AFP USA

Google parent Alphabet reported its first-ever $100 billion quarterly revenue on Wednesday, powered by strong growth across its core search business and rapidly expanding cloud division that was buoyed by artificial intelligence.The tech giant’s revenues jumped 16 percent year-on-year to $102.3 billion in the third quarter, beating analyst expectations and marking a milestone for the company founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998.”Alphabet had a terrific quarter, with double-digit growth across every major part of our business,” said CEO Sundar Pichai in a statement.Net income surged 33 percent to $35 billion, with the company pointing to its ability to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom that is reshaping the tech landscape.Google’s core search and advertising business remained the primary revenue driver, generating $56.6 billion, up from $49.4 billion a year earlier.YouTube advertising revenues also grew strongly to $10.3 billion from $8.9 billion.But it was Google Cloud that stole the spotlight, with revenues soaring 34 percent to $15.2 billion. The cloud division, which competes with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, has become a key growth engine for Alphabet.The company’s ambitious approach to offering AI “is delivering strong momentum and we’re shipping at speed,” Pichai said, highlighting the global rollout of AI features in Google Search and the company’s Gemini AI models.The company said its Gemini App now boasts over 650 million monthly active users and that a growing amount of users were using the company’s AI Mode for search queries.However, the results were partially overshadowed by a $3.5 billion fine imposed by the European Commission in September for competition law violations in its ad tech business.Excluding this penalty, operating income would have increased 22 percent instead of the reported nine percent, the company said.The strong performance comes as Alphabet ramps up capital spending to meet surging demand for AI infrastructure.The company now expects 2025 capital expenditures of between $91-$93 billion, reflecting massive investments in data centers and computing power to fulfill its AI ambitions.It said its spending on capex would grow even more next year, though without providing more details for now.Microsoft and Meta, which also posted results on Wednesday, showed similar massive expenditures on AI infrastructure, which consume more energy than conventional data centers, strain electric power grids and use local water resources for cooling.The company also reported having over 300 million paid subscriptions across services like Google One and YouTube Premium.Despite the robust growth, Alphabet’s experimental “Other Bets” division, which includes autonomous vehicle unit Waymo, posted a loss of $1.4 billion on revenues of just $344 million.Google’s shares have surged by nearly 40 percent in the thrid quarter, with investors also buoyed by the company’s success in persuading a federal judge to deny a US government request that it sell off its Chrome browser as a solution in an antitrust trial.The judge was swayed by arguments that Google’s world-dominating search engine — the heart of Google’s business — faces stiff competition from ChatGPT and other AI chatbots like Perplexity.Still, Google’s search revenue was up nearly 15 percent from the same quarter last year.

To someday allow scientists to stay underwater conducting research for days on end, the UK-based company DEEP has designed Vanguard, a “subsea human habitat.”The company unveiled its prototype Wednesday at a hangar in Miami, Florida, hoping that oceanographers and other researchers can use it to stay underwater in the ocean for at least a week, instead of only a few hours like most expeditions.”There are zones in oceans around the world that are unexplored at those depths, and making them available and accessible by divers will open up a whole new realm of science,” Norman Smith, DEEP’s Chief Technology Officer and the lead engineer behind Vanguard, told AFP.For now, Vanguard is situated only 20 meters (65 feet) underwater, a depth accessible by scuba diving, but DEEP is already working on prototypes that can get down to 200 meters (650 feet). The vessel consists of three sections: a living chamber, a diving center and a base. The first part, measuring 12 meters (40 feet) long by 3.7 meters (12 feet) wide, is where scientists would eat, sleep and work, designed to resist ocean water pressure to keep up to four occupants safe. The “diving center” would connect to the underwater base, which would be anchored to the seabed to protect the overall habitat from waves and storms. Vanguard also will include a floating structure on the surface of the water to transport compressed air, power the vessel, and allow for communication with the outside world.When DEEP deploys Vanguard for the first time in the coming weeks off the coast of Florida, the company hopes scientists will be able to use it to carry out long-term underwater conservation projects, such as coral restoration.

