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UPS said Friday that it had grounded its fleet of MD-11 cargo planes, after one of them was involved in a deadly crash in Kentucky this week.A McDonnell Douglas MD-11 aircraft exploded into flames when it crashed shortly after departing on Tuesday, killing at least 14 people. A three-person crew was aboard.Delivery giant FedEx has also grounded its fleet of MD-11s while it conducts a safety review, according to US media reports. The company did not immediately reply to an AFP request for confirmation.”Out of an abundance of caution and in the interest of safety, we have made the decision to temporarily ground our MD-11 fleet,” UPS said.”The grounding is effective immediately. We made this decision proactively at the recommendation of the aircraft manufacturer,” the courier added.The company said it had contingency plans in place “to ensure we can continue to deliver reliable service.”Around nine percent of UPS’s fleet are MD-11s, according to the company.Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said earlier that another crash victim had been located, bringing the total number to 14.”Please pray for these families, the Louisville community and everyone affected by this terrible event,” he said on X.- Trail of debris -The plane, filled with some 38,000 gallons of fuel for the long-haul flight to Hawaii, narrowly missed a major Ford vehicle assembly plant that employs some 3,000 people.Aerial footage of the crash site showed a long trail of debris as firefighters blasted water on the flames, with smoke billowing from the area.Investigators have said the accident was caused by one of the engines catching fire and detaching during takeoff.Todd Inman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said this week that investigators had identified the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder — known as a plane’s black boxes — and would send them to Washington for analysis.The crash was reportedly the deadliest in UPS history. Its main hub, Worldport, is in Louisville, where it employs thousands of people.According to the NTSB, the plane was built in 1991 and was modified into a cargo aircraft. McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing in 1997. The crash comes amid the longest government shutdown in US history, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warning this week of “mass chaos” in the skies due to a lack of air traffic control staff.Inman said the NTSB was not aware of any staff shortages at Louisville’s airport at the time of the crash.

President Donald Trump said no US officials would attend the G20 summit in South Africa, reviving debunked claims of white Afrikaners being systematically “killed and slaughtered” in the country.Trump had announced in September that Vice President JD Vance would travel to the meeting later this month instead of him, but has now said that US representatives will skip it entirely.”It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.”No U.S. Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue.”Trump said that Afrikaners — descendants of the first European settlers of South Africa — “are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated.”He added that he looked forward to hosting the 2026 G20 summit in the United States — which the billionaire US president will controversially hold at his own golf resort in Miami, Florida.The South African foreign ministry called Trump’s comments “regrettable” and said it was looking forward to hosting a “successful” summit set for November 22-23.”The characterisation of Afrikaners as an exclusively white group is ahistorical. Furthermore, the claim that this community faces persecution is not substantiated by fact,” it said in a statement. Pretoria chose “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability” as the theme for its G20 presidency but has faced some resistance, including from Washington.”South Africa’s focus remains on its positive global contributions,” the foreign ministry said.”Drawing on our own journey from racial and ethnic division to democracy, our nation is uniquely positioned to champion within the G20 a future of genuine solidarity.”- ‘White genocide’ -Trump has singled out South Africa for harsh treatment on a number of issues since he returned to the White House in January, most notably on his false claims of a “white genocide” in the country.He ambushed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval office earlier this year, playing a video in which he alleged a campaign against white farmers by the post-apartheid government. South Africa’s government denies any such policy.Trump’s administration announced plans last week to drastically cut back the number of refugees to be accepted annually by the United States to a record low of 7,500 — and give priority to white South Africans.The two countries have also fallen out over issues including South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice, the UN’s top court.Trump has meanwhile slapped 30 percent tariffs on South Africa, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa.

