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Category: 3. Business

  • Coming soon from Tech Tonic: Defying death

    Coming soon from Tech Tonic: Defying death

    Investors are spending billions of dollars on novel ways to extend human life through inventive treatments, therapies, and even manipulating our genes. And increasingly, it seems as though anti-ageing efforts have moved from the super rich to a mass market consumer industry. In this series, we’re covering the past, present and future of the longevity movement. We’ll be looking at where the fixation on longevity is coming from, and trying to understand the practical and ethical issues at the heart of this cutting-edge field of research.

    From Silicon Valley fantasies, to Singaporean health spas, to Colombian genetic clinics and beyond, the FT’s Hannah Kuchler and Michael Peel ask whether breakthroughs in science and technology can really help us live longer, and even stop us aging altogether.

    Free to read:

    US ‘wellness’ industry scents opportunity to go mainstream

    The quest to make young blood into a drug

    This season of Tech Tonic was produced by Josh Gabert-Doyon. The senior producer is Edwin Lane. Flo Phillips is the executive producer. Sound design by Breen Turner and Samantha Giovinco. Fact checking by Simon Greaves, Lucy Baldwin and Tara Cromie. Original music by Metaphor Music. Manuela Saragosa is the FT’s acting co-head of audio.

    The FT does not use generative AI to voice its podcasts.

    View our accessibility guide.

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  • Pakistan loses $600 million to illegal crypto transactions as dollar sales to banks fall 23%

    Pakistan loses $600 million to illegal crypto transactions as dollar sales to banks fall 23%

    Pakistan has lost an estimated $600 million to illegal cryptocurrency transactions this year, reducing the flow of dollars into the banking system by 23% as buyers purchase cash from exchange companies and divert it into crypto through unlawful channels, Dawn reported. 

    Exchange companies say customers continue to buy dollars from licensed firms, deposit them into their foreign currency (FCY) accounts and then withdraw the cash to purchase cryptocurrencies through unregulated platforms. Between January and October, around $400 million was retained in FCY accounts, while roughly $600 million exited the system without trace.

    The Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan reported that dollar sales to banks fell significantly during the first 10 months of the year. Banks received about $4 billion from exchange firms last year over the same period, compared to only $3 billion this year. 

    “These disappeared dollars were mostly invested in cryptocurrencies,” the association’s chairman Malik Bostan said.

    Recent State Bank directives require both banks and exchange firms to avoid issuing cash dollars for FCY deposits and instead transfer the funds directly into customers’ accounts. Exchange firms now transfer money electronically or issue cheques, but the dollars are still being withdrawn from banks before being routed into crypto, Bostan added.

    Despite tight monitoring at borders with Afghanistan and Iran, the downward trend in dollar sales continued during the first four months of FY25. Exchange firms sold $280 million in July ($333 million in 2024), $163 million in August ($295 million), $186 million in September ($214 million) and $244 million in October ($297 million). Total sales fell from $1.139 billion in July–Oct 2024 to $873 million in the same period this year, a 23% decline.

    Meanwhile, State Bank data shows commercial banks’ dollar holdings increased from $4.180 billion in January to $4.625 billion, a rise of $425 million, reflecting changes in market behaviour and tighter controls on informal flows.

    Pakistan’s dollar pressures have persisted for years, leaving the country close to default in 2023 before it secured an IMF bailout. Import restrictions and crackdowns on illegal currency trading helped stabilise the situation, but rising use of cryptocurrencies now poses new challenges for policymakers trying to conserve foreign exchange.

    The government is preparing to re-enter the international debt market with fresh bonds, including Panda Bonds in China. SBP reserves currently stand at $14.551 billion and officials expect them to reach $17 billion by the end of FY26, supported by stronger remittances and an anticipated $1.2 billion IMF tranche.


