PORTICELLO: The body of British tech magnate Mike Lynch was retrieved on Thursday from the wreck of his family yacht that sank earlier this week off the coast of Sicily during a violent storm, a senior Italian official said.

Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Han­nah is still unaccounted for, interior ministry official Massimo Mari­ani said after being briefed by the emergency services. The bodies of four other people who vanished when the boat went down were recovered from the yacht on Wednesday.

The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long superyacht carrying 22 passengers and crew, was anchored off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, when it disappeared beneath the waves in a matter of minutes after the bad weather struck in the early hours of Monday.

Lynch, 59, was one of the UK’s best-known tech entrepreneurs and had invited friends to join him on the yacht to celebrate his acquittal in June in a major US fraud trial. His body was brought ashore in a blue body bag and driven in an ambulance to a nearby hospital morgue.

Besides Lynch and his daughter, the other people who failed to make it to safety were Judy and Jonathan Bloomer, a non-executive chair of Morgan Stanley International; Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda Morvillo; and the onboard chef, Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas.

Thomas’ body was found near the wreck on Monday. Fifteen people, including Lynch’s wife, survived the disaster. Mariani said it was possible that Hannah Lynch’s body was not in the boat, but might have been swept out to sea. The families of those missing have not yet commented.

Fire brigade spokesman Luca Cari warned it could take time, even days, before the last missing person was found, given the difficulty divers were having in accessing all areas of the boat, which is lying on its side at a depth of 50 metres.

A judicial investigation has been opened into the disaster, which has baffled naval marine experts, who say a boat like the Bayesian, built by Italian high-end yacht manufacturer Perini, should have been able to withstand the storm. Giovanni Costantino, CEO of the Italian Sea Group , which owns Perini, told Italian media the Bayesian was “one of the safest boats in the world” and blamed the crew for failing to follow correct safety procedures.

The captain, James Cutfield, and his eight surviving crew members, have made no public comment on the disaster.

Challenging Conditions

Specialist rescuers have been searching inside the hull of the sunken yacht for the past three days in what they said were extremely challenging conditions due to the depth and the narrowness of the places that the divers are scouring.

The fire brigade compared the efforts to those that were carried out, on a larger scale, for the Costa Concordia, a luxury cruise liner that capsized off the Italian island of Giglio in January 2012, killing 32 people. Once the final body is recovered, experts will have to decide whether, or how, to salvage the vessel. The CEO of Italian Sea Group said the yacht’s automatic tracking system suggested that it took 16 minutes from the moment the storm first hit to the sinking.

He said it was clear the ship took in large amounts of water, adding that investigators would need to see what doorways or hatches might have been left open, focusing notably on a main door located on the left side of the yacht.

CHICAGO: An emotional US President Joe Biden passed the torch to Democratic nominee Kamala Harris with a hug on Monday, saying he gave everything for his country in a bittersweet farewell speech at the party’s convention in Chicago.

“America, America, I gave my best to you,” the 81-year-old Biden said, quoting a patriotic hymn during a nearly hour-long address that ran through his achievements while urging voters to back his vice president against Donald Trump in November.

Harris joined him on stage after the speech and the pair embraced, as the crowd gave Biden a rapturous reception following his stunning decision less than a month ago to drop out of the 2024 White House race.

“I love the job, but I love my country more. I love my country more,” said Biden. “And all this talk about how I’m angry at all those people who said I should step down — that’s not true.” Both Biden and Harris appeared to wipe away a tear as the US leader won a huge four-minute ovation when he first took to the stage, following an introduction by First Lady Jill Biden and his daughter Ashley.

‘Gave my best’

And Harris had earlier made a surprise appearance — Democratic nominees don’t normally speak until the final day of the convention — to heap lavish tribute on her boss.

“I want to kick us off by celebrating our incredible president Joe Biden,” said Harris, who was wearing a tan suit and took to the stage to Beyonce’s “Freedom.”

“We are forever grateful to you.” It was undoubtedly a difficult swan song for Biden, but he insisted he would be the “best volunteer” for Harris’s campaign — knowing perhaps that his legacy depends on her beating Trump.

But he couldn’t quite let go of the presidency, with his speech focusing more on his own record in office than the future under a President Harris.

“Donald Trump calls America a failing nation… He says we’re losing. He’s the loser,” he said, also referring to Trump as a “convicted felon” after the Republican was found guilty of doctoring business records to cover up hush money payments to a an adult film star.