US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday.Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies in October after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine.But while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for special treatment. As they heaped praise on each other, Trump said he was considering an exemption because landlocked Hungary had to rely on pipelines that made it dependent on Russian oil and gas.”As you know they don’t have the advantage of having sea,” Trump told reporters.Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said after the meeting that Washington had granted a “full and unlimited exemption from sanctions on oil and gas.”But a White House official told AFP that Hungary’s exemption was only for one year. Hungary had meanwhile committed to purchasing US liquified natural gas worth around $600 million, the official said.- ‘Miracle’ -The Hungarian prime minister has maintained close ties with both Moscow and Washington, while often bucking the rest of the EU on pressuring Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.Orban offered to host a summit in Budapest between Trump and Putin, although the US leader called it off in October and hit Moscow with sanctions for the first time in his presidency.At the White House, Orban pressed his case that Russian energy was vital for Hungary.”Pipeline is not an ideological or political issue. It’s a physical reality because we don’t have port(s),” Orban said.Washington has given firms who work with Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil one month to cut ties or face secondary sanctions, which would deny them access to US banks, traders, shippers and insurers.Orban also said it would take a “miracle” for Ukraine to beat Moscow, underscoring the gulf between him and other European leaders on the war.- ‘Respect Hungary’ -Trump meanwhile wholeheartedly backed Orban on the touchstone issue of migration, saying that the Hungarian’s European Union counterparts should show him more respect.Orban has long thumbed his nose at the EU over migration. He has also refused to send military aid to Ukraine and opposes Kyiv’s EU bid, and has had frequent run-ins with Brussels on the rule of law and other issues.”I think they should respect Hungary and respect this leader very, very strongly because he’s been right on immigration,” Trump told reporters.Trump, who has carried out a sweeping crackdown on immigration at home, again alleged a link between migrants and crime, which is not backed up by statistics in the United States.Orban visited his “dear friend” Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida three times last year, but the US president’s return to power has had a mixed effect on Hungary.Washington has withdrawn sanctions against top Orban aide Antal Rogan and restored the country’s status in a visa waiver scheme.But Trump’s tariffs against the European Union have hit Hungary’s export-oriented car industry hard, contributing to an already weak economy.Experts said the meeting with the US president was expected to give at least a “symbolic” win to Orban, who faces an unprecedented challenge to his 15-year rule ahead of elections next spring amid economic stagnation.

The United States and Israel on Friday accused Iran of trying to kill Israel’s ambassador to Mexico, with Tehran rejecting the claim as a “big lie” and the Mexican government saying it was unaware of the plot.The purported assassination attempt came as tensions soared to new highs between Israel and Iran, which have each attacked the other’s territory.Israel said Mexican authorities had intervened to stop the attempt to kill its ambassador, Einat Kranz-Neiger, but Mexico’s foreign ministry later said it had “received no information” on the alleged incident.Without naming the United States or Israel, Mexico’s Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection, which oversees intelligence, said it was open to “respectful and coordinated cooperation, always within the framework of national sovereignty, with all security agencies that request it.”Kranz-Neiger, when asked by Mexican media about the conflicting statements, said she was “unaware of the reasons” of Mexico’s denial.”Those who acted to neutralize this threat were the Mexican security and intelligence authorities,” she told Radio Formula.Iran’s embassy in Mexico meanwhile called the alleged plot “a great big lie.”The objective “is to damage the friendly and historic relations between both countries (Mexico and Iran), which we categorically reject,” the embassy in Mexico posted on X.Mexico historically seeks non-intervention in international affairs and has taken a more cautious stance on the Gaza war than other leftist-led Latin American countries.Mexico has backed an investigation into allegations of Israeli war crimes but has also maintained diplomatic relations with Israel, which were established decades ago and have been largely cordial.