NewsBytes

Rising trade tensions and sweeping shifts in the global trading system will trigger downward revisions of the IMF's economic forecasts but no global recession is expected, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said. Georgieva said countries' economies were being tested by a reboot of the global trading system — sparked in recent months by US tariffs and retaliation by China and the European Union — that had unleashed ‘off the charts’ uncertainty in trade policy and extreme volatility in financial markets. Elevated uncertainty also raised the risk of financial market stress, Georgieva said, noting that recent movements in US Treasury yield curves should be taken as a warning.

The United States on Thursday issued new sanctions targeting the International Bank of Yemen (IBY), citing its financial support for the Houthis, the Iran-backed group that has waged attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, a Treasury Department statement said. The US is also sanctioning IBY leaders or officials, the statement said.

European Union Naval Force Operation ATALANTA has proposed conducting a joint exercise with the Indian Navy next month seeking to boost interoperability and efforts to counter piracy and other maritime threats. European Union Naval Force Operation ATALANTA -- EUNAVFOR ATALANTA -- is the EU military operation to contribute to the maritime security in the Western Indian Ocean and in the Red Sea. Interacting with reporters at the embassy of the Delegation of the European Union to India here, its Operation Commander Vice Admiral Ignacio Villanueva Serrano on Thursday said he recognises the Indian Navy as a "major actor" in the area in which it operates. Vice Admiral Serrano emphasised that the Indian Ocean must be a "free, open, sustainable and inclusive area". EUNAVFOR ATALANTA, since 2008, plays a vital role in the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy and EU's Naval Diplomacy for the Indo-Pacific.

A recent report has shown that 94.5 per cent of data centre professionals globally, including a significant number in India, expect AI to dramatically increase their data storage needs, highlighting a surge in demand that challenges sustainability efforts. The decarbonising data report by Seagate Technology reveals that in India, 63.3 per cent of respondents manage between 500 petabytes and 5 terabytes of data, reflecting the vast scale of storage requirements driven by AI growth. The rising data volumes, slowing power efficiency gains, and increasing AI adoption are putting pressure on organisations to manage carbon emissions, infrastructure expansion, and total cost of ownership (TCO) -- all at once. The findings are based on insights from 330 data centre professionals responding across 11 markets, including Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, North America, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.