World Echo

The global economy faces dual pressures from a negative energy supply shock and a positive artificial intelligence (AI) demand shock, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday. Kristalina Georgieva delivered a speech in Singapore ahead of the upcoming annual meetings in Thailand, highlighting that the global economy must navigate three major crosscurrents, which are the rapid arrival of AI, persistently high energy prices and record levels of public debt. STARTING NOW: What are the key challenges and opportunities shaping the global economy? Tune in as IMF Managing Director @KGeorgieva delivers the 2026 Annual Meetings Curtain Raiser in Singapore ahead of the #IMFMeetings. Watch live. https://t.co/vuTotVuMxP — IMF (@IMFNews) October 7, 2026 She noted that global public debt tracks to soon exceed 100 per cent of the gross domestic product, reaching its highest levels since the end of World War II. Advanced economies stand out as the worst offenders w...

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday blamed mass student protests in France on "mass migration" and Islam, pushing his global right-wing narrative ahead of tough midterm elections at home. French students have blocked the entrances to hundreds of high schools across the country since late September to demand better conditions, in protests that have descended into sporadic clashes with security forces. A quarter of a million demonstrators took to the streets across France on Tuesday. "What's happening in France is nothing less than out-of-control mass migration. This isn't about schools, this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great country!" Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Trump: What’s happening in France is nothing less than out of control mass migration. This isn’t about schools, this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great Country! pic.twitter.com/SzfOqAjiDv — Clash Report (@clashreport) October 6, 2026 ...

The White House pushed back on Tuesday after Democrats accused President Donald Trump of suggesting Iran should "take out" the major US cities of Los Angeles and San Diego. Viral footage showed comments by Trump at a midterm elections rally in Nebraska on Monday, where he said high oil prices from the Iran war were justified by the need to stop Tehran from getting nuclear weapons. "It's a little bit high. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe," Trump said. "They can take out a city. Let them take, let them take out Los Angeles, let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay, and it's going to be over with very soon." Democrats — who control the state of California where both Los Angeles and San Diego are located — accused the 80-year-old Republican president of encouraging Iran to hit the two urban centres. "Donald Trump is now saying our foreign enemie...

Former German foreign intelligence chief August Hanning was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of ​paying for access to classified documents and using them ‌to prepare an analysis for a foreign intelligence service, federal prosecutors said. Prosecutors did not identify the foreign intelligence service, and it was not immediately ​clear whether the analysis reached its intended recipient. Prosecutors allege ​that five years after his tenure as head of ⁠the BND intelligence service ended in 2005, Hanning agreed with ​a former BND office manager to receive confidential intelligence information in ​exchange for payment. The office manager, identified as Manfred D. in line with privacy rules, was also arrested on Tuesday. Prosecutors said D. is suspected of having ​supplied around 2,000 documents over the years, including classified material ​intended solely for internal use within the BND and senior-level intelligence briefings ‌at ⁠the chancellery. Read: Kremlin say...

French lawmaker Gabrielle Cathala called on Interior Minister Laurent Nunez to resign over police intervention against high school students, as criticism mounts over the government’s handling of nationwide student protests. Cathala, a lawmaker from the left-wing France Unbowed (LFI), addressed Nunez in the National Assembly on Monday, citing students who had been maimed, lost an eye or suffered a broken jaw during the demonstrations. Referring to Nunez’s announcement that 10 investigations had been launched into incidents during the protests, Cathala said: “Our issue is not opening investigations after these children’s lives have been ruined; our issue is preventing this violence.” She called for a change in France’s policing doctrine toward de-escalation and said footage showed plainclothes officers breaking windows and police firing various projectiles at students. “Mr. Minister, you must resign. You have nothing left to do here,...

American Karl Deisseroth and Germans Peter ​Hegemann and Georg Nagel won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for their discoveries on light and optogenetics ‌that have helped understand how the brain works. The Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute medical university said Deisseroth, 54, Hegemann, 71, and Nagel, 73, were selected for their "discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics." BREAKING NEWS The 2026 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.” pic.twitter.com/pkDDEBWtkz — The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2026 Optogenetics "makes it possible to switch on, or off, the activity of individual nerve cells in a living brain," said Thomas Perlmann, Secretary-General of the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet. "This ​method...