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  • BP crew excavates Olympic Pipeline, yet to find cause of leak – Reuters

    1. BP crew excavates Olympic Pipeline, yet to find cause of leak  Reuters
    2. Gasoline cracks fall  TradingView
    3. Emergency Declared To Maintain Seattle Airport’s Jet Fuel Supply  Aviation Week Network
    4. Truckers up to the task of hauling jet fuel from Blaine to Sea-Tac Airport  Yahoo
    5. Seattle Airport Faces Threat of Fuel Crunch on Shut Pipeline  Bloomberg.com

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  • Dynamic graph-based quantum feature selection for accurate fetal plane classification in ultrasound imaging

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  • FOCUS: Concerns Grow over Japan’s Massive Fiscal Spending under Takaichi

    FOCUS: Concerns Grow over Japan’s Massive Fiscal Spending under Takaichi

    Society

    Tokyo, Nov. 22 (Jiji Press)–A large-scale economic package adopted by the government of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Friday has sparked worries about massive fiscal spending.

    The package, worth 21.3 trillion yen in terms of government spending, is the first under Takaichi, who took office a month ago.

    General-account spending under the government’s planned fiscal 2025 supplementary budget to finance measures in the package is expected to total roughly 17.7 trillion yen, up sharply from 13.9 trillion yen under the fiscal 2024 extra budget and the largest since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The new Japanese leader, who is eager to leverage fiscal spending to achieve high economic growth under the banner of “responsible and proactive” public finances, does not rule out the possibility of increasing the issuance of Japanese government bonds.

    With the Japanese government continuing to compile large-scale supplementary budgets even after the end of the pandemic, however, financial markets’ confidence in the country’s public finances and its currency is apparently starting to wane.

    [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]

    Jiji Press

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  • FOCUS: Concerns Grow over Japan’s Massive Fiscal Spending under Takaichi

    FOCUS: Concerns Grow over Japan’s Massive Fiscal Spending under Takaichi

    Society

    Tokyo, Nov. 22 (Jiji Press)–A large-scale economic package adopted by the government of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Friday has sparked worries about massive fiscal spending.

    The package, worth 21.3 trillion yen in terms of government spending, is the first under Takaichi, who took office a month ago.

    General-account spending under the government’s planned fiscal 2025 supplementary budget to finance measures in the package is expected to total roughly 17.7 trillion yen, up sharply from 13.9 trillion yen under the fiscal 2024 extra budget and the largest since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The new Japanese leader, who is eager to leverage fiscal spending to achieve high economic growth under the banner of “responsible and proactive” public finances, does not rule out the possibility of increasing the issuance of Japanese government bonds.

    With the Japanese government continuing to compile large-scale supplementary budgets even after the end of the pandemic, however, financial markets’ confidence in the country’s public finances and its currency is apparently starting to wane.

    [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]

    Jiji Press

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  • Fiery UPS plane crash could spell the end for MD-11 fleet if the repairs prove too costly

    Fiery UPS plane crash could spell the end for MD-11 fleet if the repairs prove too costly

    The fiery crash of a UPS plane shortly after its left engine flew off its wing and sparked a massive fire during takeoff could spell the end of the 109 remaining MD-11 airliners that have been exclusively hauling cargo for more than a decade.

    The fate of the planes won’t be determined until after UPS, FedEx and Western Global see how expensive the repairs the Federal Aviation Administration orders will be and learn whether there is a fatal flaw in their design. The package delivery companies may have already been thinking about retiring their MD-11s — which average more than 30 years old — over the next few years and replacing them with newer planes that are safer and more efficient. The FAA grounded all MD-11s and the 10 remaining related DC-10s after the crash.

    Fourteen people — including the plane’s crew of three — died after the aircraft crashed into several businesses just outside the Muhammad Ali International Airport in Louisville, Kentucky, on Nov. 4. The plane got only 30 feet (9 meters) into the air.

    Mary Schiavo, a former U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General, said it probably won’t be worth fixing the planes when better options are available from Boeing and Airbus, though the manufacturers have such a backlog that it takes years to get a plane after it is ordered. Still, it will depend on exactly what investigators find.

