Ukraine truce dominates G7 talks clouded by Trump’s Canada threats


By AFP
March 12, 2025


Copyright AFP CHARLY TRIBALLEAU

Ben Simon

G7 foreign ministers meet in Canada Wednesday to discuss moves to halt the Russia-Ukraine war, but US Secretary of State Marco Rubio shrugged off questions about a prospective American takeover of the host country.

Rubio headed to Charlevoix, Quebec after meeting Ukrainian officials in the Saudi city of Jeddah to discuss an initial ceasefire.

He said he wanted the club of industrial democracies to recognize that “the United States has done a good thing for the world,” after Kyiv backed a US-proposed 30-day truce with Russia.

“Now we all eagerly await the Russian response,” Rubio told reporters.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the United States would issue a “strong” response and pressure Moscow if it did not agree to halt conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

The Kremlin in its first comments on the proposition said that it was waiting for details from Washington.

In most US administrations, presidents and senior officials make Canada a first destination and the visits attract little attention, with the friendly nations focusing on reaffirming their longstanding ties.

But Rubio’s visit comes as President Donald Trump continues to discuss absorbing Canada into the United States while escalating a trade war that could plunge the Canadian economy into a recession.

Rubio said the three-day meeting on the banks of the St. Lawrence River would not address Canadian sovereignty. “We’re going to be focused on the G7,” Rubio said as his plane stopped in Ireland on route to Canada.

“This isn’t a meeting about how we’re going to take over Canada.”

– ‘Nobody is safe’ –

Outgoing Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has said Trump is trying to sabotage the Canadian economy to make his annexation bid “easier” and warned his country faces an “existential challenge,” from Washington.

Trudeau will be replaced in the coming days by former central banker Mark Carney who said “the Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country”.

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said Wednesday the G7 talks would not address Trump’s annexation comments because Canada’s sovereignty was “not negotiable.”

She also said that she has warned European leaders not to dismiss Trump’s threats, calling Canada “the canary in the coal mine.”

“If the US can do this to us, their closest friend and ally, then nobody is safe,” she told reporters before heading to Charlevoix.

– Tariffs –

Joly said she will raise trade tariffs “in every single meeting” at the G7.

Trump’s tariffs campaign has rattled markets and unsettled the global trade outlook.

He has threatened and imposed a dizzying number of levies, including a blanket 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum imports that came into effect Wednesday.

Rubio acknowledged that he would likely discuss trade tensions when he meets Joly but said the two countries still had “common interests”, including in the G7.

“Our obligation is to try, to the extent possible, to not allow the things we work on together to be impacted negatively by the things we disagree on right now,” Rubio told reporters on his way to Saudi Arabia.

The meeting of top diplomats from the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Italy comes ahead of a G7 summit in the Canadian province of Alberta in June.

Struggling Intel names industry veteran Lip-Bu Tan as CEO


By AFP
March 12, 2025


Intel says new chip making plants in Ohio are not slated to begin production until 2030, five years later than originally planned - Copyright AFP I-Hwa CHENG

Intel on Wednesday announced tech industry veteran Lip-Bu Tan as its new chief executive, boosting shares of the US computer chipmaker struggling to catch up in the AI race.

Tan told the Intel team his focus would be on engineering, saying it “won’t be easy” to overcome challenges faced by the company.

Tan, who was born in Malaysia, will start as Intel chief on March 18, according to the company.

Shares were up more than 10 percent in after market trade.

Intel is one of Silicon Valley’s most iconic companies, but its fortunes have been eclipsed by Asian powerhouses TSMC and Samsung, which dominate the made-to-order semiconductor business.

The company was also caught by surprise with the emergence of Nvidia, a graphics chip maker, as the world’s preeminent AI chip provider.

Nvidia’s strength is in chips for powering AI, which are coveted by tech companies competing in that technology.

Intel’s niche has been in chips used in traditional computing processes being eclipsed by the AI rage.

Tan’s predecessor, Pat Gelsinger, was forced out as Intel chief in December after the board lost confidence in his plans to turn the company around.

Gelsinger’s abrupt departure came just months after the company vowed to cut more than 15,000 jobs in a draconian cost reduction plan and paused or delayed construction on several chipmaking facilities.

“I believe with every fiber of my being that we have what it takes to win,” Tan said in a message to his team, vowing that Intel will be an engineering-focused company.

