LONDON: The three companies building a next generation fighter jet for the UK, Italy and Japan revealed Friday that they are forming a joint venture to deliver the aircraft.
Under the agreement, Britain’s BAE Systems, Italy’s Leonardo and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement will each own a third of the new joint venture, which will be subject to regulatory approvals.
“This agreement is the result of an intensive journey made possible by pooling our mutual and shared experiences,” said Roberto Cingolani, Leonardo’s chief executive.
The headquarters for the Global Combat Air Programme, or GCAP, will be the UK, but operations will take place in each of the partner nations. Under the terms of the agreement, the first chief executive will come from Italy.
“The new business will bring together the significant strengths and expertise of the companies involved to create an innovative organization that will lead the way in developing a next generation combat air system, creating long-term, high value and skilled jobs across the partner nations for decades to come,” said Charles Woodburn, BAE Systems’ chief executive.
The triangular-shaped jets will have supersonic capability and cutting-edge technology. Pilots will be able to use virtual reality in the aircraft’s digital cockpit, with vital information displayed directly in front of them.
The aim is that they will take to the skies by 2035.
Kimito Nakae, president of JAIEC, acknowledged that the way ahead “might not always be simple and straightforward,” but that “through continuing the strong spirit of trilateral cooperation and collaboration that we have fostered up to this point, we will not only deliver the GCAP on time but also at a level that exceeds all of our expectations.”
Companies from UK, Italy and Japan to form joint venture for new fighter jet
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Companies from UK, Italy and Japan to form joint venture for new fighter jet
- Under the agreement, Britain’s BAE Systems, Italy’s Leonardo and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement will each own a third of the new joint venture
- The headquarters for the Global Combat Air Programme will be the UK
Ukraine’s Zelensky to meet European leaders in Brussels on Wednesday
- Zelensky and some of his European allies have called for European troops to be deployed to Ukraine
- “It won’t be a meeting that has concrete decisions, but more political to discuss the coming weeks and months,” said a source
BRUSSELS: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend a meeting with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, NATO and the EU in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss support for his country in its war with Russia, sources familiar with the plan told Reuters.
The meeting comes as European countries face the possibility of the US, Ukraine’s largest source of support, changing its approach to the conflict when Donald Trump returns to the White House in January.
Zelensky and some of his European allies have called for European troops to be deployed to Ukraine to act as a deterrent to further military action by Russia after any ceasefire.
“It won’t be a meeting that has concrete decisions, but more political to discuss the coming weeks and months,” said a source familiar with the meeting.
The gathering, hosted by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, will be held on the day leaders were already due to meet for the EU-Western Balkans summit in Brussels, and involve a joint meeting and several bilateral meetings with Zelensky.
Austria offers Syrian refugees 1,000 euros to return home
- Conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Syria now needs its citizens in order to be rebuilt
VIENNA: Austria’s conservative-led government said on Friday it is offering Syrian refugees a “return bonus” of 1,000 euros ($1,050) to move back to their home country after the fall of Bashar Assad.
Conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer reacted quickly to Assad’s overthrow on Sunday, saying the same day that the security situation in Syria should be reassessed so as to allow deportations of Syrian refugees.
Deporting people against their will is not possible until it becomes clearer what direction Syria is taking. For now, Austria’s government has said it will focus on voluntary deportations. It has also stopped processing Syrians’ asylum applications, as have more than a dozen European countries.
Like many conservatives in Europe, Nehammer is under pressure from the far right, with the two groups often seeming to try to outbid each other on tough-sounding immigration policies. Syrians are the biggest group of asylum-seekers in Austria, a European Union member state.
“Austria will support Syrians who wish to return to their home country with a return bonus of 1,000 euros. The country now needs its citizens in order to be rebuilt,” Nehammer said in an English-language post on X.
How many Syrians will take up the offer remains to be seen. With national flag-carrier Austrian Airlines having suspended flights to the Middle East because of the security situation, the Austrian bonus may not even fully cover travel.
