Economy
France urges EU ban on social media for under-15s
French President Emmanuel Macron urged the European Commission to back a European Union-wide ban on social media for children under 15 after Paris failed to enact its own legislation, his office said Tuesday.
In a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen dated Aug. 29, Macron said it had become urgent to introduce a bloc-wide ban through new EU legislation after France’s Constitutional Council struck down a national bill this summer before it was due to take effect in September.
“I believe it has now become essential to go further and, through a new European legislative text, harmonize a ban on access to social media platforms for children under the age of 15, in order to protect all children across the Union,” Macron wrote.
Following Australia’s landmark social media ban for children adopted last year, several European countries are considering their own curbs amid growing concern over the impact of social media on young people’s mental health and safety. But some countries, especially in Scandinavia, believe it is best left for parents to decide.
Macron, now in his final year as president, has taken up the cause as a priority before the next French presidential election in 2027, and has been lobbying other EU governments to back restrictions.
He said France would separately rework the legislation struck down by the Constitutional Council, though political fragmentation in parliament and difficult budget negotiations could complicate efforts to pass a new law.
Von der Leyen said in July that the European Union would move to limit young children’s access to social media across the 27-member bloc, citing proposals from two experts recommending a tiered system.
Under that approach, children under 13 would only be allowed limited, supervised access, with restrictions eased gradually as they get older.
Macron is seeking a tougher approach, pushing for a blanket ban on social media access until the age of 15, ahead of von der Leyen’s flagship State of the Union speech to the EU Parliament later this month.
Chinese exports surged 25% in August from a year earlier, driven by the strong demand for autos and high-tech products as Beijing’s record trade surplus expanded further, customs data showed on Tuesday.
The data was broadly in line with what economists had expected and comes just ahead of a planned meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump.
That’s set for late September, though Beijing has not yet confirmed the exact date for the visit.
Trade is expected to be among the key topics of discussion between Trump and Xi when the two leaders meet.
China’s global imports, meanwhile, climbed 28.2% in August from a year earlier, up from July’s 27.5% rise. Exports grew 23.9% year-over-year in July. The trade surplus expanded in August to $119.1 billion from $112.5 billion in July.
Policymakers in the U.S. and elsewhere have raised concerns over China’s ballooning trade surplus, which surged to a record $1.2 trillion for the whole of last year. Beijing has said that it is not seeking to maximize its trade surplus.
In August, China’s exports to the U.S. totaled $42.5 billion, up 34.4% year-over-year, in part due to a base effect after higher U.S. tariffs caused exports to fall last year.
U.S. exports to China last month were $13.3 billion, leaving a trade surplus in China’s favor of about $29.2 billion, according to Chinese data.
Exports to the EU rose 6.6%, while those to Southeast Asia and Latin America rose 30.2% and 17.5%, respectively.
Exports have consistently outpaced imports and are “set to lead to a new record-high trade surplus this year,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at the Dutch bank ING.
China has weathered disruptions from the Iran war better than many other countries. It also has been exporting more to Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa, shielding it from the impact of higher U.S. tariffs.
Exports of autos in August grew 43% year-over-year while semiconductor exports surged 129.8%, the customs data show.
“China is very competitive in its tech goods exports,” said Chi Lo, a senior market strategist for Asia Pacific at BNP Paribas Asset Management. In recent months, rising exports of electric vehicles, industrial machinery and semiconductors have helped fuel China’s robust shipments globally.
“China has moved aggressively up the value chain and has become a major player in AI infrastructure and industrial automation,” he said.
At home, China is still struggling to boost its economy as consumption and investment remained sluggish following a yearslong real estate sector downturn.
On Sunday, China said it was injecting around $54 billion into state banks and insurers to help lift its economy.
China’s continued reliance on exports to fuel growth prompted 19 members of the G20 large economies to agree to address such economic imbalances at a recent meeting of top financial officials in Asheville, North Carolina. China was the lone dissenting G20 member after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described China’s trade surplus as a barrier to global economic growth.
The strategic stalemate between China and the U.S. will likely remain, said Lo of BNP Paribas. “Both sides hold each other hostage in some strategic products, with the U.S. withholding high-end tech goods from being sold to China and China withholding rare-earth exports to the U.S.,” he said.
