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BEIRUT — The Lebanese pound sank to a historic low against the dollar on the parallel market on Tuesday, the latest sombre milestone in an economic meltdown that has plunged most of the population into poverty.

Officially pegged at 15,000 to the dollar, the pound was trading at 100,000 against the greenback, dealers said — a dizzying plunge from 1,507 before the economic crisis hit in 2019.

The currency's market value was at around 60,000 to the dollar in late January.

The currency plunge has triggered price hikes including on fuel, food and other basic goods, with supermarkets this month starting to price items in dollars.

Despite the gravity of the crisis, the political elite, which has been widely blamed for the country's financial collapse, has failed to take action.

Since last year, the country has had no president and only a caretaker government, amid persistent deadlock between rival factions.

"The lira has become completely worthless," said 75-year-old Abu Abbas, who owns a small jewellery stall on Beirut's busy Hamra Street and said he was barely making ends meet.

"I used to buy medicine for my wife for 40,000 pounds, now it costs 900,000," he told AFP.

Banks on strike 

Lebanese banks, which have imposed draconian withdrawal restrictions — essentially locking depositors out of their life savings — were closed on Tuesday as they resumed an open-ended strike.

The strike began early last month to protest what the Association of Banks in Lebanon described as "arbitrary" judicial measures against lenders, after depositors filed lawsuits to retrieve savings.

Some judges sought to seize the funds of bank directors or board members, or to force lenders to pay out customers' dollar deposits in pounds at the old 1,507 exchange rate.

Customers had a two-week reprieve from the strike after caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati intervened late last month to impede the work of one of the judges investigating banks.

Withdrawal limits have sparked public outrage that has seen some Lebanese resort to armed hold-ups in a bid to lay hands on their own money.

The facades of many banks in the capital are almost unrecognisable from the outside, covered in protective metal panels, while ATMs have been vandalised.

"Ruling politicians... robbed the country and stole depositors' money," said Mohammad Al Rayes, a Beirut shopkeeper.

"They should leave and bring new leaders," the 65-year-old told AFP, adding: "Very tough times are coming."

'Loss of confidence' 

Political inaction and a lack of accountability has been a hallmark of the Lebanese economic crisis, dubbed by the World Bank as one of the planet's worst in recent history.

In April last year, the International Monetary Fund announced an agreement in principle to provide Beirut with $3 billion in loans spread over four years — conditional on a package of sweeping reforms.

But officials have failed to enact the changes demanded by international creditors in return for unlocking the emergency loans.

Central bank governor Riad Salameh is being investigated at home and abroad for the suspected embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars.

A Lebanese judge has asked Salameh to appear before visiting European investigators on Wednesday as part of a multinational probe into his personal wealth.

Lebanon is facing the economic meltdown largely leaderless, as the divided parliament has failed to elect a new president for months — in a country already governed by a caretaker cabinet with limited powers.

Repeated sessions convened to elect a successor to Michel Aoun, whose term ended in October last year, have all failed to reach agreement on a consensus candidate.

The pound's steady downfall reflects a "total loss of confidence in the policy makers of the country", said Saeb El-Zein, a Lebanese former banker who worked with international lenders.

"You need political leadership to have economic leadership — and we don't have political leadership," he told AFP. 

SAN FRANCISCO — Google on Tuesday began letting some developers and businesses access the kind of artificial intelligence that has captured attention since the launch of Microsoft-backed ChatGPT last year.

The tech giant's cloud computing arm will provide testers with ways to "infuse generative AI" into apps or put them to work on Google's own platform.

"With this, Google Cloud is poised to enable a whole new generation of builders, innovators, developers and doers to harness the power of AI in novel ways," said Ritu Jyoti, vice president of an AI group at market research firm IDC.

Developers and businesses will be able to try new application programming interfaces (APIs) and products that make it "easy, safe and scalable" to build AI models using Google's cloud service, Google's Thomas Kurian said in a blog post.

Among the functions Google hopes to make more broadly accessible is a generative AI that will allow software to use prompts to sum up information or write in a conversational style.

"In Gmail and Google Docs, [testers] can simply type in a topic you would like to write about and a draft will be instantly generated for you," Kurian wrote.

"From there, [they] can elaborate upon or abbreviate the message or adjust the tone to be more playful or professional," he added.

Putting generative AI in the hands of developers, businesses and governments across the globe will allow the technology to realise its full potential, Google Cloud AI vice presidents June Yang and Burak GokTurk wrote in a blog post.

