TGIF and welcome to the end of the first working week of summer. Here’s your summary of global business and political news.
First up, Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in India to talk trade and deals with counterpart Narendra Modi.
Putin wants new deals on Russian oil, missiles, and jets but he also wants broader business links that go beyond energy and defence equipment, the ABC reported.
The two-day visit is expected to focus heavily on trade. Russia wants to import more Indian goods to balance bilateral trade that is currently heavily skewed toward Russian oil.
India wants new export destinations for its goods and to diversify its exports to Russia. Increasing the sales of cars, electronic goods, data-processing equipment, machinery, industrial components and food were all on India’s agenda, the ABC noted.
Specifically, India will pay about US$2 billion to lease a nuclear-powered submarine from Russia after roughly a decade of talks, Bloomberg reported.
Talks for leasing the attack submarine from Russia had stalled over the years because of price negotiations, sources said. The two sides had now agreed on the deal and delivery of the vessel could be in 2028.
Speaking on Ukraine, Putin said Russia would seize the Donbas region, one of his key demands as Ukrainian officials prepare for more peace talks, CNN reported.
Putin told India Today that Russia would liberate Donbas by military or “other means”. Asked what would constitute a victory for Russia in the war, Putin added: “We will finish it when we achieve the goals set at the beginning of the special military operation, when we free these territories. That’s all.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
India's biggest airline IndiGo faces a growing crisis after more than 300 flights were cancelled this week, leaving thousands of passengers stranded, the BBC reported.
The airline blamed technical glitches, weather and new crew rostering rules for the disruption. The budget airline has over 60% domestic market share and links major airports and smaller cities.
Elsewhere, US President Donald Trump aims to bring peace between the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo during a visit to Washington DC to sign new deals and attract Western mining investment, Al Jazeera reported.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwanda President Paul Kagame will sign an historic peace and economic agreement that Trump brokered. The event comes after the foreign ministers of the two African nations signed a preliminary agreement in June.
In the Middle East, the leader of an anti-Hamas group has been killed in Gaza, sources tell CNN. Yasser Abu Shabab, who led a militia controlling a patch of territory in southern Gaza, was killed after alleged internal clashes.
The militia denied that its leader was killed but sources said that Israel tried to evacuate Abu Shabab to a hospital in the country’s south before he was pronounced dead.
In business news, a San Francisco court said sportswear firm Adidas did not mislead investors, who claimed they had lost money after the company’s shares plunged when it cut ties with rapper-entrepreneur Kanye West.
The partnership collapsed after a series of anti-Semitic comments by the rapper cost the brand hundreds of millions of dollars. West was widely criticised after making the remarks and promoting conspiracy theories, the BBC reported.
The court said that a reasonable investor would know that a partnership with a celebrity like West could come with "inherent risks relating to improper behaviour".
Adidas Yeezy shoes.
Tech giant Meta faces a European Union antitrust investigation over its use of AI features in WhatsApp, CNBC reported.
The probe will examine whether Meta’s new policy on allowing AI providers’ access to WhatsApp may breach EU competition rules. A new policy announced in October prohibited AI providers from using a tool allowing businesses to contact customers via WhatsApp when AI was the main service offered.
But a Meta spokesperson said the claims were baseless. “The AI space is highly competitive, and people have access to the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations and operating systems.”
In the UK, official plans to spend £28b to upgrade Britain’s electricity grid have now been signed off to improve networks and speed the transition to new forms of energy, the Guardian reported.
Energy regulator Ofgem said firms had gained approval to strengthen the stability, security and resilience of the energy networks by upgrading the grid.
Most of the spending is to maintain Britain’s gas networks, as well as £10.3b to improve the high-voltage electricity network, which is the biggest expansion of the grid since the 1960s.
Finally, European car manufacturer Volkswagen plans to convert its small-scale assembly plant in Germany into an innovation hub after stopping car output, Bloomberg reported.
The company signed an initial agreement with the state of Saxony and the city’s Technical University to develop a startup and research centre in Dresden with programmes in artificial intelligence, robotics, and chip design. VW and the university plan to invest more than €50m at the site over the next seven years.