“In areas where we are behind the competition, we need to take calculated risks to disrupt and leapfrog.”

While chief of Cadence Design Systems from 2009 to 2021, Tan transformed the company and more than doubled its revenue, according to the Intel board.

Former US president Joe Biden’s administration last year finalized a $7.9 billion award to Intel as part of an effort to bring semiconductor production to US shores.

But Intel in February extended the timeline for completing two new fabrication plants in Ohio, saying it is taking a prudent approach to the $28 billion project.

“We will continue construction at a slower pace, while maintaining the flexibility to accelerate work and the start of operations if customer demand warrants,” Intel Foundry Manufacturing general manager Naga Chandrasekaran told Intel employees at the time.

For the full year 2024, Intel recorded a net loss of $18.8 billion as the US chip giant continues to struggle to stake its place in the artificial intelligence revolution.

In Europe, Intel late last year said it was delaying its plans to build two mega chip-making factories in Germany and Poland as the company faces lower demand than anticipated.

Intel also said at the time that it would pull back on its projects in Malaysia.

DeepSeek dims shine of AI stars


By AFP
March 12, 2025


DeepSeek has prompted some experts to advise tech entrepreneurs to make sure they are in position to change which artificial intelligence model they rely on as costs and capabilities evolve rapidly - Copyright AFP/File Hector RETAMAL

Thomas URBAIN

China-based DeepSeek shook up the world of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) early this year with a low-cost but high-performance model that challenges the hegemony of OpenAI and other big-spending behemoths.

Since late 2022, just a handful of AI assistants — such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini — have reigned supreme, becoming ever more capable thanks to multi-billion-dollar investments in engineers, data centers, and high-performance AI chips.

But then DeepSeek upended the sector with its R1 model, which it said cost just $6 million or so, powered by less-advanced chips.

While specialists suspect DeepSeek may have cost more than its creators claim, its debut fueled talk that GenAI assistants are becoming just a regular commodity, thanks to innovation and market forces.

“The first company to train models must expend lots of resources to get there,” said CFRA senior equity analyst Angelo Zino.

“The second mover can get there cheaper and more quickly.”

At a HumanX AI conference in Las Vegas this week, Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf said it is getting less expensive to launch GenAI models — and less important which one people use.

“I feel like we are moving to this multi-model world, which is a good thing,” Wolf said, pointing to the muted reception given to the most recent version of ChatGPT.



– Stay flexible –



At the conference, OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil pushed back against the notion that all models are created equal.

“That’s actually not true,” Weil said.

“The days of us having a 12-month lead are probably gone, but I think we have a three- to six-month lead, and that is really valuable.”

Weil said OpenAI plans to fight to keep that narrowing edge over its competitors.

With 400 million users, San Francisco-based OpenAI has the advantage of being able to use data from massive traffic to continually improve its models, Weil explained.

“OpenAI has the Google advantage of being the thing that’s in everybody’s minds,” said Alpha Edison equity firm research director Fen Zhao.

Jeff Seibert, chief of the accounting and AI start-up Digits, agreed that OpenAI will stay ahead of the pack but added that he expects the gap to eventually close.

“For advanced use cases, yes, there will be a lot of advantages,” he said of OpenAI’s position.

“But for a lot of stuff, it won’t matter as much.”

Seibert advises entrepreneurs to design their technology to allow them to swap out GenAI models, affording them flexibility in a quickly changing industry.



– Cash burn –



Improved use of chips and new optimization techniques have driven down the cost of designing the large language models (LLMs) that power ChatGPT, Gemini and their rivals.

An open-source approach taken by some LLMs is credited with helping accelerate innovation by making the software free for anyone to tinker with and improve.

The valuation of closed-model startups such as Anthropic and OpenAI has likely peaked as their “first-mover advantage dissipates,” according to Zino.

Japanese investment colossus SoftBank pumped $40 billion into OpenAI in February in a deal that valued the startup at $300 billion — almost double what it was last year.

“If you’re burning a billion dollars a month, which I think OpenAI is, you have to keep raising money,” said Jai Das of private equity firm Sapphire Ventures.

“I have a hard time seeing how they get to a point where revenues are higher than the amount of cash they burn.”

Anthropic raised $3.5 billion in early March, valuing the champion of responsible AI at $61.5 billion.