    “For them to order inspections and to ground them as readily as they did makes me think that they’re worried about them,” Schiavo said.

    The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday that its investigators discovered cracks in key parts that failed to keep the rear of the engine attached to the UPS plane’s wing. The crash reminded experts of the 1979 disaster that killed 273 after the left engine of an American Airlines jet catapulted up and over its wing after takeoff in Chicago.

    That crash led to the worldwide grounding of 274 DC-10s, the predecessor to the MD-11. The airline workhorse was allowed to return to the skies because the NTSB determined that maintenance workers improperly using a forklift to reattach the engine damaged the plane that crashed. That meant the crash wasn’t caused by a fatal design flaw even though there had already been a number of accidents involving DC-10s.

    The lugs that the NTSB said were cracked and failed in the crash earlier this month are located close to the part that failed in the 1979 crash, but they are different. Investigators will have to determine whether there is a common defect between the UPS plane and other MD-11s or whether the problem that caused the engine to fall off was unique to the plane.

    An FAA spokesperson said the agency is working with NTSB and Boeing, which bought the company that made the MD-11s in 1997, to determine what needs to be done.

    Both the DC-10 and MD-11 have some of the highest accident rates of any commercial planes, according to statistics published annually by Boeing. Twice in the 1970s, a DC-10 lost its rear cargo door in flight. The second time in 1974 caused a crash outside Paris that killed 346 people. But airlines loved the DC-10 for years, and the Air Force maintained a fleet of dozens of tankers based on the DC-10 that it flew for decades before retiring them last year.

    Formerly independent aircraft company McDonnell Douglas announced the MD-11 in 1984. The three-engine plane appeared promising with its larger capacity and longer range than the DC-10, but its performance never fully lived up to expectations, and newer planes from Boeing and Airbus eclipsed it. Schiavo said the MD-11 was “practically obsolete” when it came out compared to two-engine planes, which are cheaper to operate. Only 200 MD-11s were built between 1988 and 2000.

    Most MD-11s started out carrying passengers, but eventually airlines decided to retire the model in favor of other planes. The last MD-11 passenger flight by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines took place in 2014.

    MD-11 aircraft made up about 9% of the UPS fleet and 4% of the FedEx fleet, the companies have said. Western Global only owns 16 MD-11 planes.

    Aviation journalist Wolfgang Borgmann, who devoted one of his “Legends of Flight” books to the history of the MD-11s and DC-10, said, “I think there is still much more useful life in them.” He pointed to the B-52 bombers that are still key planes for the Air Force even though they debuted in 1955.

    “Age doesn’t matter in aviation. It’s the maintenance that counts,” said Borgmann, editor of the Aero International magazine in Germany.

    Investigators are looking at the maintenance history of the UPS plane closely. NTSB said the last time a detailed inspection was done on its engines was in 2021. A similar inspection was not done during the extended maintenance the plane underwent the month before the crash, and the plane wasn’t due for another in-depth engine inspection until after roughly 7,000 more flights. Boeing and the FAA will have to determine whether that current maintenance schedule is adequate.

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  • 17 leading school systems face CCP action for forcing parents to buy overpriced branded supplies

    17 leading school systems face CCP action for forcing parents to buy overpriced branded supplies

    17 school systems face CCP action for forcing parents to buy overpriced branded supplies


    ISLAMABAD:

    The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has served show-cause notices on 17 leading private school systems for allegedly treating 26 million students as “captive consumers” under a tie-in arrangement by forcing them to buy up to 280% more expensive logo-bearing stationery and uniforms.

    The 17 schools are found to be engaged in tie-in practices by way of mandatory use of logo-bearing notebooks, workbooks and school uniform, according to an inquiry report released by the CCP on Friday.

    The CCP issued the show-cause notices to schools for allegedly abusing their dominant position by forcing parents to purchase expensive, logo-branded notebooks, workbooks and uniforms exclusively from school-authorised vendors, said a statement issued by the commission. The action has been taken to safeguard millions of school-going children and their families from unfair pricing practices, it added.