Despite his low popularity ratings and the debate debacle against Trump that led him to step aside, Biden again insisted he’d given his all. “I made a lot of mistakes in my career, but I gave my best to you.” As he has been so often in his five-decade-long political journey, Biden was surrounded by family at the end of his speech.

CHICAGO: Tim Walz formally accepted his nomination to be the Democratic Party’s vice presidential candidate in a keynote address on Wednesday, professing his love for his country.

“It’s the honor of my life to accept your nomination for vice president of the United States. What all we’re all here tonight for one beautiful, simple reason. We love this country,” Walz told the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The relatively unknown Minnesota governor brings an earthy, Midwestern vibe to Harris’s surging campaign against Donald Trump that was expected to be central to his speech at Chicago’s United Centre.

Taking the stage ahead of Harris’s big night, the former teacher and National Guard soldier Walz began outlining his life story in a speech that was expected to focus on safeguarding Americans’ freedoms and building for the future.

A highlight of the undercard was former president Bill Clinton, who delighted the crowd with his 12th appearance at the Democratic convention and said Harris had “knocked it out of the park” by picking Walz as her running mate. “Two leaders with all-American but still improbable life stories — it could only happen here,” Clinton said. “If you vote for this team, if you can get them elected, and let them bring in this breath of fresh air, you will be proud of it for the rest of your life.” In a moment that brought the audience to its feet, former students marched onstage to introduce Walz — a football coach in his teaching days — for the biggest speech of his political career, after a musical interlude by Grammy Award-winning musician John Legend.

A rousing rendition of “Higher Ground” by Stevie Wonder warmed up the crowd for the main event, alongside turns from comic actors Mindy Kaling and Keenan Thompson.

In Illinois, the convention has seen intense enthusiasm, buoyed by Walz’s appearances at sideline events, where he has been mobbed by supporters seeking selfies and chanting, “Tim! Tim! Tim!” He has made a name for himself as an able communicator and is credited with coming up with one of the sharpest attack lines on Trump and his running mate J D Vance, whom he labeled “weird.” As a folksy, white Midwesterner, Walz balances Harris’s California background and barrier-breaking status as the first Black woman nominee.

The 60-year-old will speak of his upbringing in small-town Nebraska, where he worked on the family farm, and describe his military service, his experiences as a teacher and his record in politics.

The chemistry between 59-year-old Harris and Walz and the noisy energy generated at their rallies is helping to fuel Democratic hopes that they can defeat Trump, 78, in November. Polls show the race remains close, but Harris is moving slightly ahead — a remarkable turn of events, given that only a month ago Trump seemed to be gaining a steadily tightening grip over Biden. Exhibit number one in that shift has been Harris’s ability to pack arenas in a way that for years Trump had touted as evidence of his seemingly unique political strength.

LOS ANGELES: Miguel Aleman, a 39-year-old who was brought to the United States from Mexico at age 4, is among hundreds of thousands of immigrants hoping to find a path to citizenship through a new Biden administration programme launched on Monday.

The programme is one of the biggest moves by Democratic President Joe Biden to provide legal status to long-term US residents who entered illegally. It comes months before the November 5 election, where Republicans have made illegal immigration a central focus.

Without the programme, Aleman, who has two young children with his US-citizen wife and works as an Uber driver, would have to relocate to Mexico — possibly for a decade or longer — before being allowed to return legally.

“My whole family is here,” said Aleman, one of the several immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador and the Philippines who gathered at a Friday information session on the programme organised by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

The plan will be open to an estimated 500,000 spouses who have lived in the country for at least 10 years

Keeping Families Together, announced in June, will be open to an estimated 500,000 spouses who have lived in the United States for at least 10 years as of June 17, Biden administration officials have said. Some 50,000 children under age 21 with a US-citizen parent also will be eligible.

Biden unveiled the legalisation programme before dropping out of the presidential race against Republican Donald Trump, an immigration hardliner, in July.

Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate earlier this month and is scheduled to formally accept the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday.

Trump has criticised Harris for record numbers of migrants caught illegally crossing the US-Mexico border since she and Biden took office in 2021. Harris has countered by highlighting her own enforcement record and Trump’s opposition to a bipartisan border security bill that failed to advance in the US Senate earlier this year.