- Alleged Venezuela connection -A US official said the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force initiated the plot in late 2024 and that it was disrupted this year.The plot allegedly included recruiting operatives out of Iran’s embassy in Venezuela, whose leftist president, Nicolas Maduro, has a tactical alliance with Tehran.”This is just the latest in a long history of Iran’s global lethal targeting of diplomats, journalists, dissidents and anyone who disagrees with them, something that should deeply worry every country where there is an Iranian presence,” the US official said on condition of anonymity.The official did not provide detailed evidence or say how the plot was contained.The alleged plot would have taken place after Israel’s April 1, 2024 attack on the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus, then a close ally of Tehran. The attack killed several top Revolutionary Guards officers and prompted vows of revenge by Tehran, which fired missiles and drones against Israel.A year later Israel carried out a much more extensive bombing campaign in Iran, which killed more than 1,000 people. The United States, Israel’s main ally, joined by bombing key sites of Iran’s contested nuclear program.Iran’s cleric-run state has been a critical supporter of Hamas, the armed Palestinian militant group in Gaza that carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.Israel responded with a relentless campaign that has left most of Gaza in rubble and expanded its military offensive across the region, hitting Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Qatar and Yemen.Israeli intelligence has accused the Quds Force of plotting against Israeli and Jewish targets overseas.Australia expelled Iran’s ambassador over what it said was Iranian involvement in two arson attacks — against a synagogue in Melbourne and a kosher restaurant in Sydney.Latin America is not a stranger to violence linked to the Middle East. A bombing at a Jewish center in 1994 in Buenos Aires killed 85 people, with Argentina and Israel saying it was carried out by Lebanese militant group Hezbollah at the request of Iran.Iran remains home to a historic Jewish community despite the hostility to Israel by the cleric-run government that took power with the 1979 Islamic revolution.

In a week when the US Democratic Party finally showed some signs of life after a year of flatlining, one man proved he was already the picture of political health: Gavin Newsom.The telegenic governor of California took another big step towards cementing his place as de facto leader of America’s opposition — and the presumed frontrunner in the race to be the party’s White House nominee in 2028.California voted by a thumping majority to redraw congressional districts in Democrats’ favor, approving Newsom’s plan to counter similar gerrymandering that President Donald Trump ordered in Texas.The move aimed to level the playing field for the 2026 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to wrestle control of the House of Representatives from a Republican majority they say has done nothing to check a burgeoning White House powergrab.Newsom wasted no time urging other Democratic-led states to follow suit.”We need to see other states, their remarkable leaders that have been doing remarkable things, meet this moment head on as well,” he said moments after polls closed Tuesday, as the two-to-one margin of victory became clear. “We can de facto end Donald Trump’s presidency as we know it” should Democrats reclaim the House next year, Newsom added. “It is all on the line.”While there were big Democratic wins in New York’s mayoral contest and governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, Newsom’s gambit — and its potential national ramifications — was balm to a party that has floundered since being trounced in last year’s election.Getting the California redistricting vote off the ground in just a few months, then winning so handily — albeit in a Democratic-leaning state — left some party members impressed.”It shows that he can get stuff done,” Christale Spain, chairwoman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, told The New York Times.”Democrats want somebody to fight back. He’s pushing back and fighting back.”- ‘Light years ahead’ – Newsom, 58, is no party shoo-in for 2028, in part because he hails from a state Republicans love to knock as a bastion of progressive “wokeness.”And several Democratic luminaries are believed to be in the presidential mix, including multiple fellow governors: Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer and JB Pritzker of Illinois, who like Newsom has punched back fiercely against Trump’s immigration crackdowns.But few politicians have undergone the kind of evolution that Newsom experienced in 2025.Days after Trump was sworn into office in January, the governor welcomed him to California, where devastating wildfires had torched swathes of Los Angeles, killing dozens of people and leaving thousands more homeless.While the two men’s enmity was never completely hidden, Newsom at least appeared to try a bipartisan hug that would keep the mercurial president involved in the costly recovery.At the same time, Newsom was inviting MAGA movement figures like Steve Bannon onto his personal podcast, hoping to reach the hard-right voters that almost instinctively detest him.But when Trump refused to engage and returned to bashing California, the governor switched methods and started hitting back.His social media accounts began mimicking the president’s all-caps hyperbole, mocking Trump’s boastfulness and his peculiar writing style.The turn delighted Democrats — and got attention nationwide.Then when immigration raids in Los Angeles sparked demonstrations that Trump met with a military deployment, Newsom doubled down.”What we’re witnessing is not law enforcement — it’s authoritarianism,” he said in June. “What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty. Your silence. To be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him.”Newsom now routinely warns that Trump is a danger to Americans — while continuing to mock the thin-skinned president; a governor’s release Friday on the defunding of food assistance showed Trump’s face superimposed on a portrait of Marie Antoinette.Newsom is betting that kind of in-your-face pushback is just what Democrats want.Strategist Matt Rodriguez told Cal Matters the governor was “light years ahead of everyone else” in the race for the 2028 Democratic Party nomination.”He’s the only one driving his own news,” he said. “Everyone else is like a moth to flame.”

