Leaders’ gathering cut to just one session
Bengaluru — Nato has cut back next week’s leaders’ summit to just one working session in a bid to avoid US President Donald Trump walking out early, as he did recently at a Group of Seven (G7) meeting, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Thursday.
Nato has scaled down its plans for the event — which was originally supposed to take place over three days — to just one two-and-a-half-hour working session, the FT reported. The decision was taken to ensure Trump did not get bored and leave early, the newspaper said, citing three officials briefed on the preparations. Reuters
Regulator warned Air India over safety rules
New Delhi — India’s aviation regulator has warned Air India for breaching safety rules after three of its Airbus planes flew despite being overdue checks on emergency equipment, and for being slow to address the issue, government documents show.
The warning notices and an investigation report — both reviewed by Reuters — were not in any way related to last week’s crash of an Air India Boeing 787-8 plane that killed all but one of the 242 people aboard, and were sent days before that incident.
In the report, the directorate-general of civil aviation said spot checks in May on three Air India Airbus planes found that they were operated despite mandatory inspections being overdue on the “critical emergency equipment” of escape slides. Reuters
Airbus bags orders worth $21bn in Paris
Paris — Airbus secured more aircraft orders on Wednesday, raising its total to $21bn at this week’s subdued Paris Air Show, while rival Boeing opted not to announce new sales after last week’s Air India 787 crash.
Airbus firmed up an order for 10 long-haul jets from Taiwan’s Starlux Airlines in a boost for the European plane maker after one of its biggest customers, AirAsia, dashed expectations of another grand finale matching its earlier expansion.
Airbus won a total of 148 firm orders worth $14.2bn including six previous ones disclosed publicly for the time, plus 102 provisional orders worth $6.7bn, according to estimated delivery prices from UK-based Cirium Ascend. Reuters
Five offers for Pakistan’s national airline
Islamabad — In its efforts to sell its struggling national airline, Pakistan has received expressions of interest from five parties, including business groups and a military-backed firm, the privatisation ministry said on Thursday.
The bids were submitted ahead of a June 19 deadline to acquire up to 100% of Pakistan International Airlines , which has accumulated over $2.5bn in losses in roughly a decade. It posted its first operating profit in 21 years in the year to June 2024. The sale is seen as a test of Pakistan’s ability to shed loss-making state firms and meet conditions of a $7bn IMF bailout. Reuters
Ex-Janus Henderson analyst guilty of insider trading
London — A former Janus Henderson analyst was found guilty on Thursday of using confidential information on companies including Daimler, Jet2 and THG to profit by almost £1m.
Redinel Korfuzi, 38, was accused of using information he accessed through his job as a research analyst at the asset manager to trade using accounts held by his sister Oerta Korfuzi and two other co-defendants. They will be sentenced on July 4. Reuters
Comac signs deals with two Western suppliers
Paris — The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) signed deals with two Western suppliers for a planned twin-aisle plane at the Paris Airshow this week, signalling it still intends to use foreign parts on its jets despite US moves to restrict component exports.
In its trade war with Beijing, Washington this month restricted exports to China of some US-made aerospace parts, including engines that Comac uses on its C919 narrow-body and C909 regional jets, sources told Reuters.
State-owned Comac wants to compete internationally against Airbus and Boeing, and is seeking customers abroad and ramping up production. But its jets operate largely within China and lack certification from key foreign regulators in Europe and the US. Reuters
Ukraine and Russia exchange POWs
Kyiv — Ukraine and Russia exchanged prisoners of war (POWs) on Thursday, officials from both countries said, the latest round of swaps under an agreement struck in Istanbul.
President Volodymyr Zelensky posted images of the freed Ukrainian troops, smiling and draped in the national flag, most of whom had been held captive since the early months of Russia’s February 2022 invasion, he said. Neither Ukraine nor Russia, whose talks on ending the war have yielded few results besides the exchange of prisoners or remains, provided an exact figure of how many POWs had been exchanged. Reuters
Hurricane Erick damages Mexico’s tourist hub
Mexico City — Hurricane Erick weakened after slamming into Mexico’s southern Pacific coast as a major hurricane on Thursday, leaving a trail of damaged businesses, wrecked boats and flooded streets in the state of Oaxaca as authorities warned of risks from heavy rain.