Shares in Zara owner Inditex sink despite record profit

ALGORITHIMS RUN WALL STREET

By AFP
March 12, 2025


Inditex is 'optimistic' about its growth opportunities 'despite a particularly complex and demanding environment', chief executive Oscar Garcia Maceiras told a press conference - Copyright AFP/File Frederic J. BROWN
Valentin BONTEMPS

Zara owner Inditex posted Wednesday another record annual profit but investor worries that sweeping US tariffs could hurt its growth prospects caused shares in the world’s biggest fashion retailer to slide.

The Spanish group, which owns other top brands including Massimo Dutti, Pull & Bear and Bershka, posted a net profit of 5.87 billion euros ($6.39 billion) in the fiscal year which ended on January 31.

The figure was up 9.0 percent from 5.38 billion euros in 2023 and marked the company’s third consecutive annual profit.

Inditex pointed to “very satisfactory” sales, which rose 7.5 percent to hit 38.6 billion euros in 2024, and its “rigorous” cost control policy for the profit rise.

The company is “optimistic” about its growth opportunities “despite a particularly complex and demanding environment”, chief executive Oscar Garcia Maceiras told a press conference.

But sales growth showed signs of waning in the first quarter, rising just 4.0 percent between February 1 and March 10, compared to 11-percent growth in the same period a year ago.

This was the lowest pace of sales growth for the period since 2016, UBS analysts said in a research note.

The slowdown comes as Inditex is facing stiffer competition from low-priced Asian online retailers such as Shein, as well as the threat of higher tariffs in the United States, the company’s second-largest market after Spain.

These tariffs “represent a challenge for Inditex, both in its strategy of expansion in the United States and in the management of its global supply chain” since its clothes are partially made in China, said Alfred Vernis, professor at Spain’s ESADE business school and a former Inditex executive.



– ‘Growth is slowing’ –



Shares in Inditex fell by 8.2 percent in early afternoon trade on the Spanish stock exchange to 44.66 euros per share.

While Inditex “has been a clear outperformer in clothing retail”, the data suggests “growth is slowing”, Deutsche Bank said in a research note.

“The potential risks of US tariffs are also weighing on Inditex sentiment,” it added.

Maceiras said Inditex was “well positioned” in the trade war and stressed its “great flexibility to adapt to circumstances”.

“We have enormous diversification in terms of manufacturing origins,” he said, adding Inditex did not rule out producing some of its clothing in the United States if “opportunities” arose.

With fast-growing budget fashion retailer Shein taking share at the cheaper end of the market, Inditex’s main brand Zara has moved to attract more discerning shoppers and offered more expensive clothing.

Inditex is also improving its logistics to deliver online orders faster than rivals and investing in larger, more modern stores while it shuts smaller shops.

“Compared to its rivals such as H&M and Uniqlo, Inditex benefits from better cost control, higher margins and a stronger financial cushion, which guarantees long-term growth and stability in the dynamic fashion market,” said Vernis.

The company’s fundamentals remain “solid” and it should be able to “strengthen its leading position” in the budget fashion segment despite the trade tensions, he added.

Inditex’s main rival in the fast-fashion industry, Sweden’s H&M, in January posted lower sales for 2024 due to supply problems and greater competition from Chinese online companies.


Couche-Tard bosses make case in Tokyo for 7-Eleven buyout

By AFP
March 13, 2025


'We are going to invest in Japan,' said Alimentation Couche-Tard President Alex Miller (C) - Copyright AFP Kazuhiro NOGI

Julien GIRAULT

The directors of Canadian convenience store giant Alimentation Couche-Tard (ACT) said on Thursday they were seeking a “friendly” buyout of 7-Eleven but lamented a lack of progress towards a deal.

Seven & i, the Japanese parent company of 7-Eleven — the world’s biggest convenience store brand — rebuffed an ACT takeover offer worth nearly $40 billion last year.

Despite a sweetened bid reportedly worth around $47 billion, Seven & i announced last week measures including a huge share buyback to boost its value and fend off ACT.

“We are continuing to pursue a friendly, mutually agreed transaction,” ACT chairman Alain Bouchard told reporters in Tokyo.

It would be the biggest foreign takeover of a Japanese firm, merging the 7-Eleven, Circle K and other franchises to create what CEO Alex Miller described on Thursday as a “global champion of convenience stores”.