In a speech in Riyadh in May, President Donald Trump denounced generations of US interventionism, saying the Middle East was only made worse by Americans who fly in “giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs.”Those views apparently do not extend to Latin America, where he instead has been blatantly meddling in ways harkening back to an earlier era in US history.Trump has intervened directly to weaken the democratically elected leftist leaders of Colombia and Brazil and to bolster the right-wing president of Argentina.He has also put the United States on a war footing in the Caribbean, raising speculation he will forcefully depose Venezuela’s leftist firebrand Nicolas Maduro.Trump, who has put a top priority at home on mass deportation of mostly Latin American undocumented migrants and alleged gang members, has argued that the United States is in an armed conflict with narcotraffickers, likening them to “terrorists.” He has launched repeated deadly strikes on small boats, with murky public information available, and confirmed he authorized CIA operations in Venezuela.Democratic Senator Mark Kelly said in a recent ABC News interview: “You don’t move a battle group all the way from where it was to the Caribbean unless you’re planning on either to intimidate the country — which is rather intimidating — or you’re going to start conducting combat operations in Venezuela.”- Dividing friends and foes -The United States has treated Latin America as its sphere of influence under the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, when then president James Monroe said the hemisphere was closed to European powers.Washington has intervened aggressively over the past two centuries, sometimes with disastrous results — as in the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion aimed at ousting Cuban communist revolutionary Fidel Castro.Trump has zeroed in from the start of his second term on a revitalization of the Monroe Doctrine, threatening to seize back the Panama Canal due to Chinese influence in the critical waterway.If not military force, Trump has turned to economic tools. At the start of his administration in January he imposed sweeping tariffs on Colombia to punish Gustavo Petro, the US ally’s first left-wing president, for defying Trump on migration.More recently the Treasury Department imposed sanctions personally on Petro, whom Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American and sworn critic of the region’s leftists, branded a “lunatic.”Trump has also targeted a top judge in Brazil for prosecuting former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted over a coup attempt with echoes of Trump supporters’ riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.By contrast, Trump promised a $20 billion bailout to Argentina to boost President Javier Milei and has moved to reward Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, who offered to help Trump’s deportation drive by taking in prisoners to his own maximum-security prison.- ‘MAGA’ Latin America -“I think definitely the goal of the Trump administration is to shape Latin American politics in the form of a MAGA agenda,” said Renata Segura, who heads the Latin America and Caribbean program at the International Crisis Group, which promotes conflict resolution.But Trump’s MAGA, or Make America Great Again, movement is also deeply skeptical of jeopardizing US lives and resources in foreign wars.Rubio has been seen as the architect of the hawkish turn on Venezuela, hoping a downfall of Maduro could set off a domino effect that could even bring down Cuba’s 66-year-old communist government.With the military deployment, the United States is sending a clear message not only to Venezuela, Segura said.”They’re sending a message to the entire region that they will act unilaterally when they decide that that is appropriate,” she said.Trump, however, already tried during his 2017-2021 term to oust Maduro, including by building a coalition of major Latin American and European powers.Maduro remained entrenched, enjoying his own support base as well as backing by Cuba, China and Russia.”If there is this goal of using militarization pressure to produce some internal break that leads to Maduro’s departure, my concern is that what was tried in Trump One,” said Roxanna Vigil, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.”It didn’t work,” she said.

A US appeals court has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from deploying National Guard troops in Portland, Oregon, as part of his sweeping crackdown on crime and immigration.The Supreme Court asked for more time and additional briefing materials, meanwhile, before ruling on Trump’s emergency request to deploy troops in Chicago, another Democratic-run city.The Republican president has sent National Guard troops to three Democratic-led cities this year — Los Angeles, Washington and Memphis — but his efforts to deploy soldiers in Portland and Chicago have been tied up in the courts.A Trump-appointed district court judge blocked the deployment of National Guard troops in Portland but was overruled by a three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.The 9th Circuit voted late Tuesday, however, to have the case reheard by an 11-judge panel, a move which prevents National Guard troops from deploying in Portland for now.Oregon’s Democratic Attorney General Dan Rayfield, who has filed suit to block the use of the National Guard, welcomed the ruling.”The Constitution limits the president’s power, and Oregon’s communities cannot be treated as a training ground for unchecked federal authority,” Rayfield said. “The court is sending a clear message: the president cannot send the military into US cities unnecessarily.”The US president has repeatedly called Portland “war-ravaged” and riddled with violent crime, a description dismissed as “simply untethered to the facts” by the district court judge who initially blocked the National Guard deployment.A district court and an appeals court have also blocked the use of National Guard troops in Chicago, the third-largest US city, and the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court in an emergency filing on October 17 to lift the lower court rulings.In a brief order on Wednesday, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court asked the Trump administration and the Illinois authorities who oppose the Chicago deployment to submit additional written filings in the case by November 17.Trump’s extraordinary domestic use of the National Guard was also challenged by California earlier this year after the president sent troops to Los Angeles to quell protests sparked by the rounding up of undocumented migrants.A district court judge ruled it unlawful but an appeals court panel allowed the Los Angeles deployment to proceed.

