Millions of barrels of oil and gas are stuck near the Strait of Hormuz - a narrow Gulf chokepoint through which nearly half of India's crude oil and gas imports transits. Tehran has threatened to attack vessels attempting to pass through since the US and Israel began their war against Iran.
Millions of barrels of oil and gas are stuck near the Strait of Hormuz - a narrow Gulf chokepoint through which nearly half of India's crude oil and gas imports transits. Tehran has threatened to attack vessels attempting to pass through since the US and Israel began their war against Iran.
The conflict in the Middle East could spark another round of devaluations in Africa as rising energy costs limit authorities’ ability to defend their currencies, according to BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions Inc. Burundi’s franc and Malawi’s kwacha are most vulnerable as high energy import costs erode buffers, according to Orson Gard, a senior emerging- and frontier-market analyst at BMI. The Iran w...
The conflict in the Middle East could spark another round of devaluations in Africa as rising energy costs limit authorities’ ability to defend their currencies, according to BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions Inc. Burundi’s franc and Malawi’s kwacha are most vulnerable as high energy import costs erode buffers, according to Orson Gard, a senior emerging- and frontier-market analyst at BMI. The Iran war already threatens to unleash renewed inflationary pressures as oil prices surge, risking an end to a policy easing cycle across the continent. A wave of devaluations last hit the region from 2023, affecting Nigeria to Egypt , Angola and Ethiopia. The Egyptian pound this week fell to its weakest level against the dollar since July. “We consider countries with an already-strained external position and considerable currency overvaluation (in real effective exchange rate terms) to be at most risk of weakness in an escalatory US-Iran conflict scenario,” Gard said. “Should the US-Iran war escalate and last longer than we currently anticipate, the likelihood of a significant devaluation would increase substantially.” Read more: Oil at $85 Makes Nigeria a Winner, While Congo Has Most to Lose Burundi is one of sub-Saharan Africa’s “most exposed currencies” because of its reliance on imported oil and “critically low” reserve buffers due to the central bank’s strategy of managing the franc’s exchange rate, Gard said. While authorities will likely try to maintain a gradual depreciation of the franc, a prolonged Middle East war would increase the likelihood of a “significant devaluation” similar to the one seen in 2023 , he said. That year, the franc lost more than a quarter of its value within a month. The Malawian kwacha is also “highly exposed,” with similar risks to Burundi including foreign-exchange reserves of less than one month’s import cover. “We see limited scope for policymakers to defend the kwacha’s value in the event of an external shock,” Gard said. Other frontier-mark...
flavijus/iStock Editorial via Getty Images I've kept Techtronic Industries ( TTNDY ) (0669.HK) as a "Buy"-rated name. Investors shouldn't focus too much on its worse-than-anticipated FY25 results. There were some non-recurring items last year that won't impact its future numbers. Instead, the company is well-positioned for growth acceleration and margin improvement. My prior December 12, 2025, wri...
flavijus/iStock Editorial via Getty Images I've kept Techtronic Industries ( TTNDY ) (0669.HK) as a "Buy"-rated name. Investors shouldn't focus too much on its worse-than-anticipated FY25 results. There were some non-recurring items last year that won't impact its future numbers. Instead, the company is well-positioned for growth acceleration and margin improvement. My prior December 12, 2025, write-up highlighted positive read-throughs from TTNDY's primary account, Home Depot ( HD ). Transitory Headwinds Drove Full-Year Miss The firm published an investor deck disclosing its financials on Wednesday, Mar. 4. Topline growth for TTNDY slowed from FY2024's +6.5% to the recent fiscal period's +4.4%. Its FY25 "Operating Profit Margin" or "OPM" improvement of +0.1 ppt trailed the preceding year's +40 bps expansion. Full-year turnover and bottom line were 1% and 3% below Bloomberg consensus projections, respectively. In my opinion, TTNDY's performance was unfavorably impacted by one-offs. It indicated at the analyst briefing that there was a "one-time sales suspension (of certain products) in North America" during "peak tariff times." My Dec. 25 piece touched on the company's "(professionals-focused) MILWAUKEE and (consumer-focused) RYOBI brands." MILWAUKEE's FY2025 sales increase would have been 240 bps better at +10.3% adjusted for this factor. TTNDY could benefit from the latest tariff developments. ING's research suggested that "Vietnam is likely ASEAN’s biggest winner" with "the move to a flat 15% Section 122 surcharge." This nation's earlier tariff rate was a higher 20%. The Vietnamese market is Techtronic's largest production hub, accounting for around two-fifths of total capacity. I obtained this information from Citigroup's ( C ) Feb 22, 2026 report (not publicly available) titled "China Industrials: Positive Implications For Exports." Separately, TTNDY's FY25 normalized EBIT-to-sales is 9.3%, or 0.5 ppts ahead of the headline figure. This excludes the effects of ...
