Category: 3. Business

KARACHI: The Zarai Taraqiati Bank Ltd (ZTBL) announced on Monday that it has reduced its fuel consumption by 25 per cent in litres, effective immediately, amidst the worsening energy crisis linked to the ongoing conflict in the region, said a press release issued by the bank.

To achieve the desired results, all controlling officers have been advised to ensure fuel conservation in line with their business needs and to play a vital role in supporting the country’s current situation.

The bank maintains that small, collective changes in everyday habits can result in significant fuel savings.

Given the current economic landscape, the country faces a significant energy crisis that could lead to fuel shortages. While pursuing national interest, ZTBL ensures resilience and operational stability by implementing sustainable measures immediately, said the statement.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2026

(Bloomberg) — Asian stocks rebounded after Monday’s selloff and crude oil fell, as President Donald Trump signaled the Iran war may be nearing an end, offering markets a brief reprieve from selling.

Stocks jumped in Japan, South Korea and Australia, helping the broader MSCI Asia Pacific Index rise 2.2%, a sharp reversal after tumbling 3.7% on Monday. Roughly six stocks advanced for every one that declined in the index. Wall Street gauges also reversed their earlier losses to finish the session on a bullish note as tech shares rallied.

The optimistic shift came as Trump said the war with Iran would resolve “very soon.” The president said that he did not believe the conflict would be over this week, but insisted the operation was ahead of schedule. The US military objectives could be described as “pretty well complete,” he said.

Brent crude fell 10% to $89.06 a barrel, well off the peak of $119.50 hit in Monday’s session. Other markets also reversed their moves. Yields on the 10-year Treasury halted a five-day increase and the dollar extended losses made in the New York session.

The moves show how sensitive markets remain to every turn in the Middle East conflict, with a single headline enough to send traders scrambling. Cross-asset volatility showed little sign of easing — with a market risk indicator hovering near levels seen when Trump unveiled global tariffs last year — as investors grapple with a fast-moving geopolitical conflict that offers no clear trading playbook.

“What we’re seeing now is more of a relief rally after an extreme risk-off episode, rather than a genuine shift back into a full risk-on environment,” said Dilin Wu, a research strategist at Pepperstone Group.

Even so, equity-index futures on US benchmarks slipped in early Asian trading, signaling the rebound may not hold. Contracts for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 were down 0.2%, having pared losses of as much as 0.6%.

Trump’s comments at press conferences “haven’t been the most informative signal,” so investors would well remain skeptical, Eric Van Nostrand, a chief investment officer at Lazard Asset Management said in a Bloomberg TV interview.

“There’s a lot of misplaced confidence in markets right now that things will ease quickly as they have in previous episodes of elevated Middle Eastern tensions,” he said. “But I do think what we are seeing today, given the likely duration of closure of the Strait of Hormuz, is something quite different. It is going to affect the global economy really in a very meaningful and global way.”

What Bloomberg strategists say…

“Asian equities are set for early gains on Tuesday, but investors will be in a nervous mood and unwilling to jump back in wholeheartedly, which means that any rallies will be short-lived.”

— Mark Cranfield, MLIV. For full analysis, click here.

Crude had a volatile session on Monday that saw the commodity swing in the widest range since prices briefly turned negative during the depths of the pandemic. Oil surged toward $120 a barrel early Monday before pulling back as the world’s largest economies considered an effort to release emergency oil reserves.

Still, the vital Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, which has led to major producers in the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, curtailing output. The waterway is crucial for the global movement of crude oil.

Group of Seven finance ministers said they were ready to take any steps needed to support energy supply, including releasing strategic oil reserves — although the group isn’t at the point of doing so yet. Meantime, Trump is expected to review a set of options to tame oil prices, including restricting US exports and waiving some federal taxes, Reuters reported.

“We expect markets to stay very short-term focused, volatile and headline-driven as the conflict plays out this week,” said Carol Schleif at BMO Private Wealth.

Corporate Highlights:

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. gave an outlook for revenue in the current quarter that exceeded analysts’ estimates, a sign the company is benefiting from solid demand for hardware that helps customers run AI workloads. Apple Inc.’s artificial intelligence struggles are rippling through its product plans, forcing the company to delay a long-in-the-works smart home display until later this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Anthropic PBC sued the Defense Department for declaring the AI giant posed a risk to the US supply chain, further ramping up a high-stakes dispute with the Pentagon over safeguards on the company’s technology. Novo Nordisk A/S and Hims & Hers Health Inc. will work together to sell obesity drugs, a sudden reversal after more than eight months of acrimony that culminated in a legal battle. Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

S&P 500 futures fell 0.2% as of 9:53 a.m. Tokyo time Hang Seng futures rose 0.4% Nikkei 225 futures (OSE) rose 3.4% Japan’s Topix rose 2.6% Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.5% Euro Stoxx 50 futures rose 1.7% Currencies