Boeing on Wednesday reported a third-quarter loss of $5.4 billion as massive added costs from the delayed certification of its 777X aircraft weighed down its results.The aviation giant scored a 30-percent jump in revenues to $23.3 billion following much higher commercial plane deliveries compared with the year-ago level.But the performance was marred by a one-time charge of $4.9 billion on the repeatedly delayed 777X program, which has faced a prolonged certification process with US authorities.Boeing had hoped to begin the next phase of certification flights this year. But the company has pushed those back until 2027 to complete needed preparatory analysis, company officials said.Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg pointed to the October approval by the Federal Aviation Administration of an increased monthly production rate on the 737 MAX as a sign of the company’s progress. He also noted that Boeing generated positive free cash flow during the quarter, a benchmark closely watched by Wall Street. But Ortberg said more work was still needed to turn Boeing around after a series of safety problems, including two fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that have led to more intense FAA scrutiny over new plane certifications.”While we are disappointed in the 777X schedule delay, the airplane continues to perform well in flight testing, and we remain focused on the work ahead,” Ortberg said.Wednesday’s results marked the 17th straight quarterly loss for Boeing, according to Briefing.com, which characterized the figures as “a mix of clear progress and lingering challenges.”Boeing must “prove that its turn-around efforts can translate into consistent profitability,” Briefing.com said.Meanwhile, European rival Airbus reported a 14 percent jump in profits to $1.1 billion, its latest strong financial result that underscored the wide gulf between the companies in recent years.  However, in one bright spot for Boeing, the US company has retaken the lead in terms of orders in 2025 as it benefits from the aggressive trade lobbying of US President Donald Trump.Boeing had racked up 774 net orders as of the end of September, compared to 514 for Airbus. Last year Airbus was far ahead with 648 compared to 272 for Boeing.-Another delay -Boeing has repeatedly pushed back the timeframe on the 777X. Under the latest shift, commercial deliveries will commence in 2027, delayed from the prior 2026 timeframe.After beginning deliveries, company officials expect the program to operate as a drain on cash in the first couple of years as production ramps up, but to turn cash flow positive in 2029, Chief Financial Officer Jay Malave said on a conference call.In 2020, Boeing booked a $6.5-billion charge on the 777X, citing the lengthy FAA certification process as a major factor.Ortberg, in a conference call with financial analysts, described the shifting backward of the 777X tests as the result of new requirements that the FAA and Boeing are both working through.- Labor strike -In a message to employees, Ortberg said the company’s defense operation in St. Louis is “effectively executing our strike contingency plans” following the vote Sunday by more than 3,000 workers to reject the company’s latest contract offer.Ortberg said on the conference call that production in the striking operation is operating at “about the same” rate as prior to the stoppage.Local Boeing officials in St. Louis have said the company is accelerating recruitment of replacement workers and welcoming back employees who cross the picket line. Union leaders have described Boeing as refusing to negotiate in good faith, while criticizing the hiring of replacement workers as risky. “These are complex, precision-built products — and they cannot replace the skilled, experienced IAM members who have dedicated their careers to this work,” said a Tuesday statement from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837.Shares of Boeing closed down 4.4 percent.

Meta shares dove more than eight percent in after-hours trading Wednesday after the tech giant reported a US tax charge took a roughly $16 billion bite out of its quarterly profit.The parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp said that its net income would have reached $18.64 billion in the recent quarter had it not been for a one-time tax charge prompted by provisions in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”Quarterly revenue however exceeded analyst expectations at $51.2 billion, a 26 percent increase from the same period a year earlier.Meta also notched up the forecast of how much money it expects to spend this year as it invests heavily in being a leader in artificial intelligence.The company said it expects capital expenditures to tally somewhere between $70-$72 billion, at the higher end of a range it had previously disclosed.Costs and expenses in the quarter were $30.71 billion, an increase of 32 percent from the same period last year, with some of that cost going to talent for Meta’s AI efforts.”I am very focused on establishing Meta as the leading frontier AI Lab, building personal super intelligence for everyone and delivering the app experiences and computing devices that will improve the lives of billions of people around the world,” chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on an earnings call.”We’re heads down, developing our next generation of models and products.”Meta’s Family of Apps segment, which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, saw daily active users reach 3.54 billion in the quarter, up 8 percent from a year earlier.Meta announced earlier this month that it will begin using people’s conversations with its AI chatbot to tailor ads and content they see on Facebook and Instagram.Meta also recently showed off new smart glasses as it continued to bank on a lifestyle shift toward blending reality and virtual space despite the efforts inflicting heavy financial losses.Announcements included the debut of Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses that have built-in screens that allow wearers to see messages, photos and more as though looking at a smartphone screen.Zuckerberg has predicted that AI-infused smart glasses will be the “next major computing platform,” eventually replacing the smartphone.But Reality Labs —  Meta’s virtual and augmented reality unit — has consistently posted big losses.Meta is locked in a bitter rivalry with other tech behemoths as they invest heavily in AI, aiming to ensure the technology benefits society and generates profits in the not-so-distant future.Most analysts believe Meta will make the investment pay off by improving its advertising efficiency and creating new opportunities, such as with its smart glasses through a partnership with Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica.

