KATHMANDU: Ambe Mobiles Pvt Ltd, the authorised national distributor for Lava smartphones in Nepal, has introduced Lava Iris X8 in the market. The Iris X8 is the latest offering from Lava smartphone and boasts of being loaded with excellent features like five-inch HD display, 2 RAM 16GB internal memory, Octa-core 1.4GHz Cortex-A7 processor, 3 MP front camera and 8 MP back camera and a memory slot that can be expanded up to 32GB, as per a press statement issued on Friday. The handset is priced at Rs 16,490. — HNS

US unemployment

WASHINGTON: The US unemployment rate held steady at 5.3 per cent in July, a seven-year low, while job growth sputtered, Labour Department data released on Friday showed. The US economy added 215,000 jobs last month, down from an upwardly revised 231,000 in June, previously reported at 223,000. That job growth was weaker than expected, with analysts’ consensus estimate at 229,000, while the unchanged jobless rate matched expectations. The economy’s modest pace of job creation in July came in well below the three-month average of 235,000. — AFP

German exports fall

BERLIN: Germany’s industrial output fell 1.4 per cent and exports from Europe’s top economy dropped by one per cent in June from the previous month, data showed on Friday. Many German companies are struggling with China’s slowdown and recent volatility over the Greece crisis, despite the benefits of a low euro, cheap oil and rock-bottom interest rates. “Overall, today’s data is a setback for the German economy and bodes ill for second-quarter real GDP growth,” said Natixis bank, which revised down its forecast to 0.4 per cent GDP growth quarter-on-quarter. — AFP

EU extends safety net

BRUSSELS: The EU has extended for a year a series of measures to help its farmers cope with a Russian ban on their produce. The move comes a day after Russian authorities steamrollered tonnes of cheese and destroyed fruits in a show of commitment to the ban. Phil Hogan, EU’s top farm official, said on Friday that ‘we need to continue to provide a safety net to give security to producers’. The measures help farmers to sell or store some produce they would previously have exported to Russia. — AP