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed The euro fell 0.1% to $1.1624 The Japanese yen was little changed at 157.70 per dollar The offshore yuan was little changed at 6.8937 per dollar The Australian dollar was little changed at $0.7070 Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin rose 0.3% to $69,169.63 Ether fell 0.5% to $2,016.21 Bonds

The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced one basis point to 4.11% Japan’s 10-year yield declined three basis points to 2.150% Australia’s 10-year yield declined 10 basis points to 4.84% Commodities

West Texas Intermediate crude fell 9.1% to $86.18 a barrel Spot gold fell 0.1% to $5,131.88 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

–With assistance from Richard Henderson, Winnie Hsu, Abhishek Vishnoi, Sarah Chen and Jake Lloyd-Smith.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

A multibillion-pound drive to “mainline AI into the veins” of the British economy is riddled with “phantom investments” and shaky accounting, a Guardian investigation has found.

Since 2024, successive Conservative and Labour governments have proclaimed massive deals to build new datacentres, create thousands of jobs and construct a supercomputer.

The investments – led by two firms linked to AI giant Nvidia – have been touted as a cornerstone of the government’s promise to use tech to turbocharge the economy.

On Monday, former UK deputy prime minister Sir Nick Clegg and former Meta chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg were announced as new board members at one of the firms, NScale. Nscale also said it had raised a $2bn funding round, sending its valuation soaring to $14.6bn.

But a Guardian investigation has shown the money isn’t necessarily real, the datacentres may not be new, the jobs are unaccounted for – and the supercomputer site 12 miles north of London is still a scaffolding yard.

When asked about a series of claimed investments, the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology declined to answer detailed questions but said it “rejected these assertions”.

A statement added: “Our AI sector has attracted more than £100bn in private investment since the government took office, with our AI sector growing 23 times faster than the wider economy last year. That is delivering the jobs and opportunities hardworking people deserve.”

But it also acknowledged limitations to its oversight.

In one case, it said that there was no contract in place for a £1.9bn ($2.5bn) investment despite a press release declaring that one had been signed. In another, it said that it was “not playing an active role in auditing these commitments”.

The findings raise questions about a series of massive AI investments announced globally in the past year, many in high-level press releases from governments and tech companies.

With over £500bn promised in 2025, countries worldwide are seeking to conjure economic growth from AI’s transformative potential.

Last year, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, said that if AI were “fully embraced”, it could bring £47bn to the economy each year – and promised to “mainline AI into the veins of the UK”.

But the UK example will raise fears that, without oversight, the value of these investments may simply enrich companies and investors that are largely headquartered in the US.

“These are phantom investments,” said Cecilia Rikap, a professor of economics at University College London, who said similar things were happening around the world.

“Big tech companies artificially inflate datacentres’ job creation and economic impact to please governments like the British one, which are desperate to claim they are making the economy grow.”

‘The rules are very flexible’

The UK government’s AI plans centre on two companies backed by the $4tn tech giant Nvidia: London-based Nscale and the US company CoreWeave.

In 2024, Rishi Sunak’s government hailed one of the first AI investments in Britain, a £1bn commitment from CoreWeave to help “cement the UK’s position as a world leader in AI.”

CoreWeave’s press release said it would invest £1bn in the UK, and quoted the then technology secretary, Michelle Donelan, as saying this would bring “two new datacentres to our shores.”

CoreWeave said the investment would “create job opportunities” and herald further expansion. Six months later, it announced that the two datacentres were operational: one in London Docklands, and one in Crawley near Gatwick.

Planning records indicate that CoreWeave built no new datacentres at either location during that time period. Neither did the two partners mentioned in its press release.

In fact, while CoreWeave’s – and the government’s – communications imply that physical buildings were built by suggesting the investment would bring “two new data centres to our shores”, this was misleading.

The Guardian understands that CoreWeave became a customer of two existing datacentres, one built in 2002 and one built in 2015, both of which lease space to a host of other companies, including Google and Fujitsu. CoreWeave rented space in these datacentres, and deployed Nvidia chips that it had paid for.

Effectively, its investment amounts to the relocation into the UK of computer chips manufactured in Taiwan by a US company.

There is no indication in public-facing materials that CoreWeave has made other investments, beyond renting an office in a building in Southwark, London, which it has called its “European headquarters.”

Rikap said it was “very common” for datacentre developers to frame the purchase of equipment, or the acquisition of other companies, as investment. “The rules are very flexible and help them to make these big claims and investments that a government like Starmer’s, which is desperate for good news, can use for their favour.”

In a response to a query from the Guardian, the government said that the figures it had announced for CoreWeave’s investment did not come from them. A statement said they were produced by CoreWeave.

It did not say whether this investment amounted to capital or equipment.