The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced its second quarter-point rate cut in a row to bolster the flagging labor market, in a move that highlighted the growing division in its ranks.Policymakers voted 10-2 in favor of lowering the bank’s key lending rate to between 3.75 percent and 4.00 percent, the Fed said in a statement. Opposed to the action were Fed governor Stephen Miran, who backed a bigger half-point cut, and Kansas City Fed president Jeff Schmid, who “preferred no change to the target range for the federal funds rate at this meeting,” the Fed said. “We continue to face two-sided risks,” Powell told reporters at a press conference in Washington. He added that during the Fed’s discussions this week, “there were strongly differing views about how to proceed in December.””A further reduction in the policy rate at the December meeting is not a foregone conclusion, far from it,” he said. Wall Street stocks fell after Powell threw cold water on the prospects of a December rate cut, ending the day mixed. – Shutdown weighing on economy -The decision to cut rates boosts the US economy at a time when businesses are still digesting the effects of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, and buys policymakers some more time as they wait for the end of the government shutdown.Republicans and Democrats remain politically gridlocked almost a month after the start of the shutdown, which has resulted in a suspension of publication of almost all official data.”The shutdown of the federal government will weigh on economic activity while it persists, but these effects should reverse after the shutdown ends,” Powell said on Wednesday. “We’re going to collect every scrap of data we can find, evaluate it, and think carefully about it,” he added. “If you’re driving in the fog, you slow down.”Fed officials have in recent months flagged concerns that the labor market is cooling, causing them to shift their attention to bolstering hiring, even though inflation remains above the Fed’s target.”We have 4.3 percent unemployment. We have an economy that’s growing close to two percent, so overall it’s a good picture,” Powell said on Wednesday. “But in terms of our policy, we have upside risks to inflation, downside risks to employment,” he said. “And this is a very difficult thing for a central bank.””The Fed’s rate cut is a tactical error,” Moody’s Analytics banking industry practice lead Chris Stanley wrote in a note shared with AFP. “The data does not support cutting rates,” he continued, adding that the Fed could find itself walking the cut back in the near future due to high inflation. “We expect the Fed to slow the pace of cuts from here,” Oxford Economics deputy chief US economist Michael Pearce wrote in a note to clients.- Fed to end QT -The Fed also announced Wednesday that it would soon end its policy of shrinking the size of its balance sheet, in a move that was widely expected. “The Committee decided to conclude the reduction of its aggregate securities holdings on December 1,” the Fed said in a statement confirming its decision.The Fed’s balance sheet ballooned in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic to almost $9 trillion. The bank has been gradually reducing its size in recent years, although it remains well above its pre-pandemic levels at around $6.6 trillion. “I think they’re very cautious about stresses in the financial markets,” former Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester told AFP ahead of the rate announcement.