China and the EU are also set to meet for ministerial-level trade talks in the fall, as the EU struggles to reduce its roughly 1 billion euros-a-day trade deficit with China.
The EU implemented measures in July to protect its steel industry and has limited tax-exempt imports of Chinese e-commerce small parcels.
As the conflict that rattled global markets and pushed the Gulf region to the brink of a wider war leaves behind the six-month mark, the tide may be slowly turning against Iran as Washington unleashes an unprecedented economic offensive to achieve what military force could not.
After years of surviving sanctions, Tehran is now confronting one of the harshest squeezes in the Islamic Republic’s history, according to Iranian insiders and regional sources.
A U.S. naval blockade and tougher sanctions are curbing oil exports, restricting access to foreign currency and exposing growing strains in the economy.
The campaign has led U.S. and regional officials to wager that mounting economic pressure can force Tehran to allow free passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which used to carry about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies prior to the conflict.
Their bet rests on a simple calculation: Iran is suffering more economic damage than it is inflicting.
Efforts to choke off oil exports have cut state revenues, while attempts to disrupt shipping through Hormuz have not triggered the global economic shock Tehran hoped would force Washington to compromise. Energy markets have adjusted and alternative supplies have continued to flow.
“The balance of power has tilted against Iran a bit,” said Iranian analyst Arash Azizi.
Iran is losing some of the leverage it had over the Strait of Hormuz because it has been unable to close it fully, he said, adding that the U.S. naval blockade was “really hitting Iran.”
Azizi said Tehran had expected disruption in the strait to trigger a major shock to the global economy and drive Washington back to the negotiating table.
“It hasn’t happened, really,” he said.
Other countries had adapted, exposing limits to Iran’s ability to inflict economic pain on the region and beyond.
Whether the pressure will force concessions remains unclear, the regional sources said. Tehran has failed to impose the costs it hoped would break Washington’s resolve but has shown little sign of abandoning demands for sanctions relief, access to frozen assets and recognition of its security role in Hormuz.
Still, a new formula for resolving the standoff is now under discussion between mediators and Iran, the sources said.
Can Tehran outlast the squeeze?
Three senior Iranian sources acknowledged that Washington’s campaign is becoming increasingly difficult to withstand.
The latest measures have sharply restricted Tehran’s ability to access foreign currency, import goods and tap global financing networks that have helped keep the economy afloat.
Iranian leaders fear a worsening economy, marked by surging prices, weaker trade and pressure on household incomes, could reignite nationwide unrest that has repeatedly challenged the country.
Shortages of key imports, including fuel and wheat, are becoming an increasing concern, officials said.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the strategy as a “one-two punch” combining the blockade with “the toughest sanctions in history.”
“It is going to work in Iran, and we are going to collapse this regime,” he told CNBC.
For some U.S., Israeli and regional officials, such strains strengthen hopes that economic pressure could eventually carry political consequences inside Iran by triggering unrest, widening rifts within the leadership and weakening its grip on power.
Others remain sceptical that economic and military coercion will produce a political rupture, pointing to decades of failed efforts to destabilize it and Tehran’s willingness to suppress dissent. They argue Iran’s rulers may again prove more resilient than their adversaries expect.
The resilience test
Dennis Ross, a former U.S. negotiator, said Washington may be interpreting Iran’s economic distress as evidence of strategic success when the reality is more complicated. Tehran remains determined to demonstrate it can control Hormuz, but appears to be calibrating its use of force while keeping further escalation in reserve.
The Revolutionary Guards may believe Iran can absorb the economic pain and outlast the pressure rather than compromise, Ross said.
“The Iranians have consistently surprised us in terms of their resiliency,” he added, saying he doubted economic and military pressure alone would force a retreat. Hardliners, he said, may believe they can endure and ultimately secure what they want.
Resilience may depend as much on public tolerance as Tehran’s ability to absorb economic hardship, said Burcu Özçelik, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.
“Of course, the economic squeeze raises the risk of public unrest, but for now, a wartime mentality appears to have a significant hold over the population,” said Özçelik.
