Aurelia Butler

Telegram, particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union, is ranked as one of the major social media platforms after Facebook (NASDAQ:META), YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Wechat. It aims to hit one billion users in the next year. Based in Dubai, Telegram was founded by Russian-born Durov. He left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he sold.Durov was travelling aboard his private jet, TF1 said on its website, adding he had been targeted by an arrest warrant in France as part of a preliminary police investigation.TF1 and BFM both said the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators on Telegram, and that police considered that this situation allowed criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app.Telegram did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The French Interior Ministry and police had no comment.After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram has become the main source of unfiltered – and sometimes graphic and misleading – content from both sides about the war and the politics surrounding the conflict.The app has become preferred means of communications for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his officials. The Kremlin and the Russian government also use it to disseminate their news. It has also become one of the few places where Russians can access news about the war. TF1 said Durov had been travelling from Azerbaijan and was arrested at around 20:00 (18:00 GMT). Durov, whose fortune was estimated by Forbes at $15.5 billion, said some governments had sought to pressure him but the app, which has now 900 million active users, should remain a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics”.Russia’s embassy in France told the Russian state TASS news agency that it was not contacted by Durov’s team after the reports of the arrest, but it was taking “immediate” steps to clarify the situation. Russia’s representative to international organisations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, and several other Russian politicians were quick to accuse France of acting as a dictatorship.”Some naive persons still don’t understand that if they play more or less visible role in international information space it is not safe for them to visit countries which move towards much more totalitarian societies,” Ulyanov wrote on X.Several Russian bloggers called for protests at French embassies throughout the world at noon on Sunday. More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Two NASA astronauts who flew to the International Space Station in June aboard Boeing (NYSE:BA)’s faulty Starliner capsule will need to return to Earth on a SpaceX vehicle early next year, NASA officials said on Saturday, deeming issues with Starliner’s propulsion system too risky to carry its first crew home as planned.Veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, both former military test pilots, became the first crew to ride Starliner on June 5 when they were launched to the ISS for what was expected to be an eight-day test mission.But Starliner’s propulsion system suffered a series of glitches in the first 24 hours of its flight to the ISS that has so far kept the astronauts on the station for 79 days as Boeing scrambled to investigate the issues.NASA officials told reporters during a news conference in Houston that Wilmore and Williams, both former military test pilots, are safe and prepared to stay even longer. They will use their extra time to conduct science experiments alongside the station’s other seven astronauts, NASA said.In a rare reshuffling of NASA’s astronaut operations, the two astronauts are now expected to return in February 2025 on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft due to launch next month as part of a routine astronaut rotation mission. Two of the Crew Dragon’s four astronaut seats will be kept empty for Wilmore and Williams.The agency’s decision, tapping Boeing’s top space rival to return the astronauts, is one of NASA’s most consequential in years. Boeing had hoped its Starliner test mission would redeem the troubled program after years of development problems and over $1.6 billion in budget overruns since 2016.Five of Starliner’s 28 thrusters failed during flight and it sprang several leaks of helium, which is used to pressurize the thrusters. It was still able to dock with the station, a football field-sized laboratory that has housed rotating crews of astronauts for over two decades.NASA said in a statement Starliner will undock from the ISS without a crew in “early September.” The spacecraft will attempt to return to Earth autonomously, forgoing a core test objective of having a crew present and in control for the return trip.”I know this is not the decision we had hoped for, but we stand ready to carry out the action’s necessary to support NASA’s decision,” Boeing’s Starliner chief Mark Nappi told employees in an email.”The focus remains first and foremost on ensuring the safety of the crew and spacecraft,” Nappi said.Several senior NASA officials and Boeing representatives made the decision during a Saturday morning meeting in Houston.NASA’s space operations chief Ken Bowersox said agency officials unanimously voted for Crew Dragon to bring the astronauts home. Boeing voted for Starliner, which it said was safe. Nelson told reporters at a news conference in Houston that he discussed the agency’s decision with Boeing’s new CEO Kelly Ortberg and was confident Boeing would continue its Starliner program. Nelson said he was “100 percent” certain the spacecraft would fly another crew in the future.”He expressed to me an intention that they will continue to work the problems once Starliner is back safely,” Nelson said of Ortberg.Boeing struggled for years to develop Starliner, a gumdrop-shaped capsule designed to compete with Crew Dragon as a second U.S. option for sending astronaut crews to and from Earth’s orbit. The company is also struggling with quality issues on production of commercial planes, its most important products.Starliner failed a 2019 test to launch to the ISS uncrewed, but mostly succeeded in a 2022 do-over attempt where it also encountered thruster problems. Its June mission with its first crew was required before NASA can certify the capsule for routine flights, but now Starliner’s crew certification path is uncertain.The drawn-out mission has cost Boeing $125 million, securities filings show. The company arranged tests and simulations on Earth to gather data that it has used to try and convince NASA officials that Starliner is safe to fly the crew back home.But results from that testing raised more difficult engineering questions and ultimately failed to quell NASA officials’ concerns about Starliner’s thrusters and its ability to make a crewed return trip, the most daunting and complex part of the test mission.”There was just too much uncertainty in the prediction of the thrusters,” NASA’s commercial crew program chief Steve Stich told reporters.Starliner’s now-uncertain path to receiving a long-sought NASA certification will add to the crises faced by Ortberg, who started this month with the goal to rebuild the planemaker’s reputation after a door panel dramatically blew off a 737 MAX passenger jet in midair in January. More