Seven & i said in September after ACT’s initial approach its rival had “grossly” undervalued its business and warned the deal could face regulatory hurdles in the United States.

The pair have said they are exploring US store sell-offs to address antitrust concerns ahead of any potential merger but Bouchard said this wasn’t enough.

“We are disappointed that this engagement has been limited to regulatory only and we have not been able to make progress on broader deal discussion,” he said.

Seven & i operates some 85,000 convenience stores worldwide.

Around a quarter of those outlets are in Japan, where they sell everything from concert tickets to pet food and fresh rice balls, although sales have been flagging.

ACT runs nearly 17,000 convenience store outlets globally, including Circle K.

Miller reiterated on Thursday that the retailer sees “a clear path to regulatory approval in the United States”.

That was because the ACT and 7-Eleven networks in the world’s biggest economy were “highly complementary”, he said.

Miller also addressed concerns that ACT ownership of Seven & i would affect the quality of 7-Eleven stores in Japan, which have been a local lifeline in times of disaster.

“We are going to invest in Japan,” Miller said. “We have no interest and no plans to close stores, fire employees. That’s not what we do. We invest to grow.”

‘Humiliated’: Palestinian victims of Israel sexual abuse testify at UN


By AFP
March 12, 2025


Abdel Fattah, 28, said he was detained near Gaza City's Al Shifa hospital where he worked as a nurse - Copyright AFP/File Philip FONG

Nina LARSON

Palestinians who say they suffered brutal beatings and sexual abuse in Israeli detention and at the hands of Israeli settlers testified about their ordeals at the United Nations this week.

“I was humiliated and tortured,” said Said Abdel Fattah, a 28-year-old nurse detained in November 2023 near Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital where he worked.

Ahead of the hearings Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva dismissed them as a waste of time, saying Israel investigated and prosecuted any allegations of wrongdoing by its forces.

Fattah gave his testimony from Gaza via video-link to a public hearing, speaking through an interpreter.

He described being stripped naked in the cold, suffering beatings, threats of rape and other abuse over the next two months as he was shuttled between overcrowded detention facilities.

“I was like a punching bag,” he said of one particularly harrowing interrogation he endured in January 2024.

The interrogator, he said, “kept hitting me on my genitals… I was bleeding everywhere, I was bleeding from my penis, I was bleeding from my anus”.

“I felt like my soul (left) my body.”



– ‘Shocking’ –



Fattah spoke Tuesday during the latest of a series of public hearings hosted by the UN’s independent Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

This week’s hearings, harshly criticised by Israel, are specifically focused on allegations of “sexual and reproductive violence” committed by Israeli security forces and settlers.

“It’s important,” COI member Chris Sidoti, who hosted the meeting, told AFP. Victims of such abuse are “entitled to be heard”, he said.

Experts and advocates who testified Tuesday spoke of a “systematic” trend of sexual violence against Palestinians in detention, but also at checkpoints and other settings since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel sparked the war in Gaza.

Meron, for Israel, slammed attempts to equate allegations against individual Israelis with Hamas’s “shocking… sexual violence towards Israeli hostages, towards victims on October 7”.

Any such comparison was “reprehensible”, he told reporters on Monday.

He insisted the hearings were “wasting time”, since Israel as “a country with law and order” would investigate and prosecute any wrongdoings.

But Palestinian lawyer Sahar Francis decried a glaring lack of accountability, alleging that abuse had become “a widespread policy”.

All those arrested from Gaza were strip-searched, she said, with the soldiers in some cases “pushing the sticks” into the prisoner’s anus.

Sexual abuse happened “in a very massive way” especially in the first months of the war, she said.

“I think you can say that most of those who were arrested in these months were subjected to such practice.”



– ‘Just shoot me’ –



The allegations of abuse are not limited to detention centres.

Mohamed Matar, a West Bank resident, said he suffered hours of torture at the hands of security agents and settlers, even as Israeli police refused to intervene.

Just days after the October 7 attack, he and other Palestinian activists went to help protect a Bedouin community facing settler attacks.

As they were leaving the compound, they were chased and caught by a group of settlers, who he said were joined by members of Israel’s Shabak security agency.

He and two other men were blindfolded, stripped to their underwear and, had their hands tied before being taken into a nearby stable.