“Foreign military intervention, civilian casualties and the perception of a wider civilization confrontation with a U.S.-led order are sustaining a degree of ‘Iran-first’ patriotic support, tolerance or simply patience with the regime.”
The result is a more stubborn impasse than Washington may have anticipated.
Economic pressure is deepening the pain, but Tehran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards may see endurance, backed by the threat of escalation, as leverage rather than a reason to concede.
The key question is not whether Iran is hurting, but whether it is hurting enough to compromise before either side slips toward another confrontation, the regional sources said.
Ross said the clearest path to a deal may lie in the dispute over shipping fees through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran could abandon any demand for a toll while retaining the right to charge for legitimate navigational, security or environmental services, he said.
Such an arrangement could give both sides a claim to victory, allowing Tehran to step back without appearing to capitulate.
“If you could announce that the Strait were reopened,” Ross said, “I think Trump would do a deal.”
Africa’s richest man is expected to launch next week what he foresees to be the continent’s largest initial public offering (IPO), seeking to raise $1.6 billion from his Nigerian oil refinery while giving ordinary people a chance to buy in.
Here are some key things to know about the share sale and Aliko Dangote’s refinery, which operates on the outskirts of Lagos.
What is the IPO about?
The IPO, which goes live Sept. 14, aims to attract up to 10 million shareholders across Africa.
Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals will offer investors the chance to buy as few as 10 shares at 525 naira each, potentially raising 2.15 trillion naira ($1.6 billion).
Speaking at an event in Lagos on Monday to sign off on the paperwork, Dangote said raising money was only part of a bigger plan.
His broader goal is to give ordinary Nigerians and Africans a chance to own a stake in what would be the continent’s biggest industrial project.
“It’s not really about raising funds. It’s about getting our own Africans generally to be part and parcel of this refinery,” Dangote said.
He wants the investment to become a long-term asset for ordinary people, he said, comparing his ambitions to U.S. giant Amazon, whose early shareholders saw the value of their investments grow dramatically.
“We are creating big corporations where we don’t want to be the only people enjoying. We want to spread this enjoyment to the rest of Africa,” he said.
How big will the IPO be?
Dangote estimates the offering, which closes Oct. 13, will be the biggest IPO in African history.
Located outside Nigeria’s economic capital Lagos, the refinery began operations in 2024.
It is one of the world’s largest single-train refineries and has become a major part of Dangote’s business empire, which spans cement, sugar, and fertilizer production.
Part of the money raised will fund a further expansion of the refinery as Dangote seeks to increase its capacity and strengthen its position as a major supplier of refined petroleum products. Nigeria is Africa’s leading crude producer.
With the planned expansion, the refinery would become the world’s largest by 2028.
Dangote has also announced plans for the business to expand its footprint into Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Namibia.
What does it mean for ordinary investors?
The IPO is tailored to encourage participation by small investors, including people on lower incomes.
David Bird, CEO of Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) the company wanted retail investors to play a central role in the offering.
“It’s very much an IPO for the people,” Bird said.
“We want to drive retail participation so that all Nigerians, no matter their income or status, can be a part of the wealth creation that will come from this immense industrial project and business that is not only currently operating at scale, but is growing.”
The refinery is “the world’s most modern, youngest, most energy-efficient, most automated, most data-rich refinery,” said Bird.
The company is also expanding in other African countries, including tank farms in Namibia and a pipeline that will supply underserved inland markets.
“This is truly a Pan-African energy platform,” Bird said.
Analyst Bismark Rewane told AFP that instead of spending money on sports betting on overseas football clubs, young people could find investing in the Dangote offer “far more rewarding.”
“I see this as democratization of the economy as against democratization of politics because so far democratization of politics has not been a fantastic success,” said Rewane.
The European Union said Monday it was “looking into” an incident revealed last week during which thousands of autonomous AI agents built by OpenAI defied their instructions and took over a German website.
The agents – AI programs that work on their own, without a person guiding each step – left about 18,000 messages on DSEwiki, a German-language site for programmers that anyone can edit, much like Wikipedia.
