Category: 3. Business

The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a case that has Wall Street and the financial markets in a near panic.

At issue are President Trump’s efforts to break with 112 years of law and precedent by firing Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s governing board appointed by President Biden. 

Cook’s case is not unique, as evidenced by the recent blow up between Trump and Jerome Powell, who was appointed Fed chair in 2018 by Trump himself.

Powell, known for a cool head and a quiet demeanor, has consistently avoided direct confrontations with Trump, even as the president’s personal displeasure with the Fed chair escalated from behind the scenes pressure to public bashing.

As Trump put it on CNBC in speaking of Powell last week, “Either he’s incompetent or he’s crooked.”

Trump v. Powell

The Trump administration hit the Fed with grand jury subpoenas on Jan. 9 initiating a criminal investigation into Powell for his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June. That testimony dealt with cost overruns at two Federal Reserve buildings being renovated for the first time since the 1930s.

The normally reticent Powell finally blew.

“This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of federal reserve buildings. Those are pretexts,” Powell said in a video posted on social media. “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public rather than following the preferences of the president.”

Congress established the Federal Reserve board in 1913 after a series of financial panics in the late 1800s. In an effort to stabilize the economy, the legislative branch sought to shield monetary policy from political manipulation by establishing limited terms for Fed governors and barring them from being fired, except for malfeasance in office.

Daniel Tarullo, a Harvard law professor and former Fed governor, observes that presidents of both parties always want interest rates to go down, particularly in election years, but he says that inevitably destabilizes the economy.

“When those long-term rates start to go up because of fears of inflation down the road, what gets affected?” he asks. “Mortgages and business investment.”

The issue before the court

That said, the actual legal issue before the court Wednesday is, at least superficially, quite narrow. Trump’s lawyers will tell the Supreme Court that he is not asking for a free pass to fire Cook. He is firing her for cause; namely, the administration claims that Cook falsified documents to obtain loans on two different properties she listed as her primary residences. Her lawyers say she listed one of the properties as a vacation home. The accusations against her were lodged initially by Bill Pulte, Trump’s head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Cook, for her part, denies any wrongdoing whatsoever. Her lawyers in their Supreme Court papers contend that Cook’s mortgage applications were “cherry-picked” by Pulte to make it appear that perfectly legal mortgage applications were somehow nefarious. And to underline the point, her lawyers point to recent reporting that four of Trump’s Cabinet members, plus his deputy attorney general, and even Pulte’s own relatives have recently made applications for multiple mortgages similar to Cook’s, without any suggestion of wrongdoing.

But the Trump administration argues that once the president has determined he has cause to fire a Fed board member, that decision is not reviewable by any court. That’s a big caveat that essentially hands the president unrestricted power to fire members of the Fed and replace them with his personal picks.

That is as it should be, argues Jacob Huebert, senior litigation counsel at the conservative New Civil Liberties Alliance.
Because Article II of the U.S. Constitution vests all executive power in the president, Huebert explains, the president “has to be able to remove people who he doesn’t want to work with. Otherwise he’s being forced to share executive power with someone he doesn’t want to share it with.”

Plus, he adds, just because “we’ve had a Federal Reserve that functions as it does now for a long time doesn’t mean we need to have it forever.”

Experts warn Fed’s independence is in peril

Economists of varying political stripes see the situation as far more dire. With the exception of Powell, every living Federal Reserve board chair, plus Treasury secretaries, and prominent economists from both parties have signed on to Supreme Court briefs urging the justices not to tinker with the Fed’s independence.

Top business leaders like Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman of JPMorganChase, warned last week that interference with the Fed “will have reverse consequences,” likely raising inflation and increasing borrowing rates over time.

Just what the Supreme Court will do is unclear. In other cases last year, the court’s conservative majority allowed Trump to remove other agency leaders, at least temporarily overriding federal laws that had protected term-limited agency heads from firing.

But at the same time, the court’s conservatives, in one cryptic passage of an emergency docket opinion, said that the Fed is different because it is a “uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.” Indeed, the first Congress created the first bank in 1791, and the second was created in 1816.

Should Trump prevail, however, he almost certainly would seek to replace not just Cook, but other Fed governors. Powell’s term as Fed chair expires this spring, but he has two more years on his term as a Fed governor. Unless Trump is able to remove sitting governors, he will not have a majority of his own appointees on the board during the remainder of his presidency.