"To date, it has been difficult for organisations to access generative AI, let alone customise [it], and at times the technology is prone to producing inaccurate information that could undermine trust," Yang and GokTurk said.

"For generative AI to blossom, organisations need a new generation of tools that make it simple to build generative AI applications," they said. 

According to Google, generative AI can help organisations brainstorm, write copy, produce media assets, analyse their data and more.

Since ChatGPT debuted last year, global tech giants have attempted to chase Microsoft — which has pledged to pump billions of dollars into the software's creator OpenAI — by rolling out announcements on how they will also implement generative artificial intelligence into their own platforms and applications.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month the Facebook and Instagram parent company was creating a product group to come up with ways to "turbocharge" their AI work. 

And Snapchat, the photo sharing app popular with teens, has said it will introduce a chatbot powered by the most up-to-date version of OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Available initially to subscribers, the "MyAI" tab will allow users to interact with the chatbot much like it were a friend.

And Microsoft chief Satya Nadella is expected to showcase how the company is integrating ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence into its widely used business software at a special event on Thursday.

"We're so excited by the potential of generative AI, and the opportunities it will unlock," Google's Kurian said.

"From helping people express themselves creatively to helping developers build brand new types of applications, to transforming how businesses and governments engage their customers and constituents," he said. 

DUBAI — Shares in the United Arab Emirates' ADNOC Gas rose 19 per cent in their first day of trading on Monday in a $2.5 billion initial public offering that aims to tap into growing demand for the fuel.

ADNOC Gas, a subsidiary of state-owned energy giant Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), closed at 2.82 dirhams ($0.77) after opening at 2.37 and briefly hitting 2.96 on the Abu Dhabi stock exchange.

ADNOC Gas, which only became operational at the start of this year, is the bourse's biggest flotation yet. The overall market was down 0.6 per cent at 9,767.63.

At more than 50 times oversubscribed, it was the biggest demand ever seen for an initial public offering in the Middle East and North Africa, outstripping oil firm Saudi Aramco's world-record $29.4 billion listing just over three years ago.

The final offer price of 2.37 dirhams, near the top of its range, implied a market capitalisation of around $50 billion for the new company. 

"Demand for the stock was expected to remain strong after listing with the favourable pricing," Monica Malik, chief economist at UAE bank ADCB, told AFP.

The rapidly organised IPO follows last year's scramble for alternative gas resources after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and comes as countries search for cleaner fuels to mitigate global warming.

ADNOC, the United Arab Emirates' key revenue-earner, retains a 90 per cent stake in the subsidiary formed from its former gas processing, LNG and industrial gas units.

Gas is being touted as cleaner than other fossil fuels as countries around the world strive to reduce their emissions.

Energy consultant Roudi Baroudi, who heads the Qatar-based Energy and Environment Holding firm, said Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) was "the most important transition fuel" in the move away from more polluting hydrocarbons.

In 2021, the UAE produced 57 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas, or about 1.4 per cent of global output, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.

That same year, the Emirates exported 8.8 bcm of LNG, 1.7 per cent of world LNG exports, the Statistical Review said.

"As global efforts to battle climate change gain pace, the role of natural gas in general... is widely expected to grow," Baroudi said.

"ADNOC enjoys a solid reputation, so it was to be expected that the ADNOC Gas IPO would attract strong interest."

ADNOC Gas could be the first in a series of share offerings in Abu Dhabi this year.

At least eight companies are expected to follow, Bloomberg said, citing Sameh Al Qubaisi, director general of economic affairs at Abu Dhabi's Department of Economic Development.

RIYADH — Saudi Aramco said on Sunday it achieved "record" profits totalling $161.1 billion last year, drawing an outraged response from activists warning about the ravages of climate change.

The mostly state-owned energy giant, the world's second most valuable company behind Apple, said in a filing with the Saudi stock market that net income for 2022 was up 46 per cent from $110 billion in 2021.

The results — the strongest since Aramco became a listed company in 2019 — were "predominantly due to the impact of higher crude oil prices and volumes sold, and stronger refining margins," it said.

Global energy prices surged after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. 

"It is shocking for a company to make a profit of more than $161 billion in a single year through the sale of fossil fuel — the single largest driver of the climate crisis," Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, said in a statement. 

"It is all the more shocking because this surplus was amassed during a global cost-of-living crisis and aided by the increase in energy prices resulting from Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine."

Amnesty described Aramco's profits as "the most ever disclosed by a company in a single year" and said they "should be used to fund a human rights-based transition to renewable energy". 