The leader stood “on my head and ordered me to eat … the faeces of the sheep”, said Matar.

With dozens of settlers around, the man urinated on the three, and beat them so badly during the nearly 12 hours of abuse that Matar said he cried: “just shoot me in the head”.

The man, he said, jumped on his back and repeatedly “tried to introduce a stick into my anus”.

Blinking back tears, Matar showed Sidoti a photograph taken by the settlers showing the three blindfolded men lying in the dirt in their underwear.

Other pictures taken after the ordeal showed him with massive bruises all over his body.

Speaking to journalists after his testimony, he said he had spent months “in a state of psychological shock”.

“I didn’t think there were people on Earth with such a level of ugliness, sadism and cruelty.”

AI chatbot helps victims of digital sexual violence in Latin America


By AFP
March 12, 2025


Activists demonstrate OlimpIA, a chatbot that helps victims of digital sexual violence - Copyright AFP Zina DESMAZES

Lucero Mendez and Ana Espinosa

Two women from Mexico and Ecuador who spent years fighting to be recognized as victims of online sexual violence have inspired an artificial intelligence chatbot that helps others facing abuse.

OlimpIA, which was developed in Mexico, provides legal advice and emotional support through the WhatsApp messaging platform using several dozen languages.

It was born from the experiences more than a decade ago of Olimpia Coral and Isabella Nuques, both now 30, before they had met.

An intimate video of Coral was shared without her consent in 2013, and when she tried to report it to Mexican authorities they informed her that there was little they could do to help.

“They told us that nothing could be done about this violence because it was virtual, and the virtual wasn’t real,” she said during the first Latin American Summit of Digital Women Defenders, held recently in Mexico.

The same year, in Ecuador, explicit photos of Nuques were published on social media.

She felt not only powerless but also violated again when the police officer she reported it to showed a sexual interest in the pictures, the communications expert told AFP during the same event.



– Legal advances –



The two women began fighting for digital sexual abuse to be recognized as a crime in their countries, both with success.

In 2018, a reform was passed to punish digital violence in Coral’s home state of Puebla in central Mexico.

A law named after her took effect in 2021 across Mexico — where around 10 women are murdered every day on average — putting offenders at risk of up to six years in prison.

That same year, Nuques celebrated the approval by Ecuador’s National Assembly of a digital violence law that provides for sentences of up to 16 years in prison.

Argentina, Chile and Panama have adopted legislation similar to that of Mexico, while half a dozen more Latin American countries are moving in the same direction.

According to the United Nations, 38 percent of women worldwide have experienced digital violence, although the actual number may be higher.

In 2013, Coral founded a group of activists who began providing advice to victims.

The technology company AuraChat.Ai later became interested in her project, and last September they launched OlimpIA, increasing their capacity from 100 to more than 1,300 consultations a month.

Since then, the platform has handled more than 8,000 cases, most of them in Mexico, but also in Spain, Colombia, Honduras, Ecuador, Panama, Guatemala and Peru, tailoring the advice to each country, said Fernanda Medellin, co-founder of the chatbot.

The Ley Olimpia AI initiative was recognized as one of the 50 most innovative projects at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris in February.



– Specialist focus –



Unlike other AI chatbots like ChatGPT that gather information about countless topics, OlimpIA focuses on the issue of digital sexual violence.

Psychologists, lawyers and other experts collaborated for months to train it with specific input and a language that imitates a kind human voice.

“Some models (used by OlimpIA) act as lawyers, others as digital defenders, or as psychologists. Others act as security filters that detect risks for the victim, or as emotional radars that analyze text and audio to understand their emotional state,” said Enrique Partida, co-founder and CEO of AuraChat.Ai.

One psychologist helped the chatbot to offer ways to deal with anxiety crises or panic attacks — common symptoms among victims.

While most of its users are women, it can also be used by men.

Similar projects have been developed in countries like South Africa, where the chatbot Zuzi provides support in cases of physical or sexual abuse with features including an emergency button and evidence storage.

The developers of OlimpIA want the next version to be accessible even without an internet connection, so it is accessible through phone calls in remote regions.

There are also plans to integrate sign language and Indigenous languages in the future, said Edith Contla, director of strategy at AuraChat.Ai.

It is also hoped that the platform will serve as a link for users with police and other officials, reducing the risk of them being abused again.