US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban an exemption from sanctions to keep buying Russian oil on Friday, as the right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting.As Orban and Trump heaped praise on each other, the Hungarian nationalist said it would take a “miracle” for Ukraine to beat Moscow, underscoring the gulf between him and other European leaders on the war.Trump meanwhile wholeheartedly backed Orban on the touchstone issue of migration, saying that the Hungarian’s European Union counterparts should show him more respect.Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto hailed what he called the “major outcome” of the meeting, Orban’s first at the White House since Trump returned to power in January.”The United States has granted Hungary a full and unlimited exemption from sanctions on oil and gas. We are grateful for this decision, which guarantees Hungary’s energy security,” Szijjarto said on X.Trump had earlier said he would consider giving landlocked Hungary a pass because it has to rely on pipelines, leaving it heavily dependent on Russia despite EU efforts to wean it off.”As you know they don’t have the advantage of having sea,” Trump told reporters.- Canceled summit -Orban, who has often bucked the rest of the EU on pressuring Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, pressed his case that Russian energy was vital for his country.”Pipeline is not an ideological or political issue. It’s a physical reality because we don’t have port(s),” Orban said.Hungary — the closest ally in the European Union of both Trump and the Kremlin — has also offered to host a summit in Budapest between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.Trump called off the summit in October amid growing frustration with Putin’s refusal to end his invasion of Ukraine, and slapped Russia’s two biggest oil companies with sanctions.Washington has given firms who work with Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil one month to cut ties or face secondary sanctions, which would deny them access to US banks, traders, shippers and insurers.- ‘Respect this leader’ -Experts say the meeting with the US president was expected to give at least a “symbolic” win to Orban, who faces an unprecedented challenge to his 15-year rule ahead of elections next spring amid economic stagnation.Trump told European Union leaders to show more respect to Orban, who has thumbed his nose at them over migration.”I think they should respect Hungary and respect this leader very, very strongly because he’s been right on immigration,” Trump told reporters.Trump, who has carried out a sweeping crackdown on immigration at home, again alleged a link between migrants and crime, which is not backed up by statistics in the United States.Orban visited his “dear friend” Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida three times last year, but the US president’s return to power has had a mixed effect on Hungary.Washington has withdrawn sanctions against top Orban aide Antal Rogan and restored the country’s status in a visa waiver scheme.But Trump’s tariffs against the European Union have hit Hungary’s export-oriented car industry hard, contributing to an already weak economy.Daniel Hegedus, central Europe director at the German Marshall Fund (GMF), had predicted that Trump would show some flexibility on Orban’s request on the oil sanctions.”I expect Trump will give a victory to Orban that he can sell at home and strengthens his position, as the administration actively supports political forces that divide the EU,” he said.Orban — who has refused to send military aid to Ukraine and opposes Kyiv’s EU bid — has had frequent run-ins with Brussels on the rule of law and other issues.burs-dk/des

More than 1,000 flights were canceled across the United States on Friday after the Trump administration ordered reductions to ease strain on air traffic controllers working without pay amid a federal government shutdown.Forty airports were slated for the cuts, including major hubs in Atlanta, Newark, Denver, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles.With Republicans and Democrats in a bitter standoff, particularly over health insurance subsidies, federal agencies have been grinding to halt since funding lapsed on October 1.Many government employees, including vital airport staff, are either working without pay or furloughed at home, waiting for the now nearly six-week crisis to end.The flight reductions are taking effect gradually, starting at four percent and rising to 10 percent next week if Congress still hasn’t reached a funding deal.More than 1,000 flights scheduled for Friday were canceled, according to tracking website FlightAware.The most affected airports late Friday were Reagan National in Washington, Denver International and Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, according to data analyzed by AFP.According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), travelers