CoreWeave said that bringing new datacentre capacity online by deploying chips within an existing site was an “industry-standard” approach. The deployment of these chips, the associated lease and power costs, the opening of its office and personnel costs represented the whole of the £1bn investment, it said.

“Our investments are designed to expand compute capacity, and enable AI adoption and innovation across enterprises, research institutions, the public sector and startups. We are delivering advanced, purpose-built AI infrastructure to support the development of AI at scale,” the company said. It refused to say how many jobs had been created.

Nscale’s flagship project was announced in January 2025, when the government said that the company would build a supercomputer site on the outskirts of Loughton in east London, a project dubbed “the largest UK sovereign AI datacentre.” This was reported to be part of a $2.5bn investment the company was making into the UK.

That press release said that Nscale had “signed a contract” to complete this datacentre by 2026.

Nscale’s own press release from the time said that it “confirmed” its investment in the UK by buying the site in Loughton, and the supercomputer was to be “live” by Q4 2026.

But the proposed site, in an industrial park on the outskirts of Loughton, was still being used as a scaffolding yard by a London-based company when the Guardian visited in February.

Nscale submitted a planning application to build there at the end of February, after the Guardian had begun to make inquiries. Land records appear to indicate that Nscale has not yet been registered as owner of the site. Nscale could not say whether the company owned the land, and could not give a date on which any purchase had occurred.

In response to a query from the Guardian, the government said that the figure Nscale had given for its investment in the UK, $2.5bn, was from Nscale itself.

Asked about the terms of the contract that Nscale had signed to build the supercomputer by the end of this year, the government did not reply directly. Instead, it said that Nscale’s entire $2.5bn investment was “not a formal contract, rather an intention to commit capital”, and “may well include equipment and capital funding”.

Nscale’s accounts for 2025 are overdue, but do not yet show any commitment to investments in the UK.

An Nscale spokesperson said: “As a UK-headquarted company, we remain committed to the UK investment we announced – with the Loughton project in support of Microsoft progressing as we envisaged. We’re investing not only in the site itself but also in offsite power infrastructure, local contractors and local suppliers.”

‘The claims are pie-in-the-sky’

Nscale and CoreWeave are committed to further projects.

Nscale, along with Microsoft and the ChatGPT developer, OpenAI, are to establish Stargate UK, a “critical” project to help develop the UK’s own AI facilities on sites across the country.

In response to a query from the Guardian, the government said that this project was also a part of Nscale’s $2.5bn investment. It did not give a breakdown of the total amount, and said it did not have a mechanism in place to review it.

“Government will continue to work closely with Nscale in securing this investment into UK, however, it is not playing an active role in auditing these commitments,” said a spokesperson for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

CoreWeave, meanwhile, is to back an AI growth zone in Lanarkshire, which the government has said will be completed within four years and bring the company’s investment into UK infrastructure to £2.5bn. That development is a “key pillar” of the government’s industrial strategy. The government says the project will create 3,400 jobs in the construction of the facility; CoreWeave’s partner, DataVita, has promised more than 1GW of onsite renewable energy, the energy equivalent of the output of a nuclear power station.

The Lanarkshire site currently hosts a datacentre with 24MW of electricity – less than 3% of the promised renewable supply – operated by the Scottish firm DataVita, which is partnering with CoreWeave in developing the site. One planning application, to extend this to 40MW, has been approved; other applications, including for a larger site, cannot be filed until April, according to the planning portal of the local council.

“This hyperscale datacentre would have the energy demand of half a million homes, an eighth of the entire Scottish electricity demand,” said Dr Kat Jones, director of the Scottish countryside charity APRS, who has been researching the growth of hyperscale and AI datacentres across Scotland.

She said that the claimed plans for 1GW of on-site renewable energy “are total pie-in-the-sky. Where is this going to come from?”

In the press release announcing the site, the government said that CoreWeave’s commitment to the site was part of a package of investments the company “has made to AI projects in the UK.”

In response to a query from the Guardian, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology would not say if it had audited this commitment, or how – or if any of the investment had been received. Questions on the form of the investment, it said, were “ultimately” up to CoreWeave.

“The details of the Lanarkshire commitment are subject to DataVita and CoreWeave,” it said.

Asked about the Lanarkshire site, CoreWeave said that questions about its power usage should be directed to DataVita, its partner, and that the project “remains on schedule, with the first phase expected to come online later this year.”

DataVita did not respond to a request for comment on this piece.

Asked about the 3,400 jobs, CoreWeave said: “Any job projections that have been shared in relation to these UK datacentre efforts have originated from the UK Government and DataVita, not CoreWeave.”

A government spokesperson said: “Datacentres are vital to delivering the benefits of AI, from boosting productivity to improving public services. We have a clear plan to deliver the infrastructure the UK needs and get it connected, and make no apologies for working with leading global firms to invest in and build datacentres here.”