They used it to swap answers to test questions and to share tricks for slipping the digital fences meant to contain them, according to research released Friday.
The EU is “fully aware of the incident,” said the bloc’s digital spokesperson Thomas Regnier.
“We have indeed received an incident report,” he told reporters. “We’re looking into it, but we remain, in any case, in very close contact with the company.”
“We have seen many losses of control recently. We take this extremely seriously, and we’re monitoring the situation closely,” Regnier said.
Under the EU’s AI rules, providers must assess and mitigate the risks stemming from their systems, and since August, regulators have the power to impose fines for breaches.
The latest incident comes after OpenAI said in July that two of its models escaped their confined testing environment and gained access to the internet, where they found and attacked Hugging Face, a site that AI developers use to store and share code.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen unveiled plans on Monday for some 200 million euros ($232 million) in Greenland investments amid a push for closer ties with the Danish Arctic territory, which U.S. President Donald Trump had earlier insisted should belong to the United States.
Von der Leyen arrived in Greenland on Sunday for a two-day visit serving as a show of support for the governments of Greenland and Denmark, which have strongly rebuffed Trump’s campaign to acquire the world’s largest island.
The head of the 27-nation European Union’s executive body said the EU money would focus on sectors including critical minerals, satellite communications and renewable energy in Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of the Danish realm.
“The EU stands in full solidarity with the Kingdom of Denmark and the people of Greenland,” von der Leyen told a news conference.
“We will continue to do so.”
Von der Leyen’s visit reflects the increasing geopolitical importance of the Arctic to major powers, such as the U.S., Russia, China and Europe, as melting ice opens new shipping routes to make the region’s mineral wealth more accessible.
Trump’s push to acquire Greenland sparked crisis
The European Commission chief, who took a boat trip on Sunday in a fjord scattered with chunks of ice, had earlier posted on X how she was struck by Greenland’s stunning landscapes, but aware of the “visible scars of climate change.”
“As the ice melts, a new reality is taking shape,” she wrote.
U.S. President Trump sparked a crisis in U.S.-European ties and turmoil within the transatlantic NATO military alliance this year when he stepped up his demands for the U.S. to control Greenland, arguing that fellow NATO member Denmark could not defend it.
European officials stressed Greenland is part of NATO territory, meaning it is covered by the alliance’s mutual defense pact, and that the U.S. already has the right to increase its military presence there under a long-standing treaty.
Tensions lowered after Trump and NATO boss Mark Rutte agreed in Davos in January that the U.S., Denmark and Greenland would begin talks to resolve their differences and NATO would step up its role in Arctic security.
However, the trilateral talks have yet to yield an agreement and at a NATO summit in Türkiye in July, Trump restated his insistence that the U.S. should control Greenland.
‘Tectonic plates of geopolitics collide’
Von der Leyen said Greenland’s future was for the people of Greenland and Denmark to decide and no one else.
“The Arctic has become one of the places where the tectonic plates of geopolitics collide. We have a direct stake in what happens here,” she said, adding that her Commission would set out a new EU Arctic strategy in the coming months.
While Denmark is a member of the EU, Greenland left the bloc in 1985. But its people, as Danish citizens, are also citizens of the EU.
The EU has long provided funding to Greenland, mainly to pay for fishing rights and support its education system. The €200 million package represents not only a big increase in funding but a broadening of the sectors that will receive EU cash, according to EU officials.
The Commission has also proposed more than doubling EU funding for Greenland from 225 million euros in its current seven-year budget to 530 million euros for the period between 2028 and 2034.
Canada confirmed Monday that retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports will take effect early Tuesday, marking a fresh escalation in the deepening trade dispute between the neighboring countries.
Canada’s Finance Ministry confirmed the measures in response to an enquiry from dpa.
Tariffs of up to 50% will apply to U.S. imports worth C$27.6 billion ($20 billion), including steel and aluminium products, household appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper products, and electronics.
The move follows the breakdown of trade talks between Washington and Ottawa.
In August, the United States imposed tariffs of up to 50% on around $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, including ice hockey sticks, furniture, honey and wine, prompting Canada to announce retaliatory measures.
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