Noteworthy is that making the case against Trump and for Cook, and indirectly the Fed, will be Paul Clement, who served as solicitor general for President George W. Bush. Additionally, Chair Powell is expected to be in the Supreme Court chamber when the case is argued.

The Boxer armoured transport vehicle and the mtu Series 199 have been a joint success story for years. Further orders were added in 2025, bringing the total number of 8V199 engines to around 400 in 2025. The modular vehicle consists of an eight-wheeled drive module onto which mission modules are mounted depending on the intended use. This has resulted in a large number of variants for European and non-European armies in a short period of time. What they all have in common is the drive: all of the more than 2,000 Boxer vehicles ordered or already delivered and their derivatives are powered by mtu 8V199 engines.

With over 4,500 engines delivered, the mtu 199 series is the world’s most successful programme in its performance class for military land vehicles used by the armies of NATO members and allied states. It stands for high-performance engines with low space requirements and high power density, which can be used to power new weapon systems and to re-engine existing vehicle fleets with high efficiency.

Building on this concept, Rolls-Royce is expanding the 199 series into a larger family to meet the increasing performance requirements of the troops and the limited budgets of the armies. Rolls-Royce recently announced performance upgrades of the existing variants of the mtu Series 199 and the development of a 10-cylinder variant with up to 1,100 kW and a 12-cylinder variant with over 1,300 kW of power.

Tokyo, January 21, 2026 – Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) and Indonesia’s Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) have signed a new research agreement to extend their long-standing collaboration on the exploration of clean power generation, further advancing research related to ammonia-based fuel applications.

Building on earlier joint studies, the extended agreement continues research into ammonia combustion, with a focus on strengthening understanding of how ammonia can be applied safely and effectively in gas turbine systems. Through sustained collaboration, MHI and its power solutions brand, Mitsubishi Power, together with ITB, aim to reinforce the technical knowledge needed to support the practical use of ammonia in power generation and contribute to Indonesia’s long-term decarbonization goals.

During the signing ceremony in Bandung, Indonesia, Satoshi Hada, Senior Vice President of the GTCC Business Division at MHI, said: “Research and development are central to MHI and to our power solutions brand, Mitsubishi Power, as we work to advance cleaner power technologies. We are pleased to continue the momentum of our long-standing collaboration with ITB. Ammonia is increasingly recognized as a promising carbon-free fuel, but realizing its potential requires a deep and careful understanding of its unique properties. By building on the progress achieved together, we look forward to strengthening the technical foundations that can support cleaner and more sustainable power generation in Indonesia.”

Prof. Dr. Ir. Ari Darmawan Pasek, of ITB, said: “The transition to cleaner energy is essential in addressing climate change. Our collaboration with MHI reflects the importance of combining academic research with industrial expertise to advance cleaner fuel technologies. We are confident that this continued partnership will contribute valuable insights to support the future role of ammonia in power generation and Indonesia’s decarbonization journey.”

MHI and ITB first concluded a memorandum of understanding in 2020 to collaborate on research into next-generation clean energy solutions and analysis of big data relating to power plants. This partnership was extended in 2022 and has since progressed through multiple research initiatives focused on ammonia-fired power generation. The latest agreement continues this long-standing collaboration, building steadily on the work undertaken to date.

With support from its power solutions brand, Mitsubishi Power, MHI remains committed to contributing to Indonesia’s scientific and technological development in the energy sector, in line with the country’s ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060.

What happens when powerful AI tools are released without safeguards into platforms used by millions? This question has occupied headlines after Grok, the generative AI chatbot integrated into the social media platform X was weaponized to non-consensually create and share sexually explicit and degrading images of women and children. The proliferation of such images on X was a direct result of the introduction of an image generation and editing feature to Grok in December 2024. Grok’s subsequent integration with X and the introduction of a “spicy mode” last year exacerbated the abuse by enhancing access and dissemination of such non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII).

The Grok incident has rightly triggered widespread outrage across jurisdictions, and regulators around the world are taking action, with responses ranging from blocking Grok entirely, such as in Indonesia, to launching an investigation into its functioning, as in the United Kingdom.

In India, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a letter to X on January 2, 2026, citing a failure to comply with statutory due diligence obligations under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Apart from adherence to the legal framework, MeitY demanded a report on the steps being taken by X to address the issue within 72 hours from the issuance of the letter. However, while the ministry’s response has been relatively swift, there are several deeper and systemic issues that it has exposed.