at Reagan National were seeing average delays of four hours, with 90-minute waits in Phoenix and one hour delays in Chicago and San Francisco.”This is frustrating. We don’t need to be in this position,” American Airlines CEO Robert Isom told CNBC.The upheaval means ordinary Americans are now directly feeling the impacts of the Washington budget fight that has shut down much of the government.US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed Democrats for the shutdown, saying they should vote to reopen the government.”If Democrats are going to go home this weekend, and they’ve kept the government shut down, that’s shameful,” Duffy told reporters at Reagan National Airport.In a post on Truth Social, President Donald Trump on Friday also called on Senate lawmakers to remain in Washington until an agreement to end the shutdown.Republicans control Congress, but Democrats have said they will refuse to sign off on the majority party’s budget plans, including severe healthcare cuts.- ‘Hurting people’ -The flight reduction measures come as the country enters its busiest travel time of the year, with the Thanksgiving holiday just weeks away.”This will get serious if things drag on to Thanksgiving,” retiree Werner Buchi told AFP at New York’s LaGuardia airport as he waited for his daughter to arrive on a flight from Wilmington, North Carolina.Rhonda, 65 — who arrived at LaGuardia without a hitch from Portland, Maine — worried about holiday plans “that could be ruined because people won’t talk to each other. This is hurting a lot of people,” she said.American Airlines said in a statement that its scheduled reduction amounted to 220 flight cancellations each day.Delta Air Lines said it was cutting about 170 flights scheduled for Friday, while broadcaster CNN reported Southwest Airlines axed around 100 flights set for that day.More than 6,800 US flights were delayed Thursday with some 200 cancellations, FlightAware data showed, with passengers facing long lines at security checkpoints.- ‘Safe to fly’ -The Trump administration sought to reassure people that flying remains safe.”It’s safe to fly today, tomorrow, and the day after because of the proactive actions we are taking,” Duffy said on social media late Thursday.But many in high-stress aviation-related jobs are now calling in sick and potentially working second jobs to pay their bills.

James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose reputation was tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died aged 97.The eminent American biologist died Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, said the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson went down as among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 discovery of the double helix, a breakthrough made with research partner Francis Crick.Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, Watson shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for their momentous work that gave rise to modern biology and opened the door to insights including on genetic code and protein synthesis.That ushered in a new era of modern life, allowing for revolutionary technologies in medicine, forensics and genetics, like criminal DNA testing or genetically manipulated plants.Watson was just 25 when he joined in on one of science’s greatest discoveries. He later went on to do groundbreaking work in cancer research and mapping the human genome. His 1968 memoir “The Double Helix” was a best-seller praised for its breezy writing about fierce competition in the name of scientific advancement. But on a personal level Watson was known as at best cantankerous and frank, at worst mean and bigoted.He routinely disparaged female scientists, including Rosalind Franklin, whose work on X-ray diffraction images of DNA offered the clue that made Watson and Crick’s modeling possible.Franklin, who worked with Wilkins, did not receive the Nobel. She died in 1958, and the prestigious prize is neither shared by more than three people nor given posthumously. Watson faced few consequences for his behavior until 2007 when he told a newspaper he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really.”He apologized — but was swiftly removed as his lab’s chancellor and his public image never recovered.