亚马逊 云服务（Amazon Web Services，AWS）周四宣布推出亚马逊ConnectHealth。这一由AI代理驱动的平台旨在帮助医疗机构自动化处理重复性的行政任务，包括预约安排、文档记录和患者身份验证等。 亚马逊ConnectHealth符合《健康保险可携性与责任法案》（HealthInsurance Portability and Accountability Act，HIPAA）...
亚马逊 云服务（Amazon Web Services，AWS）周四宣布推出亚马逊ConnectHealth。这一由AI代理驱动的平台旨在帮助医疗机构自动化处理重复性的行政任务，包括预约安排、文档记录和患者身份验证等。 亚马逊ConnectHealth符合《健康保险可携性与责任法案》（HealthInsurance Portability and Accountability Act，HIPAA）的合规要求，并可与电子健康记录软件对接。公司表示，该平台目前已与多家EHR软件提供商、数据整合服务商以及患者互动公司建立合作关系。 这一举措并非这家云计算巨头首次进入医疗领域。随着AWS试图在规模约5万亿美元的美国医疗行业扩大影响力，公司近年来持续推出相关产品。2018年，AWS推出亚马逊Comprehend Medical，用于处理非结构化医疗数据的自然语言处理工具；2021年推出亚马逊HealthLake，这是基于快速医疗互操作资源标准的医疗数据组织基础设施；2022年又推出生物信息学工作流平台HealthOmics。 不过，亚马逊ConnectHealth是AWS首次在合规监管平台中推出AI代理这一核心产品形态。AI代理是指能够代表人类完成复杂任务的软件。AWS表示，该平台可与医生现有的软件系统协同工作，帮助医疗服务提供者管理行政流程，例如病史审查、医疗编码以及临床文档记录等。 目前，亚马逊ConnectHealth已提供患者身份验证和环境式医疗记录（ambientdocumentation）功能。预约安排和患者洞察功能仍处于预览阶段，而医疗编码等其他功能预计将在稍后向客户推出。 该软件定价为每位用户每月99美元，每月最多支持600次就诊记录。AWS表示，大多数基层医疗医生每月通常处理约300次就诊记录。 在云业务之外，亚马逊近年来也在医疗领域进行了多项重大布局。2018年，公司以约10亿美元收购在线药房PillPack；2022年又以39亿美元收购初级医疗服务公司OneMedical。此后，亚马逊已将这些业务部分整合进其线上零售和线下服务体系，例如提供当日处方药配送以及儿童当日远程问诊等服务。 事实上，在当前AI热潮之前，利用人工智能减少医疗行业行政负担就已经成为创业公司关注的重点。例如，成立于2017年的医疗AI公司Regard使用AI在医生诊疗过程中自动记录笔记...
A Malaysian mother who allowed her underage son to drive her car, which later got into an accident claiming three lives, was fined 1,500 ringgit (US$379) by the Magistrate’s Court in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan state. Magistrate Nurul Azuin Mohd Talhah also ordered 40-year-old Nur Farahidayah A Rahman to be jailed for three months in the event she was unable to pay the fine. “After considering the g...
A Malaysian mother who allowed her underage son to drive her car, which later got into an accident claiming three lives, was fined 1,500 ringgit (US$379) by the Magistrate’s Court in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan state. Magistrate Nurul Azuin Mohd Talhah also ordered 40-year-old Nur Farahidayah A Rahman to be jailed for three months in the event she was unable to pay the fine. “After considering the guilty plea by the accused, mitigating factors and submissions by parties and the aggravating factors, the court hereby fines the accused 1,500 ringgit, in default three months’ jail,” Nurul Azuin ruled. Advertisement Nur Farahidayah was charged with allowing her 17-year-old son to drive her car along Jalan Persiaran Senawang 1 intersection in Taman Matahari Heights around 8.30pm on March 6 last year. She was charged under Section 39(5) of the Road Transport Act 1987, which carries a fine of up to 2,000 ringgit or a jail term not exceeding six months or both upon conviction. Advertisement Her counsel, Johan Radzi, pleaded with the court to impose a minimum fine as she was a single mother and had to provide for her parents and six children, with four still in school. He said the accused was self-employed and had been running a food business for the past 20 years.