'Risks of underinvestment' 

Aramco's gains are consistent with record profits for 2022 reported by the five oil majors Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP and TotalEnergies, which in total surpassed $150 billion and would have been closer to $200 billion without costly withdrawals from Russia.

"Aramco rode the wave of high energy prices in 2022. It's what the company is geared to do," said Robert Mogielnicki, of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. "It would have been difficult for Aramco not to perform strongly in 2022."

Saudi Arabia has pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2060, drawing scepticism from environmental campaigners.

Officials are simultaneously championing further investments in fossil fuels to ensure energy security and stave off inflation and other economic woes. 

"Given that we anticipate oil and gas will remain essential for the foreseeable future, the risks of underinvestment in our industry are real — including contributing to higher energy prices," Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said on Sunday.

Aramco has pledged to achieve "operational net-zero" carbon emissions by 2050. 

That applies to emissions that are produced directly by Aramco's industrial sites, but not the CO2 produced when clients burn Saudi oil in their cars, power plants and furnaces.

Growth 'driver' 

The company's yearly net income figure is nearly double the $88.2 billion the firm pulled in in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic. 

The profits fuelled overall economic growth in Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest crude exporter, which officials put at 8.7 per cent in 2022, the highest rate in the G-20.

Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, Saudi Arabia has sought both to open up and diversify its oil-reliant economy, spending heavily on much-hyped projects like a futuristic megacity known as NEOM.

Officials have touted growth in non-oil activities, which increased 6.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2022 over the same period in 2021, according to data published on Thursday by the national statistics authority. 

Yet government spending "is a major driver for this growth" and that "will always be to some extent linked to oil revenue", underscoring Aramco's central role in the economy, said Justin Alexander, director of the consultancy Khalij Economics.

Energy prices are expected to stay elevated in 2023, in part because of production cuts approved last October by the OPEC+ cartel that Riyadh co-leads with Moscow — a move harshly criticised by Washington. 

Aramco's facilities have in the past suffered drone and missile attacks claimed by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels, most recently about a year ago. But a surprise deal announced on Friday between Riyadh and Tehran to restore diplomatic ties severed in 2016 could mitigate the risk in the months to come.

Aramco floated 1.7 per cent of its shares on the Saudi bourse in December 2019, generating $29.4 billion in the world's biggest initial public offering.

BRUSSELS — EU countries agreed a deal Friday with the European Parliament to cut projected energy consumption by 2030, part of the a green push made more urgent by Russia's war on Ukraine. 

The agreement is an important strand of the EU's ambitious climate goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55 per cent by the end of the decade. 

But it also comes as the bloc has stepped up efforts to save energy since Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion sent prices skyrocketing last year. 

The deal obliges the EU to reduce energy use by 2030 by 11.7 per cent in relation to an earlier projection of expected levels. 

It sets targets for each of the bloc's 27 countries to limit consumption by around 1.5 per cent annually from 2024 to 2030. 

"For the first time ever, we have a target for energy consumption that member states are obliged to live up to," said Danish MEP Niels Fuglsang, the parliament's pointman on the issue. 

"Today was a great victory. An agreement not only good for our climate, but bad for Putin."

While Friday's agreement was part of the EU's long-standing push for net-zero, the bloc has already been slashing its gas use due to the fallout of Russia's war on Ukraine. 

Faced with spiralling energy bills last year, the bloc agreed in July to cut gas usage between August 2022 and March 2023 by 15 per cent compared to the average of the previous five years.

The bloc's executive said Thursday that it will tell member states to continue to reduce consumption next winter. 

RIO DE JANEIRO — Latin America is poised to become a major renewable energy producer, with nearly a billion solar panels' worth of large-scale clean-electricity projects slated to come online in the next seven years, a report found Thursday.

In welcome good news for the climate-change race, researchers said Latin American countries had more than 319 gigawatts of utility-scale solar- and wind-power projects due to be launched by 2030 — equal to nearly 70 per cent of the region's total current electrical capacity from all sources combined.

"Rich in wind and solar resources, Latin America has the potential to be a global leader for renewable energy," said the report by the Global Energy Monitor (GEM), a US-based non-profit that tracks clean-energy development.

The new projects — which include planned installations and those already under construction — would expand Latin America's current utility-scale solar- and wind-power capacity by more than 460 per cent, it found.

That makes the region a "global standout" on renewables, said Kasandra O'Malia, project manager at GEM.

"We're already seeing a big upswing. And if you look at all the projects that are planned, it's just this big, exponential-looking explosion," she told AFP.

