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Britain’s aviation authority has asked Air India to explain how a Boeing Dreamliner passenger jet which was grounded on arrival in India for safety checks took off from London on Sunday with a possibly faulty fuel switch, a letter shows. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), in a letter to the airline dated Tuesday, warned of the possibility of regulatory action against Air India and its Boeing 787 fleet if the airline does not submit a complete response within a week. Air India said in a statement it had completed a precautionary re-inspection of the switches and found no issues, and would “respond to the UK regulator accordingly”. The CAA said in a statement that it was a standard process for a regulator to request details following “an aircraft incident and is in line with safety assurance procedures”. Fuel switches were at the centre of last year’s crash involving an Air India Dreamliner, which killed 260 people in Gujarat state and triggered tighter scrutiny of the airline. The switches regulate the flow of jet fuel into a plane’s engines. Air India said on Monday it had grounded a Boeing Dreamliner after a pilot reported a possible “defect” with the fuel control switch on the plane on landing. Boeing, which earlier said it was cooperating with Air India on the incident, did not respond to a request for comment. The Indian civil aviation watchdog later said that during the engine start in London, the crew observed the fuel control switch did not remain latched on the ‘run’ position on two occasions, but was stable on a third attempt. The crew decided to continue on to India and the regulator’s checks this week found the switches were functioning fine. The CAA, however, told Air India that it must provide “a detailed account of all maintenance actions performed to ensure the continued airworthiness of the aircraft and to support its release to service for” Bengaluru. Source link
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that nuclear negotiations with the United States were scheduled for Friday morning in Oman.Tehran has repeatedly stressed that talks should remain focused solely on the nuclear issue, rejecting negotiations over its missile programme or defence capabilities. “Nuclear talks with the United States are scheduled to be held in Muscat on about 10 am Friday,” said Araghchi in an X post on Wednesday, thanking Oman “for making all the necessary arrangements”.US news website Axios had reported that talks planned for Friday were “collapsing” over disagreements on the location and format. It later reported, however, that they were “back on” and would be held in Oman following appeals by several Middle Eastern leaders.Iranian media had reported earlier on Wednesday that Araghchi would head the Iranian delegation, which will also include senior diplomats Majid Takht-Ravanchi and Kazem Gharibabadi.US envoy Steve Witkoff was expected to represent Washington in the talks. The United States has in recent days deployed an aircraft carrier group to the Middle East following a crackdown on anti-government protests in Iran.Tehran has acknowledged more than 3,000 deaths during the unrest, which Iranian authorities said began as peaceful protests before turning into “riots” involving killings and vandalism inflamed by its arch-foes the United States and Israel.The Human Rights Activists News Agency, a US-based NGO, said it has confirmed 6,872 deaths, mostly protesters killed by security forces, with other rights groups warning the figure is likely far higher. Source link
Ukrainian and Russian officials wrapped up a “productive” first day of new US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi, Kyiv’s lead negotiator said Wednesday, as fighting in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two raged on. The two-day trilateral meetings come after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had exploited a US-backed energy truce last week to stockpile munitions, attacking Ukraine with a record number of ballistic missiles on Tuesday. “The work was substantive and productive, focused on concrete steps and practical solutions,” Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, wrote on X.Shortly after the talks began, Russian forces struck a crowded market in eastern Ukraine with cluster munitions, killing at least seven people and wounding 15, the Donetsk region’s Governor Vadym Filashkin said. Umerov said he would prepare a report for Zelensky, and talks were expected to continue on Thursday, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Photographs released earlier in the day by the United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry showed the three delegations sitting around a U-shaped table, with US officials seated at the centre, including special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump’s administration has pushed both Kyiv and Moscow to find a compromise to end the four-year-old war, but the two sides remain far apart on key points despite several rounds of talks with US officials. The most sensitive issues are Moscow’s demands that Kyiv give up land it still controls and the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, which sits in a Russian-occupied area. Moscow wants Kyiv to pull its troops out of all of the Donetsk region, including a belt of heavily fortified cities regarded as one of Ukraine’s strongest defences, as a precondition for any deal. Ukraine said the conflict should be frozen along the current front line and has rejected any unilateral pullback of its forces. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russian troops would keep fighting until Kyiv made “decisions” that could bring the war to an end. Russia currently occupies about 20% of Ukraine’s national territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region seized before the 2022 invasion. Analysts say Russia has gained about 1.5% of Ukrainian territory since early 2024. “Russia is not winning its war against Ukraine,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told online media outlet Liga on Tuesday. He argued that Moscow was paying a heavy price in termsof battlefield casualties and economic harm for small territorial advances. Polls show that the majority of Ukrainians oppose a deal that hands Moscow more land. Kyiv residents told Reuters on Wednesday they were sceptical that the new round of talks would bring any major breakthroughs. “Let’s hope that it will change (something), of course. But I don’t believe it will change anything now,” Serhii, 38, a taxi driver, told Reuters. “We will not give in, and they will not give in either.” The first round of talks was held in the UAE last month, marking the first direct public negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed their ties during a video call on Wednesday held in the run-up to the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Source link
Chinese president Xi Jinping, and US President Donald Trump. China agreed to buy more US-farmed soybeans in what President Donald Trump called a “very positive” call…
US President Donald Trump announced a trade deal to reduce tariffs on India, sending Mumbai stocks soaring Tuesday, as he said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to stop buying Russian oil over the war in Ukraine. Trump said he was cutting levies on Indian goods to 18 percent. He had previously imposed 25 percent ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on many products, plus an additional 25 percent for New Delhi's purchases of Moscow's oil. The deal eases months of tensions over India's oil purchases — which Washington says fund a conflict it is trying to end — and restores the close ties between Trump and the man he describes as ‘one of my greatestfriends.’ But while Modi thanked Trump for the ‘wonderful’ phone call and the easing of tariffs, he made no reference to Trump's assertion about halting Russian oil purchases. ‘Out of friendship and respect for Prime Minister Modi and, as per his request, effective immediately, we agreed to a Trade Deal between the United States and India,’ Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Trump said the United States would lower the reciprocal duty imposed on India during his waves of global ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs last year from 25 percent to 18 percent. A White House official told AFP that an additional 25 percent tariff Trump had slapped on India in August for its purchase of Russian oil would also be dropped. Trump added that Modi ‘agreed to stop buying Russian Oil, and to buy much more from the United States and, potentially, Venezuela. This will help END THE WAR in Ukraine.’ The United States has effectively been overseeing Venezuelan oil exports since toppling the South American country's leader, Nicolas Maduro, in a military operation in January. India had further agreed to buy more than $500 billion in US energy, tech, agricultural, coal and other products, Trump said, without giving further details. Indian investors welcomed the news, sending Mumbai's Nifty index up almost five percent at the open. Source link
People take part in a rally in support of Czech President Petr Pavel, organised by Million Moments for Democracy group in reaction to dispute between President…
Tourists queue for the chairlift at the bottom of the slopes in the small ski resort of Roccaraso in the Abruzzo region. Every weekend during the…
A second round of talks between Russian, Ukrainian and US officials on a US-drafted plan to end the nearly four-year Ukraine war will begin on Wednesday, instead of on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.Zelensky did not give a reason for the delay.The announcement comes a day after one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top envoys held surprise talks with US officials in Florida without Ukraine.”The dates for the next trilateral meetings have been set — February 4 and 5 in Abu Dhabi,” Zelensky said in a post on X.Neither the Kremlin nor the United States have confirmed the new dates.The United States says it is close to brokering a deal to end the conflict — Europe’s deadliest since World War II — but neither Moscow nor Kyiv have been able to find a compromise on the key issue of territory.Russia, which occupies around 20 percent of its neighbour, is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region as part of any deal. It has threatened to take it by force if talks fail.Ukraine has warned ceding ground will embolden Moscow and that it will not sign a deal that fails to deter Russia from invading again. Many Ukrainians find the idea of surrendering territory that their soldiers have defended for years unconscionable.The first round of talks on the US plan, held in Abu Dhabi last Friday and Saturday, failed to yield a breakthrough.A day ahead of Zelensky’s announcement, Russia’s top economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev met with US officials in Florida for separate talks on the war.Among those US officials were President Donald Trump’s peace envoy Steve Witkoff, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and White House Senior Advisor Josh Gruenbaum.”We are encouraged by this meeting that Russia is working toward securing peace in Ukraine,” Witkoff said, though neither side released details of what was discussed.Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, describing it as a “special military operation” to prevent the expansion of NATO — a war aim that Kyiv has called a pretext for an illegal land grab.The conflict has since resulted in a tidal wave of destruction that has left entire cities in ruins and tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians dead.Russian attacks on Ukraine overnight and early Sunday killed at least two people and injured seven others, regional authorities said.Among the attacks was a drone strike on a maternity hospital in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia that injured two women undergoing a medical examination, the region’s governor and rescuers said.Ukraine’s defence minister on Sunday thanked Elon Musk after the US tycoon said efforts to stop Russia from using Starlink satellites for drone attacks seemed to have worked.”The first steps are already delivering real results… Thank you for standing with us. You are a true champion of freedom and a true friend of the Ukrainian people,” said Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. Related Story Source link
US President Donald Trump said India will buy Venezuelan oil, helping to replace some of the Russian oil that the world’s third-biggest oil importer buys. “We’ve already made that deal, the concept of the deal,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he travelled to his vacation home in Florida from Washington. Reuters reported on Friday that the US has told Delhi it could soon resume purchases of Venezuelan oil to help replace imports of Russian oil, citing three people familiar with the matter. India stopped buying oil from Caracas last year after Trump in March imposed a 25% tariff on countries buying Venezuelan oil. In his comments, Trump said India would buy Venezuelan oil instead of Iranian crude. However, New Delhi stopped loading oil from Iran in 2019 due to US sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Indian refiners turned to US oil to make up for the loss of Iranian supply, then curbed US purchases and became the top buyer of Russian seaborne oil sold at a discount after Western nations imposed sanctions onMoscow for its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Trump in August doubled duties on imports from India to 50% to pressure New Delhi to stop buying Russian oil, and earlier this month said the rate could rise again if it did not curb its purchases. However, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signalled in January that the additional 25% tariff on Indian goods could be removed, given what he called a sharp reduction in Indian imports of Russian oil.The US government this week lifted some sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry to make it easier for US companies to sell its crude oil.Trump’s comments appeared to reflect continued improvement in US-India relations, which have been tense throughout the past year. Source link
India pushed manufacturing to the forefront of its budget as it prioritised sectors such as semiconductors, biopharma and renewables, but stopped short of the bold reforms sought by investors to boost investment amid rising geopolitical tensions. The absence of ambitious reforms and an increase in the transaction tax on derivatives spooked equity markets, which tumbled nearly 2% for their worst budget-day performance in six years. The Indian economy has so far weathered the 50% US tariff on some Indian goods and geopolitical flux, with gross domestic product growth expected at 7.4% in the financial year ending March 31, 2026. But foreign investors have sold a record amount of Indian equities, adding up to $22bn since last January, and the rupee has weakened sharply to all-time lows.Economists and a rating agency said that yesterday’s budget for next fiscal year lacked firepower to buoy markets and was not a “breakthrough”. “I think what we saw was a very tactical budget. It wasn’t a breakthrough kind of budget where groundbreaking kinds of measures were announced,” said Christian de Guzman, senior vice president at Moody’s Ratings.Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman cut tariffs on capital goods and doubled the budget for an electronics manufacturing scheme to Rs400bn. Sitharaman also announced foreign companies like Apple can freely provide machines to their contract manufacturers, removing any tax risk.The finance minister committed to scaling up manufacturing priorities in seven sectors including pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, rare-earth magnets, capital goods and textiles. Trideep Bhattacharya, president and CIO-Equities at Edelweiss Asset Management, said that while the budget provides some support for manufacturing, it “stopped short of the firepower that could have delivered immediate excitement to the markets”. The Nifty 50 fell 1.96% to 24,825.45, while the BSE Sensex lost 1.88% to 80,722.94. Market sentiment was also hit by a hike in the securities transaction tax by more than 50% on futures trading to 0.05% from 0.02% and to 0.15% from 0.01% on options.Indian bond and forex markets were closed yesterday.The government raised the capital spending to Rs12.2tn ($133.08bn) from the current revised estimate of about Rs11tn, in an environment where private investment remains tentative. Source link