i'm steve lai. let's begin in the united states, where federal reserve bossjerome 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 upside risks to inflation have diminished. and the downside 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 friday on powell's remarks. 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 waited a long time to raise interest rates, so i think the learn the lesson and i get than at this time. what happened with the data, is that some rates of creeped up and that looking historically, once an implement starts rising, it rises subsequently for many quarters, so they are trying to get ahead of the curve, jump out, —— germ pole will set it depends on the data, which is very mixed, just a few days back, if you weeks back, there was a big recession scare, markets tanks, and we have gotten over that, so there are certain indicators cigna garlic in a recession, some say in the

economy is fine, but overall the fed will achieve a soft landing. they seem to have learned the lessons from the past, and they are being quite cautious about it. imilli past, and they are being quite cautious about it.— cautious about it. with their course of — cautious about it. with their course of action _ cautious about it. with their course of action seeming i cautious about it. with their course of action seeming to | cautious about it. with their i 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 which you marked?— there affect the markets which you marked? definitely, one of the problems — you marked? definitely, one of the problems the _ you marked? definitely, one of the problems the fed - you marked? definitely, one of the problems the fed is - you marked? definitely, one of the problems the fed is facing | the problems the fed is facing is that we are still in a sort of inflationary environment, monetary policy has been functionary, but physical monetary has been manufacture there is lots of manufacturing policy in the us, as a result, they kept interest rates higher for longer. going ahead, the fed will have to think about two things. one is the political aspect and the microeconomic aspects, the politic as slick, if they cut interest rates rapidly, i am sure donald trump will howl in

protest and make the fed lives a bit more difficult. on the micro eminent side, i think they have to think about which of the two parties wins with fiscal policy the more good for expansion. 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 in spending, whereas the democrats want more spending, but they are also leaning towards higher taxes on the rich and increasing corporate taxes, that corporate taxes expire, so i think from the fed perspective, it would be more useful if the democrats going to power. 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". it gave no further comment on the sudden leadership 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 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 necessary measures" to protect the interests of its 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 dollars 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 you know. so we have this and then, you know more recently there are calls around, you know, african countries preferred creditor status or african multilateral creditor status being put to question, which for me doesn't make sense because i don't hear the same call for multilaterals in in latin america or asia, where there have been more defaults than in africa, you know. so i think that, you know, you need to do that research. it's back to the prejudice that africa faces, you know, and it'sjust becoming too much. you know, we have tried to organise ourselves as the african multinational financial institutions, you know, to deal with a host of the issues that we are dealing with, you know. so this is one of the things that we have to deal with, you know, but i think the most important thing for us to deal with is really how can we structurally transform our economies? how can we move away

from just, you know, exporting raw materials, you know, to finished goods, you know, and have higher incomes for our countries, have better reserve management, and also get the african continental free trade area to work. you know, these are things that just won't work by themselves. so it is up to us, you know, to continue to do what we do. the bosses of us 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" and "inconsistent implementation" 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 commision has not responded to the joint statement. staying on the subject of artificial intelligence, more than half of fortune 500 companies see ai as a possible risk, according to a new report. jason lopatecki who's the ceo of arize ai explains why.

this is one of the most ground—breaking complex technologies that people have created and i think you see a lots of companies struggling with that right now, from competitive risk to business risk, netflix warned about people automating the way things they do, and regularly risk, google worrying about regulatory rules coming in and hurting their ai business. have i to risk from hurting their ai business. have ito risk from a disney —— ip risk from disney, people creating their stuff for using ai, and controversy risk from sales force, where they are worried about people —— pr issues that might stem from al for production. and i think there is distinction between there is distinction between the need to innovate and the risk of one of the most context technologies we have today. which industries are most affected based on the risk you have mentioned to mark in the

report? in have mentioned to mark in the re ort? ,., have mentioned to mark in the re oft? , ., ., have mentioned to mark in the reort? ., '::f report? in the report, over 9096 ofthe report? in the report, over 9096 of the media — report? in the report, over 9096 of the media companies, - report? in the report, over 9096 of the media companies, of- report? in the report, over 9096 of the media companies, of the| of the media companies, of the disney companies of the world who are worried about ip issues, whether they are ip is used or whether the stuff they generate me be legally infringes on someone else's ip, so media company seven issue our own 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 technologies come out and new competitors are using those? and then a little bit surprising, was health care, so worries their stem 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 salad recipe of grated cucumbers, sesame oil, garlic, rice vinegar and chilli oil. iceland's farmers association told the bbc that farmers have been unable to meet the demand. one supermarket chain in the country said purchases of cucumbers have more than doubled since the trend emerged. that is a trend i can get on board with, eating more vegetables. and that's it for this edition of business today. thanks for watching.

hello and welcome to sportsday — i'm olly foster. 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 major for eight years

and we catch up with ukraine's paralympians heading to paris against the backdrop of their country's war with russia. we'll start with football and the three premier legaue 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 mohamed salah added the second after the break. liverpool haven't conceded a goal yet either, it's been pretty smooth introduction to english football for the new dutch maanger. 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.