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Keir Starmer will warn Britons next week that the changes needed to fix Britain’s many problems will take time, saying “things will get worse before we get better” in a speech he describes as a chance to level with the public.After being elected as prime minister at a July landslide election, Starmer has repeatedly blamed the former Conservative government for leaving Britain in a parlous state, something he said allowed “thugs” to spark this month’s anti-migrant riots.In a speech due on Tuesday, a week before Britain’s parliament returns to work after a summer break, Starmer will say that “change won’t happen overnight” but that his government is determined to tackle a multitude of problems ranging from overflowing prisons to long waiting lists for health services.”I said change would not happen overnight. When there is rot deep in the heart of a structure, you can’t just cover it up. You can’t tinker with it or rely on quick fixes. You have to overhaul the entire thing,” Starmer will say, according to excerpts of his speech provided by his office.”We have inherited not just an economic black hole but a societal black hole and that is why we have to take action and do things differently. Part of that is being honest with people about the choices we face and how tough this will be. Frankly, things will get worse before we get better.”Starmer, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, was forced to cancel his summer holiday this month to tackle riots that targeted Muslims and migrants. The riots began after the killings of three young girls in northern England was wrongly blamed on an Islamist migrant based on online misinformation.Starmer said the Conservative government’s failure to tackle problems had widened cracks in society making it harder to deal with rioters than when he was Britain’s top prosecutor from 2008 to 2013.”And those people throwing rocks, torching cars, making threats, they didn’t just know the system was broken. They were betting on it, they were gaming it, they saw the cracks in our society after 14 years of populism and failure and they exploited them. That’s what we have inherited,” he will say.Appealing to what he calls Britain’s working people such as teachers, nurses, small business owners and firefighters, Starmer will say his government has taken the “first steps towards the change people voted for” on July 4.But he will say the poor state of Britain’s public finances – which his finance minister says are on course to show a 22 billion pound ($29 billion) overspend this year – mean his government will have to make tough decisions.”If we don’t take tough action across the board, we won’t be able to fix the foundations of the country like we need,” he will say. “I won’t shy away from making unpopular decisions now if it’s the right thing for the country in the long term. That’s what a government of service means.” ($1 = 0.7571 pounds) More

JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming (Reuters) -Brazil’s central bank chief said on Saturday that discussing monetary policy transmission will become increasingly difficult without addressing fiscal issues, citing the growing burden of public debt driven by expanded government spending.Speaking at the Kansas City Federal Reserve’s annual economic conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Roberto Campos Neto stressed that income transfer programs implemented during the pandemic are now larger and have become permanent.In Brazil, 50 million people are “gaining money from the government compared to 43 million people who are employees and entrepreneurs,” he added. Without directly mentioning President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government, he said, “We need to think about accurate strategy and understand the efficiency of these government programs, especially in emerging market countries, and what that did to the debt.” “I think we need to start communicating better the misallocation of resources.”In July, Brazilian policymakers kept the Selic benchmark interest rate unchanged at 10.5% for the second consecutive time but toughened their rhetoric, citing the need for “even greater caution” and “diligent monitoring of inflation conditioning factors.”In the minutes of the decision, the central bank said it was closely monitoring how recent fiscal developments impact monetary policy and financial assets, amid market concerns that Lula’s leftist government will not eliminate its primary deficit this year and next as promised under new fiscal rules, due to increasing expenditures.”We need to address the debt in factoring the dynamics of the markets from now on, and unfortunately, it’s going to be very difficult to talk about the (monetary policy) transmission without talking a little bit more about the fiscal,” said Campos Neto, whose term ends in December. He said that recent volatility may be showing the market is pricing in less room for fiscal and monetary intervention in the future.Speaking about China’s deceleration, he said this could impact Brazil through terms of a trade shock or lower import prices for Chinese goods, though the net effect would depend on how big the slowdown is.Central bankers from around the world flew into Jackson Hole this week to attend what has become the globe’s premier economic gathering, the annual symposium in Grand Teton National Park.The panel Campos Neto spoke on discussed monetary transmission, or exactly how much effect interest rate movements have on economic activity. His remarks followed recent communication efforts by rate-setting members of the Brazilian central bank to emphasize that they remain united, considering all options for the upcoming Sept. 17-18 policy decision including a rate increase if necessary. Campos Neto and other central bank directors have highlighted that there is no set guidance for the future, a stance they described as data-dependent.Annual inflation in Brazil reached 4.5% in July, drifting further away from the 3% official target, which has a tolerance band of 1.5 percentage points in either direction.Interest rate futures are pricing an over 80% chance of a rate hike next month, which, if confirmed, would occur as the U.S. Fed readies monetary loosening. More

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The ECB cut interest rates for the first time in June after a record string of hikes, and policymakers are widely expected to cut again on Sept. 12, taking the deposit rate to 3.5%, a level that remains high enough to put a brake on growth.”My interim assessment of the effectiveness of ECB monetary policy … is that there has been good progress in delivering the overriding goal,” Lane told the U.S. Federal Reserve’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole. But Lane also cautioned against premature celebration since projections put price growth back at 2% only at the end of 2025.”The return to target is not yet secure,” said Lane, the key architect of the ECB’s policy responses. “The monetary stance will have to remain in restrictive territory for as long as needed to shepherd the disinflation process toward a timely return to the target.”Markets expect the ECB to cut rates at least in September and December, and some investors are also betting on a move in October on the premise that the growth outlook is deteriorating quickly and the bank will be keen to support the labour market.Without commenting on policy in the near term, Lane also warned against keeping policy excessively tight for too long, as that could depress growth and weaken the labour market.”A rate path that is too high for too long would deliver chronically below-target inflation over the medium term and would be inefficient in terms of minimising the side effects on output and employment,” Lane said. More

The Modi government has been forced to reassess the current pension system, adopted after a significant fiscal reform in 2004, as some states switched back to the older, fiscally straining system of fully funding a guaranteed pension.The Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) for India’s over two million federal government employees is set to be implemented from April 1, 2025, said Ashwini Vaishnaw, a cabinet minister.He said it will ensure 50% of the base salary drawn during the last 12 months before retirement as a pension for government employees who complete a minimum of 25 years of service. The current National Pension Scheme requires employees to contribute 10% of their base salary and the government 14%. The eventual payout depends on the market returns on that corpus, which is mostly invested in federal debt.Trade unions and opposition parties have been advocating for a guaranteed minimum pension for government employees, and it was a major political issue in the recent general elections.The financial implication of the UPS on the government exchequer is expected to be about 62.5 billion rupees ($745 million) in the fiscal year 2024-25, with the annual cost varying each year depending on the number of retiring employees, the minister said. More