    The report revealed that these schools, having a total of 25.5 million enrollments that comprise 47% of total students in Pakistan, were selling stationery at prices higher by 53% to 280% than market prices.

    “The school systems under scrutiny include Beaconhouse School, the City School, Headstart, Lahore Grammar School, Froebel’s, Roots International, Roots Millennium, KIPS, Allied Schools, SuperNova, Dar-e-Arqam, STEP School, Westminster International, United Charter School and The Smart School, among others,” it said.

    These school networks operate hundreds of campuses nationwide and educate millions of students, giving them considerable influence over enrolled families, said the antitrust watchdog. The buyer is forced to purchase the tied product.

    The inquiry report stated that the schools have adopted the practice of printing their logo-bearing school supplies and appointed vendors and distributors. The exclusive vendors and distributors indicate that each school has been engaged in the production, distribution and supply of tied products in the relevant market.

    “Each school has designed its policies in a way that students are compelled to use the tied products,” said the inquiry.

    The CCP said that “there were eight school systems where the difference in quoted prices and prices of notebooks offered by these schools was more than 50%, which increased to 280% in case of some schools”.

    It compared retail prices with general, off-the-shelf notebooks to analyse the additional cost and margins in the supply chain. The analysis revealed price differences ranging from over 50% to 150%.

    The inquiry revealed that parents were mandated to buy logo-bearing notebooks, workbooks, uniforms and other ancillary products from school-authorised outlets. In several instances, schools sold compulsory “study packs” through online portals or designated vendors, with students prohibited from using generic notebooks or uniforms from the open market.

    The report concluded that leading school systems were engaged in tying arrangements, making continued enrollment conditional upon purchasing secondary products such as notebooks and uniforms. Schools appointed exclusive vendors, foreclosing the market for thousands of small stationery and uniform sellers nationwide.

    High switching costs, such as limited school options, substantial transfer fees and transportation constraints left parents with no viable alternative, enabling schools to enforce these practices without resistance. The CCP observed that these practices restricted market access, harmed small retailers and limited consumer choice.

    The CCP has directed the 17 school systems to submit written responses to show-cause notices within 14 days, appear before the commission through duly authorised representatives and explain why penalties should not be imposed.

    The CCP said that under the law, it can impose a penalty of up to 10% of the annual turnover or Rs750 million, whichever is higher, for such violations.

    Commenting on the overall education-sector status, the report underlined that between 2022-23 and 2023-24, student enrolment increased from 56 million to 58.3 million. However, in contrast to this upward trend, the total number of educational institutions declined from 349,909 to 342,547, marking a 2.1% reduction, primarily due to a decrease in private institutions.

    An estimated 25.1 million children between the ages of 5 and 16 are currently not attending school nationwide.

    At the provincial level, Punjab has the highest number of out-of-school children at 9.7 million, or 27% of the total provincial 5-16-year-old population, followed by Sindh with 7.4 million, or 44% of the total provincial 5-16 population. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has 4.5 million out-of-school children, or 34% of the provincial 5-16 population and Balochistan has 3.5 million children out of school, or 69% of the total.

    The report stated that as of 2023-24, private schools served 46.5% of Pakistan’s 55 million students, with a significant presence in both urban and rural areas.

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  • Exclusive | Bill Ackman Eyes Simultaneous Public Offerings of Firm and New Fund – The Wall Street Journal

    1. Exclusive | Bill Ackman Eyes Simultaneous Public Offerings of Firm and New Fund  The Wall Street Journal
    2. Bill Ackman plots IPO of hedge fund Pershing Square in early 2026  Financial Times
    3. Bill Ackman Wants To Take His Hedge-Fund Management Company, Pershing Square, Public At The Same Time As A New Closed-End Fund Next Year – WSJ  TradingView
    4. Bill Ackman eyes IPO of hedge fund Pershing in early 2026, FT reports  104.1 WIKY
    5. Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square reportedly planning IPO in early 2026  MSN

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