‘Stranded’ astronauts closer to coming home after next ISS launch


By AFP
March 12, 2025


Crew-9 is expected to depart the ISS on March 16, carrying Butch Wilmore, Nick Hague, Suni Williams and Aleksandr Gorbunov - Copyright NASA/AFP/File Handout

Issam AHMED

A routine crew rotation at the International Space Station has taken on unusual significance: It paves the way for a pair of astronauts stranded for more than nine months to finally come home.

The NASA-SpaceX Crew-10 mission is set to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:48 PM (2348 GMT) on Wednesday. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carries a Crew Dragon capsule with a four-member team on a scientific expedition to the orbital lab.

All eyes however will be on astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams who have been stuck aboard the ISS since June after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft developed propulsion issues and was deemed unfit for their return.

The pair, initially slated for an eight-day mission, were reassigned to Crew-9 after its astronauts arrived in September aboard a SpaceX Dragon. The spacecraft carried only two crew members instead of the usual four to make room for Wilmore and Williams. Crew-9 will remain in orbit until Crew-10 arrives.

“We came up prepared to stay long, even though we plan to stay short,” Wilmore said in a recent news conference. “That’s what your nation’s human space flight program is all about, planning for unknown, unexpected contingencies.”

Crew-10 is expected to dock early Thursday, followed by a brief handover before Crew-9 departs on March 16 for an ocean splashdown off the Florida coast, weather permitting. Along with Wilmore and Williams, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will also be aboard the returning Dragon capsule.

Wilmore and Williams’s prolonged stay has recently become a political flashpoint, as President Donald Trump and his close advisor Elon Musk have accused ex-president Joe Biden’s administration of abandoning the pair.

SpaceX boss Musk has suggested, without providing specifics, that he had offered Biden a “rescue” mission outside of the routine crew rotations.

However, with Trump now in office for nearly two months, the astronauts are still set to return as originally planned.

The issue recently sparked a heated online exchange between Musk and Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, whom Musk called “fully retarded.” Retired astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly and Chris Hadfield defended Mogensen.

One astronaut who backed Musk however was Wilmore, who offered contradictory statements in last week’s press conference.

“I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says is absolutely factual,” he said, seemingly endorsing the SpaceX founder’s version of events, before adding “politics is not playing into this at all.”

“We have the utmost respect for Mr. Musk, and obviously respect and admiration for our president of the United States, Donald Trump. We appreciate them… and we’re thankful that they are in the positions they’re in,” he continued.

The Crew-10 team consists of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi, and Russia’s Kirill Peskov.

During their mission, they will conduct a range of scientific experiments, including flammability tests for future spacecraft designs and research into the effects of space on the human body.

Battery maker Northvolt files for bankruptcy in Sweden


By AFP
March 12, 2025


Northvolt's factory in northern Sweden has performed well under its production capacity - Copyright AFP Geoff Caddick

Johannes LEDEL

Swedish electric car battery maker Northvolt has filed for bankruptcy in Sweden after failing to secure financing to enable it to continue operations, the struggling company said Wednesday.

Founded in 2016, Northvolt was once seen as a cornerstone of European attempts to catch up with Asia and the United States in the production of battery cells, the crucial component of zero-emission cars.

But the company has struggled under a mountain of debt, slow demand and production delays, which in May 2024 led car manufacturer BMW to drop an order worth two billion euros ($2.2 billion).

Northvolt said in a statement Wednesday that despite pursuing “all available options to negotiate and implement a financial restructuring … the company was unable to secure the necessary financial conditions to continue in its current form”.

Northvolt applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States in late November to enable it to restructure its debt and reorganise its business.

The battery maker said in US filings that it owed $5.8 billion.

Northvolt said “a Swedish court-appointed trustee will now oversee the process, including the sale of the business and its assets and settlement of outstanding obligations.”

– ‘Compounding challenges’ –



In January, shareholders agreed at an extraordinary general meeting to allow the financially-strained company to continue operating.

Northvolt’s two biggest shareholders are German carmaker Volkswagen — also in financial difficulty — and US investment bank Goldman Sachs.

“Like many companies in the battery sector, Northvolt has experienced a series of compounding challenges in recent months that eroded its financial position,” the company said.

It cited “rising capital costs, geopolitical instability, subsequent supply chain disruptions, and shifts in market demand”.

