India and the United States have pledged to strengthen defense and trade ties in the first high-level US visit since Prime Minister Modi’s election win. The national security advisers of both countries met to discuss increasing cooperation on critical emerging technologies and strategic trade. The focus is on funding research in areas like semiconductor manufacturing, clean energy, and machine learning, as well as the possible co-production of land warfare systems. The visit comes amidst growing concerns over China’s activities in the Indo-Pacific region. However, ties have faced challenges following allegations of Indian government officials’ involvement in an assassination plot in the US. Indian, US officials are working to address these issues and enhance bilateral relations further.
South Korean Doctors Launch Nationwide Walkout Over Medical School Spots
The largest lobby group for doctors in South Korea has called for a nationwide walkout to protest the government’s decision to increase medical school seats. Approximately 20,000 doctors are expected to participate in the street protest near parliament in Seoul. While medical facilities and emergency rooms will remain open, there may be strains on the healthcare system due to reduced staffing. Despite the government’s plans to order community hospitals to resume work, 4% of these hospitals have reported closures in response to the labor action. President Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration aims to increase medical school enrollments by 1,500 slots next year to address the severe doctor shortage in the country. The walkout, ongoing since February, highlights concerns about fundamental issues within the healthcare system, such as physician shortages in certain specialties and geographic areas, alongside challenges in malpractice regulations and physicians’ earning power. Amidst public and patient concerns, some organizations have urged doctors to end the walkouts, emphasizing the need for stable healthcare services. Despite government efforts to mitigate the impacts of the labor action, including deploying military doctors to civilian facilities, the dispute continues as doctors push for more significant changes to address systemic issues within the healthcare sector.
Boeing CEO Faces Grilling in Senate Over Safety Concerns, US
U.S. lawmakers are expected to press Boeing’s chief executive Tuesday about the company’s latest plan to fix its manufacturing problems, and relatives of people who died in two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jetliners plan to be in the room, watching him.
CEO David Calhoun is scheduled to appear before the Senate investigations subcommittee, which is chaired by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a Boeing critic.
The hearing will mark the first appearance before Congress by Calhoun – or any other high-ranking Boeing official – since a panel blew out of a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. No one was seriously injured in the incident, but it raised fresh concerns about the company’s best-selling commercial aircraft.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are conducting separate investigations.
From the beginning, we took responsibility and cooperated transparently with the NTSB and the FAA, Calhoun said in remarks prepared for the hearing. He defended the company´s safety culture.
Our culture is far from perfect, but we are taking action and making progress, Calhoun said in the prepared remarks. We are taking comprehensive action today to strengthen safety and quality.
Blumenthal has heard that before, when Boeing was reeling from deadly Max crashes in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia.
Five years ago, Boeing made a promise to overhaul its safety practices and culture. That promise proved empty, and the American people deserve an explanation, Blumenthal said when he announced the hearing. He called Calhoun’s testimony a necessary step for Boeing to regain public trust.
Calhoun’s appearance also was scheduled to take place as the Justice Department considers whether to prosecute Boeing for violating terms of a settlement following the fatal crashes.
The company says it has gotten the message. Boeing says it has slowed production, encouraged employees to report safety concerns, stopped assembly lines for a day to let workers talk about safety, and it appointed a retired Navy admiral to lead a quality review. Late last month, it delivered an improvement plan ordered by the FAA.
The drumbeat of bad news for Boeing goes on, however.
In the past week, the FAA said it was investigating how falsely documented titanium parts got into Boeing’s supply chain, and federal officials examined substantial damage to a Southwest Airlines 737 Max after an unusual mid-flight control issue.
Boeing disclosed that it hasn’t received a single order for a new Max – previously its best-selling plane – in two months.
Blumenthal first asked Calhoun to appear before the Senate subcommittee after a whistleblower, a Boeing quality engineer, claimed that manufacturing mistakes were raising safety risks on two of the biggest Boeing planes, the 787 Dreamliner and the 777. He said the company needed to explain why the public should be confident about Boeing´s work.
Boeing pushed back against the whistleblower’s claims, saying that extensive testing and inspections showed none of the problems that the engineer had predicted.
Calhoun announced in late March that he would retire at the end of the year. The head of the company´s commercial-airplanes unit resigned the day of Calhoun’s announcement.
Families of people who died in the Boeing Max crash in Ethiopia plan to attend Tuesday’s hearing on Capitol Hill. They have pressed the Justice Department repeatedly to prosecute Boeing.
We will not rest until we see justice., said Zipporah Kuria, whose father died in the crash. She said the U.S. government should hold Boeing and its corporate executives criminally responsible for the deaths of 346 people.
The Justice Department determined last month that Boeing violated a 2021 settlement that shielded the company from prosecution for fraud for allegedly misleading regulators who approved the 737 Max. A top department official said Boeing failed to make changes to detect and prevent future violations of anti-fraud laws.