First, this response reveals structural problems in how India is currently attempting to govern AI-driven harms. MeitY has not initiated a dedicated regulatory or investigative process for Grok as an AI system. Instead, it has relied almost entirely on the existing intermediary liability framework under the IT Act and the IT Rules to look into the matter. Earlier, MeitY issued an advisory to social media intermediaries on December 29, 2025 which warned against the hosting, uploading, and transmission of obscene, pornographic and other unlawful content and advised them to undertake a review of their internal compliance frameworks. Through both the advisory and its January 2 letter to X, it is evident that MeitY’s approach to this incident is that of a failure of platform compliance with legal obligations and due diligence requirements. Simply put, the government response is built around takedowns and platform enforcement routed through the intermediary liability regime.

Additionally, the government is currently deliberating on introducing the Draft Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2025, to combat the rise of deepfakes. These rules would make labelling of all synthetically generated information mandatory. While this step is well-intentioned, concerns related to compelled speech, ambiguous definitions as to what constitutes “synthetic content,” and fears over increased censorship powers that would add to the existing safe harbor framework have been raised. This approach reflects a broader reluctance to regulate and place binding obligations on AI systems and stakeholders within the AI ecosystem. The general sentiment of anti-AI regulation prevalent in India points to apprehensions that the imposition of ‘bureaucratic fetters’ will hinder the development and adoption of AI in India.

The government’s attitude on wider AI regulation can be seen in the India AI Governance Guidelines released in November 2025. While the Guidelines, which were released under the India AI Mission, acknowledge the risks posed by AI, they largely defer to the extant legal regime, stating that “a separate law to regulate AI is not needed given the current assessment of risks” and that the risks associated with AI can be addressed through voluntary measures and “existing laws.” However, if there’s one thing that the Grok episode highlights, it is that not only has the market failed to regulate itself, but the existing laws which address platform governance have failed to effectively address AI driven harms such as sexualized deepfakes. This has, in turn, exposed a dire need for regulation.

Grok, as a generative AI model capable of producing illegal and abusive content on demand, is not directly regulated as an AI system, but is only regulated indirectly through X’s obligations as a social media intermediary. If similar harm were to occur on stand-alone AI platforms that are not intermediaries under the IT Act, for instance on other generative AI chatbots, there is a real risk that this would fall into a regulatory grey zone. This leaves India without a clear legal framework to require pre-deployment testing, built-in safety and consent guardrails, or any independent oversight of high-risk generative AI tools.

At the outset, to drive constructive conversations around AI, the Indian government needs to drop apprehensions that a regulatory approach is likely to be perceived as a backward response to emerging technologies. Further, there is an urgent need to move past the reductive, binary narrative that regulation strangles innovation, as this line of thinking leads to the adoption of a light-touch regulatory and self-regulatory codes administered by industry without oversight, an approach that results in episodes such as the Grok incident. Instead, the way forward ought to be one that embraces regulatory responses that lead to tangible accountability from all stakeholders in the AI value chain. To do this, a participatory approach to AI governance is essential. The government ought to consider conducting an open, public, multi-stakeholder consultation that would expand the conversation of AI regulation beyond the framework of the IT Act as a good first step in this direction.

Unless it is accepted that systemic changes need to be made to address AI-enabled harms such as NCII, a platform moderation approach is likely to change little. What is necessary is prioritizing ‘Safety by Design’ and mandates for adversarial testing (so-called red teaming), adherence to technical standards (like C2PA) to label AI-generated content, addressing the existence of NCII and Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) in training data sets, and an investment in the development of tools that detect and report such content. Otherwise, any promises to tackle AI-generated sexual abuse would ring hollow.

Lastly, it is also important to touch upon another issue that plagues the content moderation approach for NCII in India, that of framing the issue merely in terms of “obscene” or “vulgar” content. This approach misses the core harm involved in image-based sexual abuse: a complete lack of consent. The defining feature of NCII is not the subjective assessment of whether a particular image or video crosses the threshold to be deemed as “obscene” or “vulgar.” Instead, the primary violation is the creation of such an image in the absence of any meaningful consent of the person who is depicted. This violation continues to subsist regardless of whether the content is considered to be obscene in nature or not. Reducing such abuse to a question of obscenity collapses this distinct harm with the imposition of moral and socio-cultural standards. Therefore, a framework based on consent and a rights-based understanding arguably offers a better path forward that safeguards the interests of victims. It would allow regulators and platforms to respond to abuse in a victim-focused way while still respecting constitutional free speech protections.