- ‘Twisting ladder’ -Born on April 6, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, at the aqe of 15 James Dewey Watson won a scholarship to the University of Chicago.He received a Ph.D. in zoology in 1950 from Indiana University Bloomington, and embarked on an academic path that took him to European universities including Cambridge, where he met Crick and began a historic partnership.Working with X-ray images obtained by Franklin and Wilkins, researchers at King’s College in London, Watson and Crick started parsing out the double helix.Their first serious effort came up short.But their second attempt — an image of Franklin’s proved key, and the duo had it without her knowledge — resulted in Watson and Crick presenting the double-helical configuration.The now iconic depiction resembles a twisting ladder.Their model also showed how the DNA molecule could duplicate itself,  answering a fundamental question in the field of genetics.Watson and Crick published their findings in the British journal “Nature” in 1953 to great acclaim.Watson taught at Harvard for 15 years before becoming director of what today is known as the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which he transformed into a global hub of molecular biology research.From 1988 to 1992, Watson was one of the directors of the Human Genome Project at the National Institutes of Health, where he oversaw the mapping of the genes in the human chromosomes.He shared two sons, Rufus and Duncan, with his wife Elizabeth.And he received honorary degrees from dozens of universities, wrote many books and was heavily decorated. Jeff Goldblum played him in a BBC-produced film about the double helix.On Friday his former lab commended his “extraordinary contributions.”But the institution had ultimately severed ties with the scientist, including stripping him of his emeritus status — in a PBS documentary that aired in 2019, Watson once again made “reprehensible” remarks.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Friday that Earth can no longer sustain humanity’s dependence on fossil fuels, and warned the climate fight could be lost without a rapid transition to cleaner energy.The leftist leader spoke at a summit in the Brazilian Amazon where heads of state and government implored nations to start weaning themselves off the coal, oil and gas responsible for most planet-warming emissions.Evidence of dangerous warming has never been clearer: the last decade has been the hottest on record, marked by intensifying hurricanes, heatwaves and wildfires.Lula said tackling the urgent question over the future of energy would determine “success or failure in the battle against climate change.””Earth can no longer sustain the development model based on the intensive use of fossil fuels that has prevailed over the past 200 years,” he said in Belem, where an annual UN climate conference dubbed COP 30 kicks off next week.It comes two years after the world’s nations agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels.”Brazil is hoping for a roadmap towards this goal, but has faced resistance.Mexico’s Environment Secretary Alicia Barcena told AFP that “setting a specific date for the elimination of fossil fuels is always problematic because there are still many oil-producing countries.”It is very difficult to get everyone to agree to eliminate them by 2030, for example. But it can be proposed as a long-term goal,” she said.Lula is presiding over the climate negotiations just weeks after his government approved new oil drilling in the Amazon region.Rwanda’s environment minister Bernadette Arakwiye stressed that countries face a stark choice.”We can continue with incremental progress while the planet burns, or we can rise to meet the scale of this crisis,” she said.- Luxury flight tax -A shadow has been cast over the talks by the absence of leaders of the world’s biggest polluters — including the United States, whose President Donald Trump has dismissed climate science as a “con job” — but it has also catalyzed calls for greater mobilization.France, Spain and Kenya are among a group of countries spearheading a drive for a new tax on luxury air travel, rooted in the idea that premium flyers should pay more for their outsized contribution to global warming.”It is only fair that those who have more and pollute more should pay their fair share,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told the summit. The initiative is sure to face headwinds from the aviation sector, responsible for about 2.5 percent of the world’s carbon emissions.- Roadmap support -Climate change has slipped down the agenda as nations grapple with economic pressures, trade disputes, wars, and the Trump administration’s aggressive push for more fossil fuels.Brazil has won support for a new fund to save the world’s forests, quickly raking in over $5 billion in pledges to reward tropical countries for not chopping down carbon-absorbing trees.The world remains off track to keep end-of-century global warming below 1.5C compared to pre-industrial levels. It is the primary target of the Paris Agreement struck in 2015, and deemed necessary to avert the worst catastrophes of climate destabilization.A coalition of hundreds of NGOs representing the interests of women, Indigenous peoples, workers, small-scale farmers and other disadvantaged communities was unimpressed by what world leaders brought to the two-day summit.”The national plans of rich countries are not talking at all about a commitment they made two years ago… to move away from this brutal and cannibalistic fossil fuel economy,” said Jacobo Ocharan of Climate Action Network International, an NGO network that is part of an alternative so-called People’s Summit.”Nor have we seen absolutely anything regarding climate financing, financing that reaches the populations suffering from this climate crisis,” he told reporters in Belem.UN climate chief Simon Stiell stressed that, 10 years on from the Paris deal, global cooperation was delivering results.”Without that act of collective courage, we would still be heading for an impossible future of unchecked heating, of up to five degrees,” he said. “Because of it, the curve has bent below 3C — still perilous, but proof that climate cooperation works.”burs-np/ia/des/mlr/des

