Quarter of developing countries poorer than in 2019, World Bank finds
A quarter of countries in the developing world are poorer than they were in 2019 before the Covid pandemic, the World Bank has found.The Washington-based organisation said a large group of low-income countries, many in sub-Saharan Africa, had suffered a negative shock in the six years to the end of last year.The bank said the group included Botswana, Namibia, the Central African Republic, Chad and Mozambique.South Africa and Nigeria, which has a fast-growing population, also failed to raise average incomes over the period, despite growing by 1.2% and 4.
4% respectively last year.The bank said global growth had “downshifted” since the pandemic, and the pace was now “insufficient to reduce extreme poverty and create jobs where they’re needed most”.Economic growth in emerging market and developing economies was estimated to slow from 4.2% last year to 4% next year, its report said.Global economic growth was “proving more resilient than anticipated”, the bank said, especially after a better-than-expected performance by the US economy last year, but progress was likely to be modest in 2026 as economies in the developed and the developing world struggled to make progress.
The US economy was estimated to have grown by 2.1% in 2025 and 2.2% in 2026 after upgrades of 0.7 and 0.6 percentage points respectively from the bank’s last forecast in June.
The bank’s study showed the euro area was a laggard, growing by just 0.9% in 2025 and on course to grow by 1.2% in 2026.Global growth is projected to remain broadly steady over the next two years, easing from 2.7% in 2025 to 2.
6% in 2026 before returning to 2,7% in 2027, a modest upward revision from the June forecast,Many of the one in four developing countries where average incomes are lower than in 2019 have endured wars and famines, the report said, which have delayed their recovery from the pandemic,More recent increases in growth have been insufficient to override a previous slump, it said,Indermit Gill, the Bank’s chief economist, said: “These trends cannot be explained by misfortune alone.
In far too many developing countries, they reflect avoidable policy mistakes.”Gill said developing world countries needed to stick to strict budget rules to provide a foundation for sustainable growth.He said the formula was similar for all countries that wanted to grow at a faster pace.“To avert stagnation and joblessness, governments in emerging and advanced economies must aggressively liberalise private investment and trade, rein in public consumption, and invest in new technologies and education,” he said.Gill said the global economy had proved to be resilient, but unable to jump-start growth to a level that would create jobs for young people, especially the 1.
2 billion under-16s expected to enter the jobs market in the next decade.“With each passing year, the global economy has become less capable of generating growth and seemingly more resilient to policy uncertainty,” he said.“But economic dynamism and resilience cannot diverge for long without fracturing public finance and credit markets.“Over the coming years, the world economy is set to grow slower than it did in the troubled 1990s, while carrying record levels of public and private debt.”The World Bank expects China to grow at 4.
4% this year and 4,2% next year,These figures mark an upgrade from an assessment in June last year, but still represent the lowest growth in 35 years and remain below the previous forecast of 4,9% for 2025, as well as the Communist party’s prized 5% target,Beijing has come under pressure since Donald Trump increased tariffs on Chinese imports last spring.
It has also struggled to cope with a rapidly ageing population and the after-effects of a speculative property boom and bust.The bank said China proved to be more robust than expected after a government spending splurge lifted domestic consumer spending and export sales were supported by the rerouting of goods to non-US markets.
UK media regulator investigating Elon Musk’s X after outcry over sexualised AI images
The UK media watchdog has opened a formal investigation into Elon Musk’s X over the use of the Grok AI tool to manipulate images of women and children by removing their clothes.Ofcom has acted after a public and political outcry over a deluge of sexual images appearing on the platform, created by Musk’s Grok, which is integrated with X.The regulator is investigating X under 2023’s Online Safety Act (OSA), which carries a range of possible punishments for breaches, including a UK ban of apps and websites for the most serious abuses.Ofcom said it would pursue the investigation as a “matter of the highest priority”, while Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, said the regulator had the government’s full backing.Ofcom said: “Reports of Grok being used to create and share illegal nonconsensual intimate images and child sexual abuse material on X have been deeply concerning
Google parent Alphabet hits $4tn valuation after AI deal with Apple
Google’s parent company hit a major financial milestone on Monday, reaching a $4tn valuation for the first time and surpassing Apple to become the second-most valuable company in the world.Alphabet is the fourth company to hit the $4tn milestone after Nvidia, which later hit $5tn, Microsoft and Apple.The spike in share price comes after Apple announced it had chosen Google’s Gemini AI model to power a major overhaul of the iPhone maker’s digital assistant Siri, which comes installed in every iPhone. Neither company disclosed how much the deal was worth.“After careful evaluation, we determined that Google’s technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models,” Apple said in a statement to CNBC
Malaysia blocks Elon Musk’s Grok AI over fake, sexualised images
Malaysia has become the second country to temporarily block access to Elon Musk’s Grok after a global outcry over the AI tool and its ability to produce fake, sexualised images.Malaysia said it would restrict access to Grok until effective safeguards were implemented, a day after similar action was taken by Indonesia.Several governments and regulators have taken action over Grok’s image tool, which is embedded in the X social media site and has provoked outrage as it allows users to manipulate images of women and children to remove their clothing and put them in sexual positions.The Musk-led company that developed Grok, xAI, said last week the ability to generate and edit images would be “limited to paying subscribers” on X. Such users have provided personal details to the company and can be identified if the function is misused
UK threatens action against X over sexualised AI images of women and children
Elon Musk’s X “is not doing enough to keep its customers safe online”, a minister has said, as the UK government prepares to outline possible action against the platform over the mass production of sexualised images of woman and children.Peter Kyle, the business secretary, said the government would fully support any action taken by Ofcom, the media regulator, against X – including the possibility that the platform could be blocked in the UK.Kyle said Ofcom had received information it had requested from X as part of a fast-tracked investigation into the use of platform’s built-in AI tool, Grok, to generate large numbers of manipulated images of people, often depicting them in minimal clothing or sexualised poses.The technology secretary, Liz Kendall, who said on Friday that she expected action from Ofcom within days, is due to give a statement to the Commons on Monday afternoon.Kyle told Sky News: “Let me be really clear about X: X is not doing enough to keep its customers safe online
‘Dangerous and alarming’: Google removes some of its AI summaries after users’ health put at risk
Google has removed some of its artificial intelligence health summaries after a Guardian investigation found people were being put at risk of harm by false and misleading information.The company has said its AI Overviews, which use generative AI to provide snapshots of essential information about a topic or question, are “helpful” and “reliable”.But some of the summaries, which appear at the top of search results, served up inaccurate health information, putting users at risk of harm.In one case that experts described as “dangerous” and “alarming”, Google provided bogus information about crucial liver function tests that could leave people with serious liver disease wrongly thinking they were healthy.Typing “what is the normal range for liver blood tests” served up masses of numbers, little context and no accounting for nationality, sex, ethnicity or age of patients, the Guardian found
Elon Musk says UK wants to suppress free speech as X faces possible ban
Elon Musk has accused the UK government of wanting to suppress free speech after ministers threatened fines and a possible ban for his social media site X after its AI tool, Grok, was used to make sexual images of women and children without their consent.The billionaire claimed Grok was the most downloaded app on the UK App Store on Friday night after ministers threatened to take action unless the function to create sexually harassing images was removed.Responding to threats of a ban from the government, Musk wrote: “They just want to suppress free speech”.Thousands of women have faced abuse from users of the AI tool which was first used to digitally strip fully clothed photographs into images showing them wearing micro bikinis, and then used for extreme image manipulation.Pictures of teenage girls and children were altered to show them wearing swimwear, leading experts to say some of the content could be categorised as child sexual abuse material
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