Category: z-Exclude

Serbia is close to signing a deal on the purchase of 12 French Rafale multi-purpose fighter jets, the Serbian president announced Tuesday, in what would mark a shift from its traditional military supplier Russia. President Aleksandar Vucic spoke during his two-day visit to Paris and talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as well as French defense officials including Rafale manufacturer…

  LONDON – Blackstone is nearing a deal to take L’Occitane International private, according to people familiar with the matter, potentially ending the global cosmetics and skincare giant’s 14-year run on Hong Kong’s stock exchange. The private equity firm may team up with L’Occitane’s billionaire owner Reinold Geiger for the buyout, said one of the people. An announcement could come…

Gold fell on April 8 after closing at a record high last week, as investors weigh a strong US jobs report that saw traders unwinding bets for steep US Federal Reserve rate cuts in 2024. The precious metal fell as much as 1.2 per cent in early Asian hours, pressured by a rise in Treasury yields after US payrolls rose…

  SYDNEY – Qantas Airways will make millions more seats available for frequent flyers, but passengers will need to use more loyalty points to secure their tickets, as chief executive officer Vanessa Hudson overhauls a model that had increasingly frustrated customers. Frequent flyer members will have access to 20 million new seats for travel over a 12-month booking window, the…

  Shell and Saudi Aramco, which are competing to buy the assets of Temasek-owned liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading firm Pavilion Energy, are now locked in price negotiations after completing the due diligence process, three sources with knowledge of the matter said. The potential sale comes a decade after the Singapore state investment firm set up Pavilion Energy to focus…

Boeing’s latest 737 Max crisis has worsened an airline shortage of popular narrowbody aircraft, sending the cost of used-jet rentals to the highest level in years.  The US planemaker has slowed production of its bestselling model to address quality lapses tied to a near-disaster on a 737 Max 9 in January. With Airbus also struggling to lift output, available planes…

The Palestinian Authority (PA), the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people, has taken the first steps in requesting an official vote of approval on its United Nations membership status, a letter from the body’s UN representative revealed on Tuesday. Based on documents seen by wire service AFP, the PA’s UN liaison, Riyad Mansour, penned a letter to Secretary-General Antonio…

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The bodies of six foreign aid workers killed in a series of Israeli strikes were transported out of the Gaza Strip and into Egypt on Wednesday ahead of their repatriation, Egypt’s state-run Qahera TV reported. The deadly strikes have renewed criticism of Israel’s conduct in the nearly six-monthlong war with Hamas, and highlighted the perilous…

NEW YORK – US office vacancies hit a fresh peak in the first quarter as needs continue to evolve with hybrid work set-ups. Vacancies rose to a record 19.8 per cent, Moody’s Analytics said in a preliminary report on April 1, from 19.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023. Despite the increase, the firm said that the early…

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon said Wednesday it is pouring an additional $2.75 billion into Anthropic, bringing its total investment in the artificial intelligence startup to $4 billion. Amazon will maintain a minority stake in San Francisco-based Anthropic, a rival of ChatGPT maker OpenAI. “Generative AI is poised to be the most transformational technology of our time, and we believe…

LONDON (AP) — Farmers drove dozens of tractors in a slow-motion convoy towards Britain’s Parliament on Monday to protest post- Brexit rules and trade deals that they say are endangering livelihoods and food security. Supporters of the campaign groups Save British Farming and Fairness for Farmers of Kent drove from southeast England and through southern districts of the capital, bound…

The American plane maker has been under intense pressure since early January, when a panel blew off a brand-new Alaska Airlines 737 Max midflight. That’s spotlighted a lengthy series of safety and manufacturing problems that have piled up for Boeing over the years — including two devastating crashes that also involved Max jets. Leadership shakeups have arrived amid this turmoil,…

The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, Russian Oleg Novitsky and Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus reached the space outpost after Saturday’s blastoff from the Russian-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan that followed an aborted launch attempt two days earlier. Thursday’s attempted launch was halted by an automatic safety system about 20 seconds before the scheduled liftoff. Roscosmos and…

  MUMBAI – India’s inequality gap has widened sharply under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade in power, with the richest 1 per cent of the population now owning 40 per cent of the country’s wealth, a new study found. The top 1 per cent, or about 9.2 million people, earn 22.6 per cent of total income – the highest share…

The heads of leading U.S. airlines want to meet with Boeing and hear the aircraft manufacturer’s strategy for fixing quality-control problems that have gained attention since a panel blew out of an Alaska Airlines jetliner in January, people familiar with the situation said Thursday. The meeting is likely to take place next week, according to a person who spoke on…

SINGAPORE – Mr Mikkel Larsen, chief executive officer of Singapore’s Climate Impact X (CIX), a carbon credit exchange and marketplace, has announced his resignation, CIX said in a statement on March 21. Mr Larsen, 49, will remain in his role until a new or interim CEO is appointed. He will continue to serve as a member of CIX’s board thereafter,…