Deliver us from evil. The line is among the most familiar, in one of the oldest Christian prayers. Most of us are wary about using the E-word, because grown-up people know that few issues, or indeed people, can rightfully be characterised as either wholly good or the other thing, but instead exist somewhere between. Yet it seems hard to consider ...

It has been an exasperating week for computer scientists. They’ve been falling over each other to publicly denounce claims from Google engineer Blake Lemoine, chronicled in a Washington Post report, that his employer’s language-predicting system was sentient and deserved all of the rights associated with consciousness. To be clear, current artificial intelligence systems are decades away from being able to ...

  Has the UK property market moved beyond cycles of boom and bust? London house prices soared in the aftermath of the financial crisis but have since largely flatlined. Now real estate throughout the UK is facing stiff headwinds, and the red flags are popping up. Interest rates are rising and economists expect more increases. Buyer inquiries fell in May ...

  Russian President Vladimir Putin has catapulted a European debate long relegated to footnotes right into the headlines. Does “Europe” need its own nuclear arsenal to deter a potential Russian strike, now or in future? During most of the Cold War and the years since, that question seemed settled. The European Nato members are meant to shelter under America’s nuclear ...

Bloomberg The airline industry will return to profit next year as pent-up demand for travel sustains bookings even as the global economy tightens, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) trade group predicted. Losses this year are likely to total $9.7 billion as air travel begins its recovery from the coronavirus crisis, IATA said in an update at its annual meeting, ...

Bloomberg Airbus SE and Qantas Airways Ltd will make a joint investment aimed at kick-starting Australia’s sustainable aviation fuel industry. The planemaker and airline plan to invest as much as $200 million to accelerate the adoption of SAF in the country, they said. “The use of SAF is increasing globally as governments and industry work together to find ways to ...

  Bloomberg Berjaya Food Bhd, which operates Starbucks and chicken-based restaurant chain Kenny Rogers Roasters outlets across Malaysia, is looking to curb costs internally rather than pass on rising production costs to consumers. “For us, the last thing we want to do is increase prices. Consumers feel it if you pass the cost” to them, Group Chief Executive Officer Sydney ...

Bloomberg Colombia is bracing for the prospect of a radical change in economic and political direction after electing a former guerrilla to the presidency on a platform of transforming the country’s business-friendly model. Gustavo Petro, 62, defeated construction magnate Rodolfo Hernandez in Sunday’s runoff vote, giving him a shot at enacting a program that includes plans to tax big landowners, ...

Bloomberg President Emmanuel Macron made history in the French legislative elections, just not in the way he hoped. The 44-year-old centrist became the first president in decades to fail to garner an absolute majority in parliament, falling short of the 289-seat threshold. His alliance, however, will still remain the largest bloc. That means that while Macron may be able to ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) plans to scrap rules introduced in the aftermath of the financial crisis designed to test whether borrowers could afford their mortgages in the event of significant interest rate rises. The central bank’s Financial Policy Committee said it would withdraw the so-called affordability test from August 1, according to a statement on Monday. The rule, ...