Category: 3. Business

Building on progress made at the AI Regulatory and International Symposium (AIRIS) in Seoul in 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS), Republic of Korea successfully co-hosted AIRIS 2025 in Incheon, in the Republic of Korea. The meeting brought together regulators, academia, industry and WHO to shape the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in health. 

“As AI becomes more sophisticated and its health applications expand, so must our efforts to make them safe, effective, ethical, and equitable,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. 

Held under the theme “Regulation for AI, Together for Tomorrow,”  AIRIS 2025 served as a global platform to discuss the safe, ethical, and effective use of AI in health. The symposium showcased leading regulatory frameworks and best practices for the use of AI across the medical product lifecycle. Participants underscored the importance of ensuring that AI systems are developed and deployed in ways that are safe, ethical, inclusive and accountable. 

The Outcome Statement from AIRIS Incheon 2025 calls for: 

• a lifecycle-based regulatory approach spanning medical product development, clinical trials, manufacturing, evaluation and post-market surveillance; 
• risk-proportionate regulation tailored to national contexts and health system needs; 
• stronger international collaboration to close gaps between countries and foster a trustworthy global AI ecosystem; and 
• sustained global governance through AIRIS as a regular platform for dialogue among regulators, international organizations and technical partners. 

By promoting transparency, equity and accessibility in AI governance, AIRIS 2025 reinforced its role as a key global platform to advance safe and responsible use of AI in health WHO and MFDS reaffirmed their commitment to continue co-hosting AIRIS in the coming years, expanding its reach and impact. 

WASHINGTON — Friday’s inflation report is likely to show that consumer prices worsened in September for the second straight month as President Donald Trump’s tariffs have lifted the cost of some groceries and other goods.

The report on the consumer price index is being issued more than a week late because of the government shutdown, now in its fourth week. The Trump administration recalled some Labor Department employees to produce the figures because they are used to set the annual cost-of-living adjustment for roughly 70 million Social Security recipients.

Friday’s inflation report will be the first comprehensive economic data to be released in more than three weeks and will attract intense interest from Wall Street and officials at the Federal Reserve. Fed officials are cutting their short-term interest rate to buoy the economy and hiring, but they are taking some risk doing so because inflation is still above their 2% target.

The issues of affordability and the cost of necessities are gaining in political importance. Concerns over the costs of rent and groceries have played a key role in the mayoral race in New York City. And Trump, who has acknowledged that the spike in grocery prices under President Joe Biden helped him win the 2024 election, has been considering importing Argentine beef to reduce record-high U.S. beef prices, angering U.S. cattle ranchers.

The cost of ground beef has jumped to $6.32 a pound, a record, in part because of tariffs on imports from countries such as Brazil, which faces a 50% duty. Years of drought that have reduced cattle herds have also raised prices.

Friday’s report is forecast to show that inflation rose 3.1% in September from a year earlier, according to a survey of economists by data provider FactSet. That would be up from 2.9% in August and the highest in 18 months. On a monthly basis, inflation is projected to be 0.4% in September, the same as in August.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation in September was likely 3.1% for the third straight month. On a monthly basis, core prices likely rose 0.3%, economists project, also for the third straight month.

Such figures are unlikely to deter the Fed from cutting its key rate by another quarter-point when it meets next week, to about 3.9%. It would be the second cut this year and is driven by Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s concerns that hiring is weakening and poses a threat to the economy.

Even as inflation has fallen sharply from its peak of 9.1% more than three years ago, it remains a major concern for consumers. About half of all Americans say the cost of groceries is a “major” source of stress, according to an August poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

And the Conference Board, a business research group, finds that consumers are still referencing prices and inflation in responses to its monthly survey on consumer confidence.

Still, inflation has not risen as much as many economists feared when Trump first announced a sweeping set of tariffs. Many importers built up inventories of goods before the duties took effect, while Trump reduced many import taxes, including as part of trade deals with China, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam.

And many economists, as well as some Fed officials, expect that the tariffs will create a one-time lift to prices that will fade by early next year. At the same time, inflation excluding the tariffs is cooling, they argue: Rental price increases, for example, are declining on average nationwide.

Yet Trump is imposing tariffs in an ongoing fashion that could raise prices in a more sustained fashion.

For example, the Trump administration is investigating whether to slap 100% tariffs on imports from Nicaragua over alleged human rights violations. The prospect of such steep duties is a major headache for Dan Rattigan, the co-founder of premium chocolate maker French Broad, based in Asheville, N.C.

“We’ve been shouldering some significant additional costs,” Rattigan said. The United States barely produces any cocoa, so his company imports it from Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Uganda. The imports from Nicaragua were duty-free because the country had a trade agreement with the United States, but now faces an 18% import tax.

Cocoa prices have more than doubled over the past two years because of poor weather and blights in West Africa, which produces more than 70% of the world’s cocoa. The tariffs are an additional hit on top of that. Rattigan is also paying more for almonds, hazelnuts, and chocolate-making equipment from Italy, which has also been hit with tariffs.

French Broad raised its prices slightly earlier this year and doesn’t have any plans to do so again. But after the winter holidays, “all bets are off … in what is a very unpredictable business climate,” Rattigan said.

On the streets of Istanbul in Turkiye, porters hauling massive sacks wrapped in white plastic—on their backs or in handcarts—represent an essential yet often invisible thread in the city’s cultural tapestry.

This profession, called hamallık in Turkish, has survived from Ottoman times into the modern era.

