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PARIS: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived in Rome where he will attend the funeral of Pope Francis, a Ukrainian presidential spokesman said on Saturday.
Taipei: Taiwan is prepared to talk to China as equals but it will continue to build up its defenses, the island’s President Lai Ching-te said Tuesday as he marked his first year in office.
Lai, a staunch defender of Taiwan’s sovereignty and detested by Beijing, delivered wide-ranging remarks on the need “to prepare for war to avoid war” and also bolster the island’s economic resilience.
After promising to stand up to China and defend democracy at his inauguration, Lai insisted Taiwan was “willing” to communicate with Beijing if there was “parity and dignity.”
China has rebuffed Lai’s previous offers to talk.
“Peace is priceless and there are no winners in war,” Lai said, but added “we cannot have illusions” and vowed to continue “to strengthen our national defense capabilities.”
Taiwan will “actively cooperate with international allies, shoulder to shoulder to exert the power of deterrence, to prepare for war to avoid war, and to achieve the goal of peace,” Lai told journalists at the Presidential Office.
China, which claims Taiwan is part of its territory and has threatened to use force to annex it, has held several rounds of large-scale military drills around the island since Lai took office.
Taiwan’s coast guard warned Monday that China may use “cognitive warfare” to “disrupt public morale” as Lai marks the first anniversary of his inauguration.
As Taiwan comes under pressure from Washington to move more factories to US soil and reduce their trade imbalance, Lai said Taiwan would not “put all our eggs in one basket.”
Taiwan would increase its economic resilience by diversifying markets and boosting domestic demand.
Lai also announced plans to set up a sovereign wealth fund to “boost Taiwan’s economic momentum,” but did not provide details about its size.
The president has seen his first term in the top job engulfed in domestic political turmoil as opposition parties, which control the parliament, seek to stymie his agenda.
The main opposition Kuomintang party (KMT) has called Lai a “dictator” and accused him of pushing Taiwan closer to war with China, while Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) suggests the KMT is a tool of Beijing and is undermining Taiwan’s security.
Tensions have escalated into physical fights inside parliament and thousands of supporters of the DPP and opposition parties holding rival street protests.
On Tuesday, Lai said the government wanted to “strengthen cooperation among political parties” and that his national security team would start providing “important national security briefings” to the opposition.
“On the basis of the same facts, we can exchange views frankly and sincerely, discuss national affairs, and work together to face the challenges of the country,” Lai said.
Analysts said Lai’s remarks were more restrained than in previous speeches, which have drawn criticism from Beijing.
“Lai is dialling down the messaging and keeping Taiwan’s head low to avoid getting into anybody’s crosshairs amid this geopolitical uncertainty,” Wen-Ti Sung, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, told AFP.
National Cheng Kung University politial science professor Wang Hung-jen said Lai “was careful to know when to stop.”
Lai has seen his approval rating fall to 45.9 percent from 58 percent nearly a year ago, according to a survey by Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation in April.
His disapproval rating rose to 45.7 percent — the highest since he took office — which the polling group linked to the Lai government’s handling of US tariffs on Taiwan and the DPP’s unprecedented recall campaign targeting the opposition.
DPP supporters are seeking to unseat around 30 KMT lawmakers through a legal process that allows legislators to be removed before the end of their term.
While the threshold for a successful recall is high, the DPP only needs to win six seats to wrest back control of parliament.
A rival campaign to unseat 15 DPP members has been embroiled in controversy after KMT staffers were accused of forging the signatures of dead people.
The KMT has also threatened to recall Lai.
MUMBAI: Small Indian grocery shops and major online fashion retailers are boycotting Turkish products ranging from chocolates, coffee, jams and cosmetics to clothing amid growing anger at Turkiye’s support for Pakistan in a confrontation with India.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan expressed public solidarity with Pakistan, another majority-Muslim country, after India conducted military strikes in response to a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir. Cross-border fighting continued for four days before a ceasefire was declared.,
On Monday, the All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF), which supplies 13 million mom-and-pop grocery stores, said it was launching an “indefinite and total boycott” of all Turkish-origin goods, which would affect chocolates, wafers, jams, biscuits and skincare products.
Indian fashion websites owned by Walmart-backed Flipkart and billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance have removed numerous Turkish apparel brands, according to three sources and a review of their websites
Flipkart’s fashion website Myntra removed listings of Turkish brands including Trendyol, known for women’s clothing, street and casual wear brand LC Waikiki and jeans producer Mavi, said one source with direct knowledge.
Myntra removed the brands “in the national interest” without Walmart’s involvement, a second source with direct knowledge said.
Reliance’s fashion website AJIO also removed Turkish brands, including Trendyol, Koton, LC Waikiki from its app, and many of those listings were shown as out of stock on Monday. A source cited “national sentiments” as a reason.
Flipkart, Reliance Retail and the Turkish brands Trendyol, LC Waikiki, Koton and Mavi did not respond to requests for comment.
India has not ordered companies to boycott Turkiye, and India’s annual $2.7 billion in goods imports from Turkiye are dominated by mineral fuels and precious metals.