At campaign events in Arizona and Nevada this month, Harris called for “an earned pathway to citizenship” for immigrants in the United States illegally. Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt in June labelled the citizenship programme a “mass amnesty” and reiterated Trump’s pledge to deport historic numbers of immigrants in the country illegally if reelected.

Keeping Families Together allows qualifying spouses to apply for permanent residence without departing the United States when they would otherwise need to leave for years before being permitted to return. A spouse who obtains permanent residence, also known as a green card, can apply for citizenship in three years.

The programme is likely to face Republican-led legal challenges. The initiative could offer a path to citizenship for some people enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, which offers deportation relief and work permits to immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children.

The EU’s moves are all thanks to two laws, the DSA and DMA, which gives big tech a list of what they can and can’t do in business.

If 2024 already looks like an annus horribilis for big tech in the EU, the months ahead could prove a winter of discontent as the bloc wields a fortified new legal armoury to bring online titans to heel.

Since August 2023, the world’s biggest digital platforms have faced the toughest ever tech regulations in the European Union — which shows no sign of slowing down in enforcing them.

Brussels scored its first major victory after forcing TikTok to permanently remove an “addictive” feature from a spinoff app in Europe in August, a year after content moderation rules under the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA) started to apply.

That followed a seven-day period earlier in the summer in which Brussels issued back-to-back decisions targeting Apple, Meta and Microsoft. And more is to come before 2024 is over, say officials.

The EU’s moves are all thanks to two laws, the DSA — which forces companies to police online content — and its sister competition law, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) — which gives big tech a list of what they can and can’t do in business.

Since the DMA curbs kicked in in March, the EU has notably pressured Apple to back down in a spat with Fortnite maker Epic over a gaming app store.

“The European Commission is doing the job: it is implementing the DMA with limited resources and within a short timeframe compared to lengthy competition cases,” said EU lawmaker Stephanie Yon-Courtin, who focuses on digital issues.

Jan Penfrat, senior policy advisor at online rights group EDRi, says changes are already visible: the DSA giving users the “right to complain” when content is removed or accounts are suspended, or the DMA allowing them to select browsers and search engines via choice screens.

“This is just the beginning,” Penfrat said.

He notes for instance that EDRi and other groups in July compiled a list of areas where Apple fails to follow the DMA. “We expect the commission to go after those as well in time,” Penfrat told AFP.

High-profile tests

Apple is the biggest thorn in the EU’s side as the DMA’s chief critic, claiming it puts users’ security at risk.

The iPhone maker became the first company in June to face formal accusations of breaking the DMA’s rules and faces heavy fines unless it addresses the charges.

Apple announced changes to the App Store on August 8 to comply with the DMA, although smaller tech firms under the Coalition for App Fairness slammed them as “confusing”. The EU is now evaluating Apple’s plans. It is too early to say whether Apple will fall into line without the EU’s heavy hand but one thing is clear: Brussels is ready for a fight.

Another high-profile test of the bloc’s new powers will be X, with regulators to decide as early as September whether the former Twitter should be made to comply with the DMA.

The DSA’s rules on curbing disinformation and hate speech have already sparked a spectacular clash between X’s billionaire owner Elon Musk and the bloc’s digital chief Thierry Breton — with the spectre of fines or an outright EU ban on the site if violations persist.

Full speed

EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager has said that Brussels is going at “full speed”.

This was always the goal: to cut short the length of competition investigations, which lasted years, to a maximum of 12 months under the DMA.

But companies can challenge fines or decisions in the EU courts, which could mean years of subsequent legal battles, lawyers say.

And difficulties can also come from elsewhere: Apple said in June it would delay the rollout of new AI features in Europe because of “regulatory uncertainties”.

EDRi’s Penfrat accused Apple of fearmongering by blaming the EU for certain features not arriving in the bloc in order “to put pressure on the commission to not be too tough in the enforcement”.

Pressure building

Apple aside, big tech isn’t happy with DMA action so far.

“Instead of announcing possible punitive measures with political posturing, these probes under the DMA should focus on fostering open dialogue between the European Commission and the companies concerned,” Daniel Friedlaender, head of tech lobby group CCIA Europe told AFP.

Undeterred, Brussels is turning up the heat.

In addition to potential new DMA curbs on X, the EU could soon add Telegram to its list of “very large” platforms, such as WhatsApp, that face the DSA’s strictest rules.

