Analysis-Jet orders boom as airlines fear shortage

By Tim Hepher PARIS (Reuters) – Planemakers can’t build them but airlines can’t stop buying them. Even as they wrestle with industrial problems preventing the delivery of jets sold before the pandemic, Airbus and Boeing are totting up billions of dollars of new orders stretching beyond 2030 amid a rebound in air travel. From Air…

Read More

With UK food price inflation at 46-year high, lawmakers launch probe

By James Davey LONDON (Reuters) – British lawmakers launched an investigation on Friday into the fairness of the country’s food supply chain, seeking to understand why households are facing the highest levels of food price inflation since the 1970s. The cross-party Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee of the House of Commons, the lower…

Read More

Rights watchdog denounces Italy immigration law as ‘inhumane’

ROME (Reuters) – A new Italian law that narrows asylum rights in an effort to dissuade migrants from heading to Italy is repressive and inhumane, a leading rights watchdog said on Friday. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s nationalist government drew up the legislation after a shipwreck off southern Italy in February that killed more than 90…

Read More

Embattled Thai PM Prayuth fights to stay on in vote on Sunday

By Panu Wongcha-um and Panarat Thepgumpanat BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand’s embattled Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha is lagging behind the opposition in polls ahead of Sunday’s general election but electoral rules written by his former military junta mean the retired army chief can’t be counted out. Prayuth, 69, who first came to office in a 2014…

Read More

Investors buckle up for pivotal Turkey elections

By Marc Jones and Canan Sevgili LONDON (Reuters) -Wild currency moves? Bazooka rate hikes? The many unknowns around Turkey’s pivotal elections on Sunday are leaving even the most experienced investors hedging their bets on how markets will react. The presidential vote, which could well require two rounds, is pitting President Tayyip Erdogan’s vision of a…

Read More

Factbox-Pakistan anti-graft agency that arrested Imran Khan has wide powers

By Asif Shahzad (Reuters) – Created by military dictator late General Pervez Musharraf and currently headed by a retired general, Pakistan’s powerful anti-graft agency that arrested former prime minister Imran Khan in a land fraud case has a mandate to end corruption in the country. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has investigated, tried and jailed…

Read More

Hong Kong Q1 GDP grew 2.7% y/y, sees tourism, consumption driving recovery this year

HONG KONG (Reuters) -Hong Kong’s economy grew 2.7% in the first quarter from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday, thanks to a strong recovery of inbound tourism and domestic demand which would remain drivers for growth this year. It was the first quarter of growth after four consecutive ones of contraction. The city’s…

Read More

Ukraine’s anti-graft prosecutor says rule of law trumps trophy convictions

By Dan Peleschuk KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s crackdown on corruption has raised eyebrows in recent months by going after respected former technocrats who helped repair the country after the political upheaval of 2014. Chief anti-corruption prosecutor Oleksandr Klymenko is aware of public pressure to put more prominent names or current officials behind bars. But he…

Read More