Even if not every planned project gets built, the region appears to be at an inflexion point, with even more projects likely to be announced in the coming years, she said.

Brazil, Latin America's biggest economy, is leading the green-energy boom, with 27 gigawatts of utility-scale solar and wind plants already operating, and another 217 gigawatts of capacity slated to come online by 2030.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who took office in January, has vowed to expand clean energy and restore Brazil's leadership role on climate change, after four years under far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.

But the roots of the boom go back further, to a 2012 law that incentivised solar energy in Brazil by allowing private producers to sell electricity directly to the grid, according to energy expert Roberto Zilles.

"Today, it's cheaper to produce your own energy" than buy electricity, Zilles, the director of the University of Sao Paulo's Energy and Environment Institute, told AFP.

The report also highlighted developments in Chile — traditionally a fossil-fuel importer, where wind and solar now represent 37 per cent of total installed electricity capacity — and Colombia, which has 37 gigawatts of new solar and wind capacity slated to come online by 2030.

However, Mexico, the region's second-biggest economy, was singled out as a case for concern.

Mexico, an early adopter of renewable energy, is currently home to Latin America's largest solar and wind projects.

But progress has declined since 2021 energy reforms pushed by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a fossil-fuels champion who has made revitalizing state oil company Pemex a cornerstone of his administration.

"Mexico has stalled," the report said.

"Even if all prospective projects were to come online, the country would only reach approximately 70 per cent of its pledge to bring 40 gigawatts of solar and wind by 2030."

The report found Latin America has especially big potential as a producer of offshore wind energy.

It also said green energy exports could be a potential economic windfall, whether by sending surplus electricity to other countries or using renewable energy to produce green hydrogen for export.

Renewable energy has boomed worldwide as prices for solar panels and wind turbines have plunged — a trend furthered over the past year by soaring fossil fuel costs driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The International Energy Agency found in a December report that renewables will become the largest source of global electricity generation by early 2025, surpassing coal.

But the transition needs to be faster if the world is to meet the Paris climate accord's target of holding global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, O'Malia said.

She called on the world's major energy consumers — North America, Europe and China — to follow Latin America's example.

"The rest of the globe is not doing their share," she said.

GENEVA — European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday she will do whatever it takes to bring down high inflation and restore price stability.

Speaking at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva, Lagarde said the ECB will spare no efforts to combat the inflation lashing most of the countries in the eurozone.

"We will restore that price stability and we will do whatever it takes," she said.

"Those that are the prime victims of high inflation are the underprivileged, the vulnerable," she said. "It's not a pretty situation."

Speaking alongside WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala at an event marking International Women's Day, Lagarde highlighted that women were among those feeling the inflation crunch the most.

"The lowest paid, are the women."

The ECB has raised interest rates at an unprecedented pace since last July to bring inflation back down to its 2 per cent target.

And last week, Lagarde said that more interest rate hikes might be needed in the eurozone after the half percentage point hike it has already signalled will come later this month.

"As president of the ECB, my job is rather limited, but it is critically important, and it is price stability," she said Wednesday.

Her job, she said, was "fighting inflation which has been generated by the energy crisis, instrumented by the terrible war against Ukraine".

SYDNEY — Australia's central bank on Tuesday hiked interest rates to a 11-year high, putting mortgage holders under mounting pressure as it tries to curb inflation. 

The Reserve Bank of Australia lifted borrowing costs by 25 basis points to 3.6 per cent, marking the 10th successive increase.

The bank has been criticised for raising interest rates — and pushing up mortgage repayments — as people face spiralling food and electricity prices. 

"Global inflation remains very high. It will be some time before inflation is back to target rates," bank Governor Philip Lowe said in a statement.

Lowe said he expected further rate increases would be needed to return inflation to the bank's 2-3 per cent target range, and he vowed to "do what is necessary" to get there.

Household inflation in Australia is above 7 per cent, according to the latest government figures. 

The widely anticipated rate hike comes as central banks around the world continue to tighten monetary policy in the face of runaway food and energy prices, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. 

Australia, like most countries fighting inflation, faces a delicate balancing act to bring prices down without stifling economic growth and sparking a recession.

Jim Chalmers, the Australian government's most senior economic minister, said the rate rise "would make life harder for many Australians who are already under the pump". 

"This was expected, it was flagged, the markets anticipated it, but it will still sting," he said. 

A major risk is whether Australian homeowners can afford to pay the higher interest rates tacked on to their mortgages. 

Market research firm Roy Morgan last year estimated that one in five Australian households were under "mortgage stress" and struggling to meet repayments.