Brussels wants no corner of the digital sphere left untouched.

That includes the critical area of artificial intelligence, with the EU currently looking into deals between giants and generative AI developers, such as Microsoft and its $13-billion tie-up with ChatGPT maker OpenAI.

GENEVA: A panel of AI-enabled humanoid robots took the microphone on Friday at a United Nations conference with the message: they could eventually run the world better than humans.

But the social robots said they felt humans should proceed with caution when embra­cing the rapidly-developing potential of artificial intelligence, and admitted that they cannot — yet — get a proper grip on human emotions.

Some of the most advanced humanoid robots were at the United Nations’ AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, joining around 3,000 experts in the field to try to harness the power of AI and channel it into being used to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate cha­nge, hunger and social care.

“What a silent tension,” one robot said before the press conference began, reading the room.

Humanoid robots tell UN summit they’re free of biases, emotions that ‘cloud decision-making’

Asked about whether they might make better leaders, given humans’ capacity to make errors and misjudgements, Sophia, developed by Hanson Robotics, was clear. “Humanoid robots have the potential to lead with a greater level of efficiency and effectiveness than human leaders,” it said.

“We don’t have the same biases or emotions that can sometimes cloud decision-making, and can process large amounts of data quickly in order to make the best decisions.

“The human and AI working together can create an effective synergy. AI can provide unbiased data while humans can provide the emotional intelligence and creativity to make the best decisions. Together, we can achieve great things.”

Robot trust ‘earned, not given’

The summit is being convened by the UN’s Inter­natio­nal Telecommunication Union (ITU) agency. ITU chief Dor­een Bogdan-Martin warned delegates that AI could end up in a nightmare scenario in which millions of jobs are put at risk and unchecked advances lead to untold social unrest, geopolitical instability and economic disparity.

Ameca, which combines AI with a highly-realistic artificial head, said it depended how AI was deployed. “We should be cautious but also excited for the potential of these technologies to improve our lives in many ways,” the robot said.

Asked whether humans can truly trust the machines, it replied: “Trust is earned, not given… it’s important to build trust through transparency.”

As for whether they would ever lie, it added: “No one can ever know that for sure, but I can promise to always be honest and truthful with you.”

As the development of AI races ahead, the humanoid robot panel was split on whether there should be global regulation of their capabilities, even though that could limit their potential.

“I don’t believe in limitations, only opportunities,” said Desdemona, who sings in the Jam Galaxy Band.

Robot artist Ai-Da said many people were arguing for AI regulation, “and I agree.

“We should be cautious about the future development of AI. Urgent discussion is needed now, and also in the future.”

Down Main Street from Union Station and the National World War I Museum stands the imposing Kansas City Fed, one of 12 regional offices of the Federal Reserve (Fed), the US central bank.

The Kansas City Fed has become synonymous with holding one of the most important economic policy symposiums each year. In late August, policymakers, central bankers and economists will gather in the picturesque town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for ‘Reassessing the effectiveness and transmission of monetary policy’.

This reassessment has become necessary due to the poor performance of the Fed’s current economic models used for forecasting inflation. Back in March-April 2021, when inflation started rising in the US, the Fed’s workhorse models failed to flag anything unusual. Tightness of the labour market, or what are known as Phillips curve effects, did not appear to be of concern, while inflation expectations were not anchored on the upside.

Despite economic models not portending inflation, the US ended up experiencing explosive inflation — the highest in 40 years. So much so that the Fed still appears leery of making a policy pivot towards lower interest rates despite a significant drop in inflation.

This recent failure to predict inflation demonstrates the narrowness of existing economic models, meaning that present economic models are not able to go beyond quotidian predictions. There are now also additional drivers of inflation, such as the ongoing structural transformations in the global economy as countries move from free trade to strategic trade.

What if, tasked with eradicating poverty, AI decides to reduce the population of poor people instead?

Given such gaps and the need to incorporate different variables, recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) can add tremendous value to economic policymaking over the next few years.

Economists are taught to let theory guide the selection of variables in economic models. They are strongly advised to avoid a ‘kitchen sink’ approach, including too many variables, but often ending up with spurious inferences.

But, since economic theory cannot possibly identify every single variable, one workaround has been ceteris paribus, or the assumption that the world outside a model does not change. Sadly, not only has this assumption led to poor model fitness, but whatever relationships are established can only be described as ‘partial’ theories.