Erick made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane. It was later downgraded to Category 1 as it moved inland. Authorities warned of heavy rains and a storm surge. Reuters
Finland to exit anti-personnel landmine treaty
Helsinki — Finland’s parliament voted on Thursday in favour of withdrawing the country from the Ottawa Convention that bans the use of anti-personnel landmines amid concerns over a military threat posed by neighbouring Russia.
Finland joins other EU and Nato members bordering Russia — Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland — in exiting or planning to exit the treaty, as fears grow about their much larger neighbour.
Russia has used landmines in its invasion of Ukraine. Reuters
Fears of continued West African cocoa supply deficit
Sao Paulo — Dry weather in Ivory Coast and Ghana and a disappointing cocoa harvest for the 2024/25 season are reinforcing fears of a fourth-consecutive supply deficit for the commodity, consultancy StoneX said on Wednesday.
The global cocoa market is grappling with high prices and limited supply amid weather-related uncertainty, particularly in West Africa, where nearly 70% of the world’s cocoa is produced, StoneX said in a statement.
Ivory Coast and Ghana account for 60% of world cocoa production and a fall in output in the two countries during the 2023/24 crop resulted in the lowest cocoa supply in the last eight years. Reuters
New Zealand cuts funds to Cook Islands over China
Wellington — New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said on Thursday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally-linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China.
A spokesperson for foreign minister Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand had decided in early June to suspend payment of NZ$18.2m ($11m) in core sector support funding for 2025-26 as this “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship”.
New Zealand and Australia have both become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific region and the potential threat it poses to their national security. In January, New Zealand also halted new development funding to the Republic of Kiribati, an island in Micronesia. Reuters
Nigeria to make millions of HIV, Malaria test kits
Lagos — Nigerian manufacturer Codix Bio Ltd plans to make millions of HIV and Malaria test kits at its new plant outside Lagos for the local and regional market to help fill gaps in the wake of cutbacks at US donor agency USAID, a company executive said.
The US, the world’s largest humanitarian aid donor, has cut funding for foreign assistance, half of which is delivered via USAID. The US support to Nigeria, which reached $740m in 2024 based on USAID data, is focused on preventing malaria and curbing HIV as well as delivering vaccines to local health centres across the country.
It is not yet clear how Nigeria will be affected by the cuts. The Nigerian government has said it will raise funds to continue some of the programmes that donors supported. Reuters
Musk’s Mars Starship explodes during testing
Bengaluru — SpaceX’s massive Starship spacecraft exploded into a dramatic fireball during testing in Texas late on Wednesday, the latest in a series of setbacks for billionaire Elon Musk’s Mars rocket programme.
The explosion occurred around 11pm local time while Starship was on a test stand at its Brownsville, Texas Starbase while preparing for the tenth test flight, SpaceX said in a post on Musk’s social-media platform X.
The company attributed it to a “major anomaly” and said all personnel were safe.
“Preliminary data suggests that a nitrogen COPV in the payload bay failed below its proof pressure,” Musk said in a post on X, in a reference to a nitrogen gas storage unit known as a Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel. Reuters
Greenland approves EU-backed critical metals project
Copenhagen — Greenland on Thursday handed a 30-year permit to a EU-backed project that aims to mine molybdenum, a critical metal used in aerospace, energy and defence and on which China has imposed export controls.
The resource-rich Arctic island has seen rising activity in its mining sector over the past month, after US President Donald Trump expressed an interest in purchasing it earlier this year.
The permit was granted to Toronto-listed Greenland Resources, a company backed by the European Raw Material Alliance, and holds the licence to the Malmbjerg project in eastern Greenland, the country’s government said in a statement.
The open pit Malmbjerg mine can produce an average 32.8-million pounds of concentrated molybdenum per year, potentially supplying about 25% of Europe’s molybdenum use, according to the company. Reuters
Ex-Sandinista officer gunned down in exile
San Jose — Former Nicaraguan military officer Roberto Samcam was killed on Thursday in Costa Rica, where he was living in exile, his wife and opposition parties said.
Samcam, a retired Sandinista major, was shot to death in his condo on the outskirts of the capital San Jose, his wife, Claudia Vargas, told Reuters.
Vargas later told local media that the attacker had presented himself as a delivery driver before shooting Samcam at least eight times, then escaping on a motorcycle. Reuters
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