly paid in africa, but our premiums are one of the highest, you know. and we all know that if you make no claim, your premiums should be lower. but that doesn't happen for us. the bosses of technology companies meta and spotify have criticised european regulations around artificial intelligence. in a joint statement, mark zuckerberg and daniel ek said a "fragmented regulatory structure" could cause the region to lag behind in al innovation. meta scrapped the release of its ai model in the eu last month, citing an unpredictable regulatory environment. the european commission has not responded to the joint statement. staying with artificial intelligence, more than half of fortune 500 companies see alas a possible risk, according to a new report. jason lopatecki, who is the ceo of arize ai, explained its findings.

this is one of the most ground—breaking, complex technologies that people have created and i think you see a lot of companies struggling with that right now, from competitive risk to business risk, netflix worrying about people automating the way things they do, and regulatory risk, google worrying about regulatory rules coming in and hurting their ai business. you have ip risk from, say, a disney, ip risk from disney, people creating their stuff for using ai, and controversy risk from sales force, where they are worried about pr issues that might stem from ai for production. and i think there is tension between the need to innovate and the risks

of one of the most complex technologies we have today. which industries are most affected based on the risk you have mentioned ? in the report, over 90% of the media companies, the disneys of the world, who are worried about ip issues, whether their ip is used or whether the stuff they generate maybe legally infringes on someone else�*s ip, so media companies have an issue around content generation. technology, which is the centre of where we live and i live, 86%, and those are worried aboutjust business being eaten by ai, is your business going to be relevant when the latest technology has come out and new competitors are using those? and then a little bit surprising was health care, so worries there stemmed from accuracy of information and recommendations which is where high—stakes industries, you can understand why that could be an issue, so quite a big spread

across all of those industries. a tiktok trend has caused a surge in demand for cucumbers in iceland, leaving suppliers struggling to keep up. social media influencers have been sharing a recipe of grated cucumbers with seasonings like vinegar and chilli oil. iceland's farmers association told the bbc been unable to meet the increased demand. one supermarket chain said sales of cucumbers have more than doubled since the trend emerged. and that's it for this edition of business today. thanks for watching.

hello and welcome to sportsday. i'm olly foster. here is what is coming up: two wins out of two. it's the perfect start for liverpool's new head coach. there's a perfect finish for lydia ko at st andrews, winning herfirst majorfor eight years. and we catch up with

ukraine's paralympians heading to paris against the backdrop of their country's war with russia. hello there. welcome along. we'll start with football, and the three premier league matches on sunday, arne slot�*s first competitive home game as liverpool boss saw them maintain their winning start to the season. they beat brentford 2—0. luis diaz opened the scoring at anfield on his 100th appearance for the club before mo salah added the second after the break. liverpool haven't conceded a goal yet either. it's been a pretty smooth introduction to english football for the new dutch manager. they head to manchester united next sunday. the fans love to see the team playing really well, but they also love to see the team working really hard and that's what we did today.

and, um, i liked also what i saw, so if i like it,