But a consumer boycott could still be significant. AICPDF said its ban would affect around 20 billion rupees ($234 million) of food products. Apparel imports were worth $81 million last year, according to the Trading Economics reference website.
Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, chief minister of Himachal Pradesh, one of India’s biggest apple-growing states, said on Monday he would ask for a ban on apple imports from Turkiye, which were worth around $60 million last year.
Moreover, last week Flipkart said it was suspending flight, hotel and holiday package bookings to Turkiye “in solidarity with India’s national interest and sovereignty.”
Indians have been canceling holidays to Turkiye and New Delhi has canceled the security clearance of the Turkish-based aviation ground handling firm Celebi. Reuters reported on Friday that Air India was lobbying Indian officials to disallow rival
IndiGo’s leasing tie-up with Turkish Airlines, citing business impact as well as security concerns sparked by Ankara’s support for Pakistan.
Bengaluru, India: Torrential rains have swamped parts of India’s tech capital Bengaluru, killing at least one person, an official said, and exposing long-standing infrastructure failures in a city that has expanded at breakneck speed.
Rapid growth of the southern city dubbed India’s Silicon Valley has left many waterways covered over or used as dumps, leading to water stagnating every year during heavy rains.
“Storm water drains are encroached upon, the drains are shallow and small, and they are filled with silt,” chief minister of Karnataka state Siddaramaiah said late Monday.
“Instructions have been given to the municipal corporation multiple times to clear them, and work is still ongoing,” he added.
Siddaramaiah said it was a “matter of sorrow that a woman lost her life” in Bengaluru, the state capital which is home to more than 10 million people.
The Times of India newspaper reported Tuesday at least three people had died.
India is hit by torrential rains and flash floods each year during the monsoon season, and experts say climate change is increasing their frequency and severity.
When a passenger jet roaring down the runway toward takeoff at New York’s LaGuardia Airport had to slam on the brakes earlier this month because another plane was still on the runway, Renee Hoffner and all the other passengers were thrown forward in their seats.
Hoffner wound up in the emergency room the next day after the near miss on May 6 because her neck started hurting and her left arm went numb.
“The stop was as hard as any car accident I’ve been in,” Hoffner said.
Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday that they are investigating the incident in which a Republic Airways jet had to abort takeoff and slam to a stop because a United Airlines plane was still taxiing across the runway. The close call happened despite the airport being equipped with an advanced surface radar system that’s designed to help prevent such close calls.
In audio from the tower that ABC obtained from the website www.LiveATC.net, the air traffic controller said to the pilot of the Republic Airways jet: “Sorry, I thought United had cleared well before that.”
At the time that controller was directing the Republic Airways jet to takeoff, a ground controller on a different radio frequency was directing the United plane to a new taxiway after it missed the first one it was supposed to use to exit the runway.
When the passengers got off the plane after the close call at 12:35 a.m., Hoffner said the gate agents refused to even give them hotel vouchers for the night because they blamed the weather even though another passenger said she had an app on her phone that showed another plane was on the runway.
Hoffner said she’s been stuck in a customer service nightmare since the flight Republic was operating for American Airlines ended abruptly. She said neither the airline nor the FAA has answered her complaints while she continues to nurse the pinched nerve in her neck that the ER doctors identified.
Both the airlines and the airport referred questions to the FAA.
The number of close calls in recent years has created serious concerns for the FAA, NTSB and other safety experts. The NTSB’s investigation of a February 2023 close call in Austin highlighted the concerns, but there have been a number of other high-profile near misses. In one case, a Southwest Airlines jet coming in for a landing in Chicago narrowly avoided smashing into a business jet crossing the runway.
LaGuardia is one of just 35 airports across the country equipped with the FAA’s best technology to prevent such runway incursions. The ASDS-X system uses a variety of technology to help controllers track planes and vehicles on the ground. At the other 490 US airports with a control tower, air traffic controllers have to rely on more low-tech tools like a pair of binoculars to keep track of aircraft on the ground because the systems are expensive.
Expanding the systems to more airports is something Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy would like to do if Congress signs off on his multi-billion-dollar plan to overhaul the nation’s aging air traffic control system.
But it’s clear the technology is not perfect because close calls continue happening. The FAA is taking a number of additional steps to try to reduce the number of close calls, and it plans to install an additional warning system at LaGuardia in the future.
But the rate of runway incursions per 1 million takeoffs and landings has remained around 30 for a decade. The rate got as high as 35 in 2017 and 2018. But generally there are fewer than 20 of the most serious kind of incursions where a collision was narrowly avoided or there was a significant potential for a crash, according to the FAA. That number did hit 22 in 2023 but fell to just 7 last year.
To help, there are efforts to develop a system that will warn pilots directly about traffic on a runway instead of alerting the controller and relying on them to relay the warning. That could save precious seconds. But the FAA has not yet certified a system to warn pilots directly that Honeywell International has been developing for years.
The worst accident in aviation history occurred in 1977 on the Spanish island of Tenerife, when a KLM 747 began its takeoff roll while a Pan Am 747 was still on the runway; 583 people died when the planes collided in thick fog.