The practice thrives particularly in Istanbul’s historic commercial centres—the Egyptian Bazaar, the Grand Bazaar, and the Eminonu district—where traditional hans (commercial buildings) house workshops producing jewellery, textiles, and various goods.

These porters remain vital because many centuries-old hans lack modern amenities like elevators and are nestled within narrow streets where vehicles cannot pass. In Eminonu, daytime traffic restrictions further heighten their importance.

Using a semer—a traditional wooden and leather harness—porters can transport between 200 and 300 kilogrammes (440–660 pounds) of merchandise up to a han’s fifth floor. These specialised harnesses often become family heirlooms, passed from father to son, highlighting the profession’s hereditary nature. (The occupation remains predominantly male, with female porters being exceptionally uncommon.)

The porters operate within organised divisions led by managers who ensure fair work distribution. Members earn daily wages based on their loads’ quantity and weight.

This demanding profession requires remarkable physical strength and stamina, limiting entry to those capable of meeting its rigorous demands. Porters take considerable pride in their work and carefully select new members.

Omer Okan, 60, has worked as a porter for 30 years, routinely carrying more than 500kg (1,100 pounds) on his back daily.

The occupation offers little security. Okan explains that most porters lack insurance and earn nothing when ill or injured. Employment opportunities have diminished as major wholesale merchants relocate from Eminonu, where he works.

“Some days we return home without earning any money,” he said.

Okan inherited the profession from his grandfather and takes pride in his work, though he sometimes feels undervalued by the society that depends on his service.

“When I started this profession, people treated us with great respect,” he said. “Now, no one in Turkiye has any respect for anyone else.”

The company behind the Airlander 10 giant hybrid aircraft has secured its first reservations for use in the military.

Bedford-based Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) said three had been reserved by an “innovative defence contractor” looking to make use of Airlander’s unique capabilities.

Airlander 10, which has not yet gone into production, was expected to initially be certified for civil use, but HAV said its versatile nature meant it could be modified to meet the needs of the military market.

George Land, executive director of sales at HAV, said they were “pleased to be working with an undisclosed customer to provide three aircraft for further customisation”.

The Airlander is a combination of an airship and a plane and currently uses four combustion engines and gases to take-off and in flight.

HAV said the Airlander could:

• be used to transport personnel and equipment to austere environments as well as holding, releasing and recovering drones
• was capable of remaining in the air unrefuelled for up to five days, and operating from any relatively flat surface, including water
• could lift a payload of over three tonnes enabling high powered radars to remain aloft for days on end, as opposed to hours at present
• could cost-effectively survey large areas, monitoring anti-submarine warfare sensors

The company said new threats across the globe required new solutions, and Airlander would directly respond to current and emerging threats.

Work on a production facility started last December in Doncaster where it was expected airships would be built and tested in 2026.

The company had previously said the European-based Air Nostrum Group had reserved 10 Airlanders, but that number had increased to 20, for delivery by 2027.

The Airlander has been designed to be about 320ft (98m) long, with a cabin underneath, making it the world’s longest aircraft.

Mr Land said: “Its versatility, high payload, and endurance have always given Airlander 10 obvious advantages over other aircraft in Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR).

“As warfare evolves to meet current threats this capability is ever more valuable, and we have worked hard to showcase the aircraft’s capabilities.”

He added that they expected other military reservations to follow.

Amazon has revealed the cause of this week’s hours-long AWS outage, which took everything from Signal to smart beds offline, was a bug in automation software that had widespread consequences.

In a lengthy outline of the cause of the outage published on Thursday, AWS revealed a cascading set of events brought down thousands of sites and applications that host their services with the company.

AWS said customers were unable to connect to DynamoDB, its database system where AWS customers store, due to “a latent defect within the service’s automated DNS [domain name system] management system”.

DynamoDB maintains hundreds of thousands of DNS records. It uses automation to monitor the system to ensure records are updated frequently to ensure additional capacity is added as required, hardware failures are handled and traffic is distributed efficiently.

The root cause of the issue, AWS said, was an empty DNS record for the Virginia-based US-East-1 datacentre region. The bug failed to automatically repair, and required manual operator intervention to correct.

AWS said it had disabled the DynamoDB DNS planner and DNS enactor automation worldwide while it fixes the conditions that led to the outage and adds extra protections.

The issue also caused outages for other AWS tools as a result.

Platforms including Signal, Snapchat, Roblox, Duolingo, as well as services such as banking sites and the Ring doorbell company were some of the 2,000 companies affected by the outage, according to Downdetector – a site that monitors internet outages – with more than 8.1m reports of problems from users across the world.

While services were restored in a matter of hours, the impact of the outage was felt widely.

Customers of Eight Sleep – a smart bed company that connects to the internet to control the temperature and incline of a person’s bed – found they were unable to adjust the bed or the temperature of the bed during the outage because they were unable to connect to the bed in their phone app.

The company’s chief executive, Matteo Franceschetti, apologised to customers on X and this week rolled out an update to its services that would allow users to control the bed’s critical functions via Bluetooth in the event of an outage.

Dr Suelette Dreyfus, a computing and information systems lecturer at the University of Melbourne, said the outages showed how dependent the world was on single points of failure on the internet.

“That single point isn’t just AWS – they’re the biggest cloud provider with 30% or so of the market – but rather the cloud as a whole, which is basically just three companies,” she said.

“The internet was designed to be resilient; many other channels existed for routing around problems or attacks, but we’ve lost some of that resilience by becoming so dependent on a handful of giant tech companies to provide not just data storage but also house data services.”

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