An economy class one-way ticket in a month’s time to Beirut, a common starting point for those heading overland to Damascus, currently costs at least 1,066.10 euros ($1,120.58) on Turkish Airlines, according to the company’s website.
Austria’s far-right Freedom Party came first in September’s parliamentary election with around 29 percent of the vote but, as no potential coalition partner was forthcoming, Nehammer is leading coalition talks with the Social Democrats and liberal Neos.
Europe rights watchdog criticizes Italy over migrant detention centers
- The committee visited centers in Milan, Gradisca, Potenza and Rome
- The report acknowledged that police interventions usually follow disturbances
STASBOURG, France: The Council of Europe rights body on Friday criticized Italy’s treatment of migrants in detention centers, citing police violence and the use of psychotropic drugs on detainees.
The COE’s anti-torture committee made the comments after a visit in April to four repatriation centers on mainland Italy, where migrants are held pending expulsion. Italy said some “prison elements” were necessary at the centers to prevents escapes but said in its defense that it was building new facilities.
“The report describes several cases of physical ill-treatment and excessive use of force against detained persons by police staff in the CPRs (centers) visited,” said the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
“The committee is also critical of the widespread practice of the administration of unprescribed psychotropic drugs diluted in water,” added the summary.
It called for a review of the practice of transporting people “handcuffed in a police vehicle without being offered food and water during journeys of several hours.”
There was no adequate oversight of the police working there and injuries sustained by the detainees were not accurately recorded, it noted.
The committee visited centers in Milan, Gradisca, Potenza and Rome.
At Potenza, it criticized “the widespread practice of the administration of unprescribed psychotropic drugs diluted in water to foreign nationals.”
The report acknowledged that police interventions usually follow disturbances.
But this was “a direct consequence of the disproportionate security restrictions, the lack of individual risk assessments of foreign nationals, and the fact that detained persons were in effect provided with nothing to occupy their time,” it argued.
People can be detained at such centers for up to 18 months while the judicial process for expulsion is completed.
The committee noted the jail-like design and layout of the centers — including triple-metal mesh screens and cage-like outdoor facilities — recommending that such elements be removed.
The food for detainees was poor and there was a lack of toiletries, it added.
The committee also raised questions about Italy’s attempts to hold foreigners at Italian-run centers in Albania, a controversial initiative that Italy’s courts last month referred to the European Court of Justice.
Rome should ensure that any detainees the centers received proper treatment and lived in decent conditions, said the committee.
In its response, Italy said the prison-elements could not be removed as that would only lead to “increased escapes from the centers and episodes of vandalism.”
But it was building new facilities that would comply with European guidelines, it added.
Police paid the “utmost attention” to the training of staff at such centers, it said.
France’s Macron names veteran centrist ally Bayrou as prime minister
- The priority for Francois Bayrou, a close Macron ally, will be passing a special law to roll over the 2024 budget
- Parliamentary pushback over the 2025 bill led to the downfall of former Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron named Francois Bayrou as his fourth prime minister of 2024 on Friday, tasking the veteran centrist with steering the country out of its second major political crisis in the last six months.
The priority for Bayrou, a close Macron ally, will be passing a special law to roll over the 2024 budget, with a nastier battle over the 2025 legislation looming early next year. Parliamentary pushback over the 2025 bill led to the downfall of former Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government.
Bayrou, 73, is expected to put forward his list of ministers in the coming days, but will likely face the same existential difficulties as Barnier in steering legislation through a hung parliament comprising three warring blocs. His proximity to the deeply unpopular Macron will also prove a vulnerability.
Jordan Bardella, the president of the far-right National Rally party, said they would not be calling for an immediate no-confidence motion against Bayrou.
France’s festering political malaise has raised doubts about whether Macron will complete his second presidential term, which ends in 2027. It has also lifted French borrowing costs and left a power vacuum in the heart of Europe, just as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House.
Macron spent the days after Barnier’s ouster speaking to leaders from the conservatives to the Communists, seeking to lock in support for Bayrou. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and the hard-left France Unbowed were excluded.
Any involvement of the Socialist Party in a coalition may cost Macron in next year’s budget.