Additional reporting: Dan Milmo and Libby Brooks

Fears over the global economy have been stoked by the oil price soaring past $100 a barrel as a result of the US-Israel war with Iran.

Economists say the increasing likelihood of a prolonged conflict in the vital energy exporting region could have serious consequences for living standards around the world amid the threat of a renewed inflation shock.

Against a highly uncertain backdrop, financial markets are under heavy selling pressure, consumers are facing rising prices, central banks could be forced to increase borrowing costs and governments will come under pressure to support households and businesses.

How high could oil prices go?

Oil prices passed $119 a barrel on Monday, the highest level since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Analysts say the continued closure of the strait of Hormuz could drive the price close to $150 a barrel, above the record high of $145.29 set in July 2008.

The narrow shipping route on Iran’s southern border carries a fifth of global seaborne crude oil and liquified natural gas, and a third of the most widely used fertiliser.

Goldman Sachs has said Iran’s effective blockade of the waterway has had an impact 17 times larger than the peak April 2022 hit to Russian oil production after the Ukraine invasion, which pushed the oil price to about $139 a barrel.

oil price graph

What happens next hinges on how long the strait is effectively closed and the ability to divert exports. Saudi Arabia has begun routing crude to its Red Sea ports, but most exporters are trapped behind bottlenecks. Gulf oil and gas storage facilities are reaching their limits as a result, meaning large oilfields may need to be shut down. Returning production to previous levels would take time, adding further to the energy crisis.

Analysts say a short, sharp conflict that allowed Hormuz exports to resume would help to cool energy prices. Prolonged uncertainty could linger, however, over the safety of the waterway. Capital Economics has said a longer-lasting conflict could keep the oil price above $100 a barrel throughout this year.

How much could inflation be affected?

The soaring oil price comes at a delicate moment for the global economy. Central banks had been nearing the end of a process of normalising interest rates after the most aggressive tightening cycle in decades in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Further rate cuts had been anticipated, but experts say the Iran conflict could prompt the opposite, a renewed rise in borrowing costs.

After the 2022 experience, the way higher energy costs and logistical bottlenecks bleed into consumer prices is well known. Fuel prices for motorists are already rising, households’ energy bills could increase sharply and higher costs for businesses will ripple through global supply chains. These costs will ultimately be passed on to consumers.

There are hopes that a re-run of the inflation spikes of the 1970s, when oil price shocks emanating from the Middle East rippled through the world economy, can be avoided.

Analysts highlight the fact that long-term inflation expectations have remained relatively grounded in recent years, even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, suggesting that central banks have helped to maintain confidence that prices can be brought back under control.

“The global economy is less sensitive to energy shocks than half a century ago,” said Jim Reid of Deutsche Bank. “Economies are much less energy-intensive today, and labour markets have far lower unionisation and wage indexation, reducing the risk of a 1970s-style wage-price spiral.”

map

Could the crisis trigger a global recession?

The inflation increases triggered by the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine mean households and businesses have already stomached years of sharp price increases. Many are stretched to breaking point.

Economists say a renewed inflationary burst would damage consumer demand and hit economic activity. Fears of stagflation, where growth stagnates but inflation increases, are mounting.

“Talk of recession is back,” said the accountancy firm Deloitte’s chief economist in the UK, Ian Stewart.

“Surging oil and gas prices are harbingers of economic trouble. Higher energy prices, triggered by war or revolution in the Middle East, were major factors in western recessions in 1973, 1979 and 1990. The surge in energy prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine collapsed Europe’s growth rate in 2023.”

Higher borrowing costs and heightened geopolitical uncertainty are likely to hit business investment and global trade, meaning countries where the growth outlook is already fragile could tip closer to recession.

How might governments respond?

G7 countries have said they stand ready to release emergency oil reserves to soothe global supply concerns. Having increased domestic production in recent years, the US is largely energy-independent despite depleting its domestic strategic oil reserve. China has amassed vast oil stockpiles. European countries are likely to be hit hardest by the fallout. Most are net energy importers, and rely heavily on oil and gas.

Governments will come under renewed pressure to boost their energy security. Much of the focus will be on accelerating the switch to a low-carbon economy and investment in renewable energy. A political battle over the pace of transition is also likely though, as happened after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Politicians are also facing calls to provide emergency financial support to help struggling households and businesses with higher energy bills. EU countries and the UK stepped in with costly schemes four years ago.

Borrowing and debt levels are already stretched for many western governments, however, limiting capacity to unfurl expensive new programmes without testing fragile global bond market appetite.

“The problem now is how much this will cost governments, with energy support packages being floated as ideas,” said Jordan Rochester of the Japanese bank Mizuho.

“This may be a war, but it’s also perhaps the biggest energy supply/logistics crisis we’ve ever seen in modern history.”