Stock markets mostly retreated Friday as the prolonged US government shutdown dragged on investor sentiment, along with worries about an AI bubble dismissed by President Donald Trump.Large tech names that have propelled major US equity indices to repeat records throughout 2025 were under pressure most of the day, although some big names inched into positive territory late in the session.US stocks finished Friday’s session mixed, with the Dow and S&P 500 narrowly positive, while the Nasdaq ended lower.But equity markets have hit resistance in recent days amid concerns that stocks are overvalued and doubts over tens of billions of dollars in new AI investments that have been announced.The worries include that “data centers might not be profitable in the near future.” said Tom Cahill of Ventura Wealth Management, who also emphasized the drag from the record-length government shutdown.”There are several data points that suggest that the labor market is really cooling and with all the uncertainty around the government shutdown and tariffs, that’s probably going to continue to weigh on hiring,” Cahill said.But Trump on Friday rejected talk of any AI bubble.”No, I love AI. I think it’s going to be very helpful,” Trump said in response to an AFP reporter about whether there is an AI bubble.”It’s truly going to be the future, and we’re leading the world.”US stocks got a boost late in the session on a revised offer from Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer that could end the shutdown, although leading Republicans quickly rejected the proposal.Investors have pointed to the shutdown as a source of unease because of the lack of government data. But analysts said there is also rising worry about the economic impact as well.”The longer this lasts the more damage it does,” said Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management.”We’re at the point where investors are starting to realize it is causing real damage.”The shutdown is denting consumer sentiment, according to a University of Michigan survey that showed a decline in November compared with October.”With the federal government shutdown dragging on for over a month, consumers are now expressing worries about potential negative consequences for the economy,” said surveys director Joanne Hsu.The University of Michigan data came a day after a report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed US layoffs hit the highest level in 22 years last month.Investors have been forced to use private data as a guide to the state of the world’s biggest economy because of the lack of official data.The shutdown also forced the cancelation of hundreds of flights on Friday after Trump’s administration ordered reductions to ease the strain on air traffic controllers who are working without paMarkets were also pressured by official data showing China’s exports fell in October for the first time in eight months as trade tensions flared in the weeks before Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump reached a detente.London’s top-tier FTSE 100 index was dragged down by double-digit falls in the share prices of online property business Rightmove and British Airways owner IAG following earnings updates that undershot market expectations.- Key figures at around 2115 GMT -New York – Dow: UP 0.2 percent at 46,987.10 (close)New York – S&P 500: UP 0.1 percent at 6,728.80 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: DOWN 0.2 percent at 23,004.54 (close)London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.6 percent at 9,682.57 (close)Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 0.2 percent at 7,950.18 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 0.7 percent at 23,569.96 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 1.2 percent at 50,276.37 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.9 percent at 26,241.83 (close)Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.3 percent at 3,997.56 (close)Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1563 from $1.1547 on ThursdayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3160 from $1.3137Dollar/yen: UP at 153.46 yen from 153.06 yenEuro/pound: DOWN at 87.86 pence from 87.90 penceBrent North Sea Crude: UP 0.4 percent at $63.63 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: UP 0.5 percent at $59.75 per barrelburs-jmb/des