Prosecutors have until July 7 to decide what to do next.
Macau Sees 50% Surge in Tourist Arrivals to Exceed 14 Million in 2024, Macao
The Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) has reported a remarkable recovery in the city’s tourism sector, with the number of tourist arrivals in the first five months of 2024 exceeding 14 million, which is a year-on-year increase of approximately 50%.
According to MGTO director Helena de Senna Fernandes, the daily average of visitors during this period was over 93,000, reaching 82.5% of the same period in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic. The data indicates that mainland Chinese tourists accounted for 9.9 million of the total arrivals, or 81% of the pre-pandemic level.
Visitors from Hong Kong have recovered to 97.1% of 2019 levels, while the number of tourists from Taiwan, at 324,000, has reached 73.4% of pre-Covid levels. The number of overseas visitors, a key focus for the SAR’s tourism authorities, reached 978,000, a 1.75-fold increase year-on-year, representing almost 67% of the same period in 2019.
RBA Set to Hold Interest Rate Amid Strong Inflation – Sydney, Australia
Australia expected to keep key interest rate at 12-year high today
SYDNEY: Australia’s central bank will likely hold its key interest rate at a 12-year high today as it tries to restrain consumer prices that have been underpinned by an ultra-tight employment market.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will keep the cash rate at 4.35% for a fifth straight meeting, economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted.
The decision will be released in Sydney, followed by governor Michele Bullock’s press conference.
Australia’s policy meeting follows a highly-anticipated decision by the US Federal Reserve last week, when chairman Jerome Powell signalled he wasn’t in a rush to ease monetary policy even after a soft inflation report.
Bullock is likely to draw on the same playbook by retaining her mild hawkish bias in acknowledgment of sticky consumer prices.
Bullock has retained maximum policy optionality this year, and said she needs to be confident that price growth is moving sustainably back to the 2% to 3% target and as a result the board isn’t ruling anything in or out.
The central bank forecasts inflation will only return to target late next year, an extended timeframe as it tries to hold onto post-pandemic job gains.
We expect the RBA to comfortably maintain its somewhat hawkish hold stance, said Carl Ang, a Singapore-based fixed income analyst at MFS Investment.
Looking ahead, we think RBA rate cuts from early 2025 onwards strike the balance between supporting growth and controlling inflation, thus helping mitigate the risk of recession.
That’s in line with most economists and money market pricing.
The board is likely to consider the option of a rate hike given the stronger-than-expected April inflation data, said economist James McIntyre.
We still think the next rate move will be a cut, but the RBA is unlikely to start easing until later in the second half of 2024.
Since the RBA’s last meeting, data indicate that Australia’s economy has slowed markedly, with the gross domestic product contracting on a per-person basis, while tepid retail sales reflect downbeat consumer sentiment.
Stubborn inflation and high borrowing costs are largely to blame.
At the same time, the labour market remains tight with unemployment at 4%, giving policymakers optimism that they can engineer a soft landing.
An unambiguously strong jobs report has further strengthened our conviction in higher-for-longer, said Micaela Fuchila of Bank of America Corp.
While the labour market is still in great shape, the economy has continued to weaken.
‘The bank will focus on the impact of financial policy on growth and employment before thinking of easing, in our view.
Government income tax cuts and cost-of-living rebates on power bills to Australia’s 10.4 million households will begin on July 1.
Bullock expects consumers will either save the extra cash or put it towards mortgage repayments, rather than spending.
She doesn’t anticipate the stimulus will have a material impact on the RBA’s inflation forecasts.
Tech jobs on remote Japanese island combat rural decline
MINAMITANE, Japan — About 1,000 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, where the East China Sea meets the Pacific Ocean, an island offers a test bed for how Japan might combat the rural decline and depopulation stalking it — if it can create tech jobs that retain young people and attract immigrants.
Tanegashima, closer to Shanghai and Seoul than Tokyo, has fewer than 30,000 people and is best known as the home of Japan’s answer to Cape Canaveral, the rocket launch center of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The next launch is scheduled for June 30.
State-owned Indian Banks Outshine Private Sector Peers in Efficiency Study
Public sector banks in India are more efficient than their private sector peers, according to a study by the country’s biggest state-owned lender. The study measures efficiency by assessing how well banks utilize resources to generate output at an optimal scale. In the relative performance of individual banks over the full sample period from FY06-23, SBI leads among public sector banks with a score of nearly 98%, followed by Union Bank of India at 92.5%. In the private sector, HDFC Bank tops the list with a score of nearly 98%, followed by Axis Bank at 94.4%.
PSBs have generally been more efficient than private banks except during FY19-23, likely due to mergers and rationalization of business, branches, and employees, the study showed. Despite numerous structural changes, PSBs have operated at an efficiency level of 82.8%, compared to 81.2% for all scheduled commercial banks, 79.6% for private banks and 78.2% for foreign banks.