The Grok incident was an easily predictable outcome of a governance model that allows powerful AI systems to be deployed at scale without enforceable, ex-ante safety obligations. When such tools which have the capacity to shape behavior, reputation, personal autonomy, dignity and safety are made available in the mainstream, the harm they can cause is not confined to a few users but has a ripple effect that is difficult to contain. While X admitted to failures and stated that it had taken down the offending content, this was a reactive measure taken only after large volumes of harmful material had already been generated and widely circulated. Moreover, neither the full scale of the harm, the number of victims who were affected, nor the adequacy of the fixes has been independently verified.

Reportedly, MeitY was dissatisfied with the platform’s initial response as well. Meanwhile the broader issue of the dissemination of NCII and CSAM continues to remain unresolved and risks being forgotten. We await MeitY’s further action on this matter.

The Reserve Bank of Australia could lose some control over its ability to set interest rates independently if Donald Trump is successful in his bid to take control of the US central bank, experts warn.

Ten days after the US Department of Justice announced a criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve’s chair, Jerome Powell, the supreme court on Wednesday will hear arguments in a legal case that will determine whether the president has the power to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Fed’s board of governors.

National Australia Bank’s chief economist, Sally Auld, said if the court upholds Trump’s efforts to sack Cook then that could spell the beginning of the end of the central bank’s independence.

The consequences of Washington DC wresting control over monetary policy could be severe, and ultimately lead to higher inflation.

It would likely trigger a crisis in confidence in the American currency and financial assets, such as stocks and bonds, Auld said, with ramifications for other central banks.

In this worst case scenario, “the magnitude of the depreciation of the US dollar would be quite significant”.

“If the Aussie dollar jumped 15%, that would make our currency expensive and that in itself might be enough to demand the RBA cut rates. Their hand could be forced.”

So far, investors remain untroubled with the unprecedented attack on the Fed, and this calmness in financial markets “feels a little bit out of sync with the way people are sensing the world at the beginning of 2026”, Auld said.

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There are 12 members of the Federal Open Market Committee who have a vote on rate decisions.

They include the seven members of the Washington DC-based board of governors, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and four of the remaining 11 presidents of the regional reserve banks (who serve one-year terms on a rotating basis).

The Fed’s next rate decision is due early on 29 January, Australian time, and will be the first made in the shadow of the looming threat of a Department of Justice criminal investigation into Powell.

Even if Trump is unable to gain direct power over the central bank, as is likely, the political pressure and threats have already chipped away at the image of an independent institution.

The chief economist at AMP, Shane Oliver, said a politically controlled Fed could keep rates lower for longer and “end up with an inflation blowout” that could smash the US dollar and drive Wall Street lower.

Like Auld, Oliver believes the “upshot could mean lower rates” in Australia.

“A stronger Aussie dollar and lower interest rates; some Australians would think that’s not a bad outcome. But the risk would ultimately be more inflation.”

Oliver said the prospect remained relatively distant.

“To get to that point you’d need to have Trump gaining complete control over the Fed. If he gets control of four of the seven governors, then he gets some control over who sits as president. That’s when the guardrails around the Fed weaken.”

Successful or not, Oliver said Trump’s push to overturn decades of political support for central bank independence would set a precedent for other populists around the world.

“For Australia, the problem is that this is the world’s most significant central bank. If the threats to independence are happening there, then it would happen here.”

There is already a constituency on the left who would be happy to abandon the principle of central bank independence.

The Greens’ economic spokesperson, Nick McKim, in September last year demanded Jim Chalmers “show some courage” and exercise his legislative powers to “directly override” the RBA and force it to cut rates.

Populist figures on the right, such as rising Liberal figures like Andrew Hastie and Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, may choose to follow Trump’s lead, especially should the RBA raise interest rates this year.

Unions have been deeply critical of the RBA for keeping rates too high at the expense of jobs, but still publicly back its independence.

Oliver said “in some ways [Australia’s institutional settings] are already weaker than the Fed”.

“To get a governor appointed in the US you have to go through a committee, whereas here you are just appointed by the Treasurer.”