“Now we will see how many billions the support of the Socialist Party will cost,” a government adviser said on Friday.
NO LEGISLATIVE ELECTION BEFORE SUMMER
Macron will hope Bayrou can stave off no-confidence votes until at least July, when France will be able to hold a new parliamentary election, but his own future as president will inevitably be questioned if the government should fall again.
Bayrou, the founder of the Democratic Movement (MoDem) party which has been a part of Macron’s ruling alliance since 2017, has himself run for president three times, leaning on his rural roots as the longtime mayor of the south-western town of Pau.
Macron appointed Bayrou as justice minister in 2017 but he resigned only weeks later amid an investigation into his party’s alleged fraudulent employment of parliamentary assistants. He was cleared of fraud charges this year.
Bayrou’s first real test will come early in the new year when lawmakers need to pass a belt-tightening 2025 budget bill.
However, the fragmented nature of the National Assembly, rendered nigh-on ungovernable after Macron’s June snap election, means Bayrou will likely be living day-to-day, at the mercy of the president’s opponents, for the foreseeable future.
Barnier’s budget bill, which aimed for 60 billion euros in savings to assuage investors increasingly concerned by France’s 6 percent deficit, was deemed too miserly by the far-right and left, and the government’s failure to find a way out of the gridlock has seen French borrowing costs push higher still.
India celebrates Gukesh Dommaraju’s historic win as youngest world chess champ
- Gukesh Dommaraju defeated titleholder Ding Liren at the World Chess Championship
- Dommaraju is four years younger than Garry Kasparov was when he won his first title
NEW DELHI: Gukesh Dommaraju’s historic win at the World Chess Championship marks the “beginning of a new era” for the game in India, his country’s chess federation said on Friday, as declarations of pride poured in from across his homeland.
Dommaraju, an 18-year-old from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, became the world’s youngest chess champion on Thursday, after defeating titleholder Ding Liren of China — 14 years his senior — in Singapore.
“It’s the beginning of a new era of chess in our country,” Nitin Narang, president of the All India Chess Federation, told Arab News. “It’s an incredible feat and what Gukesh has brought to our nation is a moment of pride for 1.4 billion Indians ... I think this is going to catalyze the new generation of chess players in India.”
Narang was with Dommaraju and his father and coach during the championship.
“It was surreal, and I was so emotional to see how he hugged his dad and how he hugged his coach. For me, that was the peak of the entire championship,” he said.
The Indian teenager snatched victory in the final contest of their three-week match when Ding made a blunder. Video footage from the game showed Dommaraju beaming with excitement as he spotted it.
“When I realized it, it was probably the best moment of my life,” Gukesh told reporters. “I’ve been dreaming about this moment for more than 10 years.”
He is bringing home the most prestigious chess title and the $1.35 million winner’s share of the $2.5 million championship prize fund.
At the age of 12, Dommaraju became the third-youngest grandmaster in the history of chess. He is the second Indian to win the World Chess Championship after Viswanathan Anand, who won it five times, and who became the first grandmaster from India in 1988.
Anand, also a Tamil Nadu native, has played a vital role in mentoring Dommaraju at his chess academy in Chennai.
“It’s a proud moment for chess, a proud moment for India, a proud moment for WACA (WestBridge Anand Chess Academy), and for me, a very personal moment of pride,” Anand wrote on X, as congratulations and declarations of pride poured in from across India and abroad.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Dommaraju on his “remarkable accomplishment” and posted on X that “his triumph has not only etched his name in the annals of chess history but has also inspired millions of young minds to dream big and pursue excellence.”
India’s president, Draupadi Murmu, said the win “stamps the authority of India as a chess powerhouse.”
At 18, Dommaraju is four years younger than the Russian legend Garry Kasparov was when he won the title in 1985.
In a series of posts on X, Kasparov said: “Gukesh impressively surmounted every obstacle and opponent in his path, especially considering his age” and that his victory “caps a phenomenal year for India.”
In September, Dommaraju won a team gold and an individual gold medal at the 45th Chess Olympiad in Hungary, where India’s women’s team also claimed gold.
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