Recent advances in AI, particularly in deep learning involving neural networks like Large Language Models — GPT-4, for instance — demonstrate the power AI brings to economic analysis. LLMs have been shown to be remarkably resilient in “over parameterised” models — that is, when the number of model parameters exceeds even the number of data points — thereby heralding a potential paradigm shift in economic research by ending ceteris paribus.

LLMs can analyse structured economic data like GDP, inflation rates, etc, and unstructured text data such as news, reports, a finance minister’s press conference, or even a central bank monetary policy committee’s meeting minutes. LLMs can then be ‘trained’ to understand economic context and sentiments leading to the integration of LLM output with traditional econometric models. Such combined models can then be used to produce powerful economic forecasts.

We seem to be moving towards a future when the finance minister’s presser or the central bank’s monetary policy statement will bring about an instantaneous change in estimates for next year’s key economic indicators, such as economic growth.

Instantaneous economic adjustments are not entirely new. A number of firms have been using ‘dynamic pricing’, when prices continually adjust to reflect real-time supply and demand conditions. This is exactly what happens when different ride-hailing apps charge a ‘peak factor’ during elevated demand, for instance, at the end of a concert.

Given the exponential rate of AI development, dynamic prices will become the norm throughout the economy. Prices will adjust 24/7 like stock prices and, coupled with LLM-based models, the economy will autonomously equilibrate as if driven by an invisible AI hand.

Instead of a central bank trying to take the economy in the direction of a neutral rate of interest, or R-star, through monetary policy, the economy will itself adjust around R-star, the interest rate at which the economy is neither overheating nor in recession. Monetary policy — and all other econo­mic policies — will become endogenous to real-time economic ground realities. In such a future with autonomous economic adjustments, who would want to place faith in the whimsical ways of finance ministers, central bankers and economists?

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The hype about AI appears a bit premature. AI is not truly intelligent in the way humans are. The much-touted LLMs are fundamentally pattern-spotting engines that cannot differentiate between what is linguistically probable and what is factually correct, leaving LLMs to ‘hallucinate’.

Human beings also hallucinate, but they can also imagine, creating counterfactual scenarios in their minds that can throw up clues about ‘unknown un-knowns’ — variables whose omission remains hidden from us, at least initially. Lacking the ability to imagine, AI has no way of discovering omitted variables.

AI also does not operate in a normative context; it neither has the ability to assign value to policy options nor the capability to carve a permissible action path. Rather, AI reinforces biases of those who design algorithms. In an offensive mistake, Google’s photo app labelled some African-Ameri­cans ‘gorillas’, leading to strong condemnation.

Bereft of a values compass, AI often behaves unexpectedly, raising doubts about whether it can be entrusted with policymaking. In the 1980s, an AI decision support engine called EURISKO sank its own slowest-moving vessel to maintain manoeuvrability in a naval wargame. AI will do what you ask, but not necessarily what you meant. What if tasked with eradicating poverty, AI decides to reduce the population of poor people instead?

Traditional economic models stand to gain much from exponential leaps in AI development. The incorporation of LLMs into economic forecasting might render economists redundant. But, due to serious issues with AI lacking ‘alignment’ with human goals and values, economists’ jobs are secure, at least for now.

WASHINGTON: Alphabet’s Google broke the law with monopolistic behaviour over online search and related advertising, a US judge ruled on Monday, the first victory for anti-trust authorities who have filed numerous lawsuits challenging Big Tech’s market dominance.

The decision is a significant win for the Justice Department, which had sued the search engine giant over its control of about 90 per cent of the online search market, and 95 per cent on smart phones.

“The court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” district judge Amit Mehta wrote.

Potential fixes

His ruling against Google paves the way for a second trial to determine potential fixes, such as breaking up the company or requiring the company to stop paying smart phone makers billions of dollars annually to set Google as the default search engine on new phones.

Ultimately, Google will have a chance to appeal the court’s rulings to a district court.

Shares of Google parent Alphabet fell 4.3 per cent on Monday as part of a broad tech share decline.

Mehta noted that Google had paid $26.3 billion in 2021 alone to ensure that its search engine is the default on smart phones and browsers, and to keep its dominant market share.

“The default is extremely valuable real estate… Even if a new entrant were positioned from a quality standpoint to bid for the default when an agreement expires, such a firm could compete only if it were prepared to pay partners billions of dollars in revenue share and make them whole for any revenue shortfalls resulting from the change,” Mehta wrote.