Luci Ellis, Westpac’s chief economist and a former senior RBA official, said Australia should still be able to pursue an independent monetary policy even in a world where the American central bank has been suborned by political interests.

“There’s no particular reason we have to follow what the Fed does,” Ellis said, pointing to recent evidence of how the two countries’ monetary policy paths have diverged.

“It would be bad if the biggest and most powerful central bank lost some of its operational independence, but it would not in and of itself change how the RBA would need to behave.”

Tokyo, January 21, 2026 – Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Transportation and Construction Engineering, Ltd. (MHI-TC), a part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group, has built and completed delivery to Yokohama City of the Mitsubishi Marine Bridge (MMB), a self-propelled mobile seaport passenger boarding bridge (SPBB). Manufactured at MHI’s Mihara Machinery Works in Hiroshima Prefecture, the MMB was put into service at Osanbashi Yokohama International Passenger Terminal on January 13. Capable of connecting to the large cruise ships that dock at Osanbashi, this is MHI-TC’s first delivery of a mobile MMB.

The MMB protects passengers from inclement weather and temperature, ensuring safe, secure, and comfortable passenger movement. In addition, passengers do not need to descend to the wharf, enhancing security and making more effective use of wharf space. The autonomous driving function of the mobile MMB was designed by MHI-TC by applying technology developed for the company’s fully automated docking system for airport passenger boarding bridges (PBBs). The main characteristics are as follows.

Features of the Mobile MMB Developed by MHI-TC

1. 16-wheel independent steering control
   Mobility is made possible by eight-wheeled, independently controlled steering units at the front and rear of the MMB. These steering controls allow the bridge to turn at the end of the pier, so it can potentially operate on both the Shinko side and Yamashita side of the wharf.
2. GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) automated driving
   The mobile MMB is equipped with an automated driving function utilizing GNSS. This autonomous driving function is based on technology developed for the fully automated docking system for airport PBBs.
3. Flexible docking system
   The flexible docking system is adaptable to different docking positions on the terminal side, and different passenger access door positions on the ship side.
4. Self-generated power
   The front and rear driving units on the MMB are each equipped with generators, making an external power supply unnecessary. As an environmental feature, it is possible to switch to a land-based power supply when in use as a bridge.
5. Trackless driving
   Since the MMB does not need rails or other tracks, the wharf can be used efficiently for cargo handling and the passage of related vehicles.
6. Move/Standby function
   When not in use, the MMB can move to a position where it will not be in the way.
7. Universal Design
   Following the design philosophy of passenger boarding bridges, the mobile MMB has a gently sloping ramp for passengers to move between the terminal and the ship.

The Port of Yokohama opened in 1859, and the current Osanbashi Yokohama International Passenger Terminal was completed in 2002. It is the port of registry for the cruise ships ASUKAⅡand ASUKAⅢ, and one of the top ports in Japan for the number of cruise ship visits. Osanbashi Yokohama International Passenger Terminal is also a tourist attraction, visited by more than three million people annually.

MHI-TC will continue to contribute to the safe and smooth operation of ships through the manufacture and delivery of mobile MMBs.

Snapchat’s parent Snap has settled a social media addiction lawsuit just days before the landmark case was due to go to trial in Los Angeles.

Terms of the deal were not announced as it was revealed by lawyers at a California Superior Court hearing, after which Snap told the BBC the parties were “pleased to have been able to resolve this matter in an amicable manner”.

Other defendants in the case include Instagram parent Meta, ByteDance’s TikTok and Alphabet’s YouTube, none of which have settled.

The plaintiff, a 19-year old woman identified by the initials K.G.M., alleged that the algorithmic design of the platforms left her addicted and affected her mental health.

In the absence of a settlement with the other parties, the trial is scheduled to go forward against the remaining three defendants, with jury selection due to begin on 27 January.

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify, and until Tuesday’s settlement, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel was also set to take the stand.

Meta, TikTok and Alphabet did not respond to BBC inquiries seeking reaction to the settlement.

Snap is still a defendant in other social media addiction cases that have been consolidated in the court.

The closely watched cases could challenge a legal theory that social media companies have used to shield themselves.

They have long argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects them from liability for what third parties post on their platforms.

But plaintiffs argue that the platforms are designed in a way that leaves users addicted through choices that affect their algorithms and notifications.

The social media companies have said the plaintiffs’ evidence falls short of proving that they are responsible for alleged harms such as depression and eating disorders.