The dollar strengthened Wednesday while Wall Street stocks were mixed after the Federal Reserve indicated its latest interest rate cut might not be repeated in December.After the US central bank announced a quarter percentage-point interest rate cut that had been expected, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that another decrease in December “is not a foregone conclusion, far from it.”The statement jolted US markets, lifting the dollar and pushing all three US equity briefly into the red.The Nasdaq later recovered, finishing at a fourth straight record behind another gain by artificial intelligence giant Nvidia, which became the first company to reach a $5 trillion market value.The Dow finished modestly lower while the S&P 500 ended flat.Oxford Economics characterized Powell as “hawkish,” predicting that the central bank would “move to the sidelines” and not cut again until March. Powell also indicated in his press conference that the dearth of economic data due to the US government shutdown could also prompt more cautious policy making.The Dow had earlier topped 48,000 points following fresh peaks set in London and some Asian markets as US President Donald Trump voiced optimism on the eve of crunch trade talks with China’s President Xi Jinping.Trump predicted a “great meeting,” while China’s foreign ministry was more cautious, saying that Xi and Trump would have “in-depth” talks on “major issues.”Key matters concern thorny trade matters such as Chinese exports of rare earths and US efforts to bolster US exports of American soybeans to China.Analysts have also seen Nvidia’s latest surge as partly based on hopes Trump may negotiate a resumption of the company’s exports to China.The two leaders are set to meet Thursday in Busan, a southern port city not far from the APEC summit attended by Trump.The European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan are expected to hold interest rates steady this week. Benchmark stocks indices in Tokyo and Seoul each reached record highs Wednesday, while European markets were mixed.After Seoul closed, the United States and South Korea reached an agreement to maintain reciprocal tariffs at 15 percent and to reduce levies on automobiles and auto parts.In company news, shares in UK drugmaker GSK rose more than two percent in London after it raised its full-year guidance on strong sales growth. Shares in Mercedes-Benz rose more than four percent after the company reassured investors it faced no immediate production shutdowns due to microchip shortages, even though third-quarter net profits plunged more than 30 percent due to Trump’s tariff blitz as well as slumping sales in China.US industrial giant Caterpillar surged 11.6 percent after reporting better than expected profits, partly due to strong demand in its energy & transportation business partly related to heavy AI infrastructure investment.- Key figures at around 2020 GMT -New York – Dow: DOWN 0.2 percent at 47,632.00 (close)New York – S&P 500: FLAT at 6,890.59 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.6 percent at 23,958.47 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.6 percent at 9,756.14 (close)Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 0.2 percent at 8,200.88 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 0.6 at 24,124.21 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 2.2 percent at 51,307.65 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: Closed for a holidayShanghai – Composite: UP 0.7 percent at 4,016.33 (close)Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1595 from $1.1656 on TuesdayPound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3187 from $1.3276Dollar/yen: UP at 152.82 yen from 152.06 yenEuro/pound: UP at 87.94 from 87.80 penceBrent North Sea Crude: UP 0.8 percent at $64.92 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: UP 0.6 percent at $60.48 per barrelburs-jmb/des

Google parent Alphabet reported its first-ever $100 billion quarterly revenue on Wednesday, powered by strong growth across its core search business and rapidly expanding cloud division that was buoyed by artificial intelligence.The tech giant’s revenues jumped 16 percent year-on-year to $102.3 billion in the third quarter, beating analyst expectations and marking a milestone for the company founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998.”Alphabet had a terrific quarter, with double-digit growth across every major part of our business. We delivered our first-ever $100 billion quarter,” said CEO Sundar Pichai in a statement.Net income surged 33 percent to $35 billion, with the company pointing to its ability to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom that is reshaping the tech landscape.Google’s core search and advertising business remained the primary revenue driver, generating $56.6 billion, up from $49.4 billion a year earlier.YouTube advertising revenues also grew strongly to $10.3 billion from $8.9 billion.But it was Google Cloud that stole the spotlight, with revenues soaring 34 percent to $15.2 billion. The cloud division, which competes with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, has become a key growth engine for Alphabet.The company’s ambitious approach to offering AI “is delivering strong momentum and we’re shipping at speed,” Pichai said, highlighting the global rollout of AI features in Google Search and the company’s Gemini AI models.The company said its Gemini App now boasts over 650 million monthly active users.However, the results were partially overshadowed by a $3.5 billion fine imposed by the European Commission in September for competition law violations in its ad tech business.Excluding this penalty, operating income would have increased 22 percent instead of the reported 9 percent, the company said.The strong performance comes as Alphabet ramps up capital spending to meet surging demand for AI infrastructure.The company now expects 2025 capital expenditures of between $91-$93 billion, reflecting massive investments in data centers and computing power to fulfill its AI ambitions.The company also reported having over 300 million paid subscriptions across services like Google One and YouTube Premium.Despite the robust growth, Alphabet’s experimental “Other Bets” division, which includes autonomous vehicle unit Waymo, posted a loss of $1.4 billion on revenues of just $344 million.Google’s shares have surged by nearly 40 percent in the thrid quarter, with investors also buoyed by the company’s success in persuading a federal judge to deny a US government request that it sell off its Chrome browser as a solution in an antitrust trial.The judge was swayed by arguments that Google’s world-dominating search engine — the heart of Google’s business — faces stiff competition from ChatGPT and other AI chatbots.