Man Killed in Pickup Truck Crash Into Tree in Brentwood, California, US
A pickup truck slammed into a tree on a rural road in an unincorporated part of the city, killing a man early Sunday, authorities said. The wreck about 1:10 a.m. on Sunset Road, west of Sellers Avenue, involved a brown pickup truck, according to a statement from the California Highway Patrol. The driver was its only occupant. He died while in an ambulance on the way to a hospital, the CHP said. Authorities did not identify him immediately on Monday, pending notification of relatives. According to the CHP, the truck’s driver was going west when he veered left across the eastbound lanes. The truck left the roadway and crashed head-on into a tree on the south side of Sunset Road. An autopsy will determine if the man had a medical event before the crash, or whether there was some other cause. The CHP asked anyone who may have seen the crash or the truck in the moments leading up to it to contact their Contra Costa County office at 925-646-4980.
Mayor and Citizens Thwart Armed Intruder at Eid Celebration in France’s Bonneuil-sur-Marne
French Mayor, Residents Neutralize Armed Man Targeting Eid al-Adha Celebration
Rabat – Mayor Denis Öztorun and local residents of France’s Bonneuil-sur-Marne Denis intervened to neutralize an armed man who disrupted an Eid celebration attended by 2,000 people in the local gymnasium on Sunday morning.
According to French media reports, the incident occurred on June 16, during the Muslim festival of Eid Al Adha, when the man carrying a firearm entered the gymnasium filled with men, women, and children.
Mayor Öztorun, who was visiting the celebration to extend his greetings, along with several brave citizens, managed to confront and subdue the intruder.
The individual was quickly handed over to the police. Although there were two minor injuries among the individuals who intervened, the intervention ensured that the situation resulted in more fear than harm, according to officials. In a statement released shortly after the incident, Mayor Öztorun emphasized the importance of not jumping to conclusions.
He urged the public to avoid any unhealthy speculation while the authorities conduct a thorough investigation to determine the intruder’s motive.
He also called for unity, stressing the need to uphold the values of fraternity, solidarity, and peace while dealing with the crisis.
British Arms Export Licences to Israel Plummet During Gaza Conflict, UK
LONDON – Britain’s approval of arms export licenses to Israel dropped sharply after the start of the war in Gaza, with the value of permits granted for the sale of military equipment to its ally falling by more than 95% to a 13-year low.
The figures, which have not previously been reported, are based on information provided by government officials to Reuters and data from the Department for Business and Trade’s Export Control unit.
The United States and Germany increased arms sales to Israel after the start of the war with Hamas.
However, the value of British-approved licenses between Oct. 7 and Dec. 31 last year dropped to 859,381 pounds ($1.09 million), government officials told Reuters. That is the lowest figure for the period between Oct. 7 and Dec. 31 since 2010.
This compares with the government approving 20 million pounds of arms sales to Israel for the same period in 2022, including small arms ammunition and components for combat aircraft, according to government data.
In the same period in 2017, the government approved 185 million pounds in arms sales to Israel, including components for tanks and surface-to-air missiles, the data shows, the highest figure for the period in publicly available data going back to 2008.
Unlike the U.S., Britain’s government does not give arms directly to Israel but rather issues licenses for companies to sell weapons, with input from lawyers on whether they comply with international law.
Many of the licenses approved in the period after the start of the war in Gaza were for items listed for commercial use or non-lethal items such as body armor, military helmets or all-wheel drive vehicles with ballistic protection.
Reuters could not establish if the fall in the value of approved licenses for Israel was because of a decision by Britain to restrict the sale of certain items, or because there was a drop in demand from Israel.
The Department for Business and Trade, which is responsible for approving the export licenses, and the Foreign Office declined to comment. Israel’s embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment.
Israel’s conflict in Gaza was triggered when Hamas fighters charged into Israel on Oct. 7 and killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s subsequent bombardment and invasion of Gaza has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave.
Members of Britain’s parliament and human rights groups have criticized the government for the lack of public information about arms sales to Israel since the start of the conflict.
Some countries such as Italy, Canada and the Netherlands have imposed restrictions on arms exports to Israel because of concerns about how the weapons could be used.
While Germany approved arms exports to Israel worth 326 million euros last year, 10 times more than in 2022, the volume of approvals fell to around 10 million euros in the first quarter of this year.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been one of Europe’s strongest advocates of Israel’s right to respond with overwhelming force against Hamas.
He has resisted calls to halt arms transfers to Israel but has said the government adheres to a very careful licensing regime.
Britain is expected to provide information about arms sales to Israel in the first half of this year in the coming months.
The government has in the past blocked arms sales to Israel, such as in 2009 when it revoked some licenses, and in 1982 when there was a formal restriction after the invasion of Lebanon.