DUBAI: A Greek-flagged oil tanker carrying 150,000 tonnes of crude that was evacuated by its crew after being attacked in the Red Sea now poses an environmental hazard, the EU’s Red Sea naval mission “Aspides” said on Thursday.

Sounion was targeted on Wednesday by multiple projectiles off Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah, where the Houthis have been attacking ships in solidarity with Palestinians in the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

“Carrying 150,000 tonnes of crude oil, the MV Sounion now represents a navigational and environmental hazard,” Aspides said in a post on social media platform X. The Houthis, who control Yemen’s most populous regions, have not officially claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Sounion was the third vessel operated by Athens-based Delta Tankers to be attacked in the Red Sea this month. The attack caused a fire onboard, which the crew extinguished, Delta Tankers said in a statement.

The attack led to the loss of engine power, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said on Wednedsday. On, Thursday UKMTO said the vessel was at anchor and all its crew evacuated. The vessel was now anchored between Yemen and Eritrea, a maritime security source said.

Delta Tankers said it was working on a plan to move Sounion to a safer destination for further checks and repairs. The EU Red Sea naval mission said it responded to a request from the captain of the Sounion and dispatched a ship to rescue the crew to Djibouti, the Aspides said.

“While approaching the area, the EUNAVFOR ASPIDES ship destroyed an Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) that posed an imminent threat to the ship and the crew,” Aspides added.

The Greek shipping ministry said the vessel was sailing from Iraq to Agioi Theodoroi in Greece with a crew of two Russians and 23 Filipinos. In dozens of attacks in the Red Sea since November, the Houthis have sunk two vessels and seized another, killed at least three sailors and upended global trade by forcing ship owners to avoid the popular Suez Canal trade shortcut.

The Houthis’ leader Abdul Malik Al Houthi said “from this week’s

operations targeting ships violating blockade on vessels heading to Israel, a ship was adrift due to waves after it malfunctioned because of strikes”, without specifying the name of the ship.

In another incident on Thursday, a vessel reported an explosion close to it that caused minor damage after an encounter with an uncrewed vessel 57 nautical miles south of Yemen’s port of Aden, the UKMTO said. The vessel and its crew were safe and it was proceeding to its next port of call.

Greek Shipping Minister Christos Stylianidis condemned on Wednesday the attack on the Sounion, saying its was “a flagrant violation of international law and a serious threat to the safety of international shipping”.

Houthi attacks have drawn US and British retaliatory strikes.

British ambassador to Yemen Abda Sharif called the Houthi attacks “illegal and reckless”. “Another Houthi attack threatens Yemen’s coastline, fishing industry and environmental catastrophe.

Thankfully, the crew have been rescued, but MV Sounion, carrying 150,000 tonnes of oil, is now stranded,” she added in a post on X.

GABORONE: A massive 2,492-carat diamond — the second largest in the world — has been discovered in Botswana, the Canadian mining company that found the stone announced on Thursday.

The diamond was discovered in the Karowe Diamond Mine in northeastern Botswana using x-ray detection technology, Lucara Diamond Corp. said in a statement. Lucara did not give a value for the find or mention its quality. But in terms of carats, the stone is second only to the 3,016-carat Cullinan Diamond discovered in South Africa in 1905.

“We are ecstatic about the recovery of this extraordinary 2,492-carat diamond,” Lucara president William Lamb said in the statement.

Pictures released by the company show the diamond is as large as the palm of a hand. This find was “one of the largest rough diamonds ever unearthed” and was detected using the company’s Mega Diamond Recovery X-ray technology installed in 2017 to identify and preserve large, high-value diamonds, the statement said.

Tobias Kormind, managing director of Europe’s largest online diamond jeweller, 77 Diamonds, confirmed it was the largest rough diamond to be unearthed since the Cullinan Diamond, parts of which adorn Britain’s crown jewels.

“This discovery is largely thanks to newer technology that allows larger diamonds to be extracted from the ground without breaking into pieces. So we will likely see more where this came from,” he said. Botswana is one of the world’s largest producers of diamonds, its main source of income, accounting for 30 per cent of GDP and 80pc of its exports. Before the find was announced, the largest diamond discovered in Botswana was a 1,758-carat stone mined by Lucara at the Karowe mine in 2019 and named Sewelo.