The battery maker stressed that in its attempts to secure financing it had found “significant traction with potential partners and interest from investors”.

“However, with limited time and financial resources available, the company was unable to conclude the necessary agreements to secure its future,” Northvolt said.

It also said that its German and North American subsidiaries were not filing for bankruptcy in their respective jurisdictions.



– No state rescue- –



In September, the Swedish company said it was slashing 1,600 jobs — a quarter of its staff — and suspending the expansion of its Skelleftea site in northern Sweden.

It also said it was slashing plans to expand the production capacity of its facility to 30 gigawatt-hours per year.

In July of 2024, it said it hoped to reach an annual production of over one GWh this year — well below the facility’s intended capacity of 16 GWh.

One GWh is enough to equip 20,000 average-sized cars.

In mid-September, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson ruled out a government rescue, saying “there are no plans for the Swedish state to become a part owner of Northvolt or anything like that”.

Europe accounts for just three percent of global battery cell production, but has set its sights on 25 percent of the market by the end of the decade.

“For me personally, it remains key for Europe to have a homegrown battery industry, but it is a marathon to build such an industry. It needs patience and long-term commitment from all stakeholders,” Northvolt interim chairman Tom Johnstone said in a statement.

The company said it had recently completed its first one million battery cells to an unspecified European customer.

The bankruptcy could have a severe social impact in northern Sweden, where Northvolt — which employs about 5,000 people — had concentrated its operations.

“It is of course a heavy message and a very dark day for all of us who have worked hard every day and hoped that the company would get through this tough time,” Shaneika Jeffrey, a representative of the labour union Unionen, said in a commen

At least 25 bodies retrieved from Pakistan train siege



By AFP
March 13, 2025


Authorities began retrieving bodies from a train siege in southwest Pakistan, where separatist gunmen killed at least 21 hostages, officials said - Copyright AFP -

The bodies of at least 25 people, including 21 hostages, killed in a train siege by separatist gunmen in Pakistan were retrieved from the site on Thursday ahead of the first funerals, officials said.

Security forces said they freed more than 340 train passengers in a two-day rescue operation that ended late on Wednesday after a separatist group bombed a remote railway track in mountainous southwest Balochistan and stormed a train with around 450 passengers on board.

The assault was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), one of a number of separatist groups that accuse outsiders of plundering natural resources in Balochistan near the borders with Afghanistan and Iran.

Death tolls have varied, with the military saying in an official statement that “21 innocent hostages” were killed by the militants as well as four soldiers in the rescue operation.

A railway official in Balochistan said the bodies of 25 people were transported by train away from the hostage site to the nearby town of Mach on Thursday morning.

“Deceased were identified as 19 military passengers, one police and one railway official, while four bodies are yet to be identified,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

A senior local military official overseeing operations confirmed the details.

An army official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, earlier put the military toll at 28, including 27 off-duty soldiers taken hostage.

Passengers who escaped from the siege said after walking for hours through rugged mountains to reach safety that they saw people being shot dead by militants.

The first funerals are expected to take place on Thursday.

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif was also expected to visit Balochistan, his office said.

“The Prime Minister expressed grief and sorrow over the martyrdom of security personnel and train passengers during the operation,” it said in a statement.



– ‘Our women pleaded’ –



The BLA released a video of an explosion on the track followed by dozens of militants emerging from hiding places in the mountains to attack the train.

Attacks by separatist groups have soared in the past few years, mostly targeting security forces and ethnic groups from outside the province.

Muhammad Naveed, who managed to escape, told AFP: “They asked us to come out of the train one by one. They separated women and asked them to leave. They also spared elders.”

“They asked us to come outside, saying we will not be harmed. When around 185 people came outside, they chose people and shot them down.”

Babar Masih, a 38-year-old Christian labourer, told AFP on Wednesday he and his family walked for hours through rugged mountains to reach a train that could take them to a makeshift hospital on a railway platform.

“Our women pleaded with them and they spared us,” he said.

“They told us to get out and not look back. As we ran, I noticed many others running alongside us.”

Security forces have been battling a decades-long insurgency in impoverished Balochistan but last year saw a surge in violence in the province compared with 2023, according to the independent Center for Research and Security Studies.

Pakistan to launch ‘full-scale’ operation to free train hostages


By AFP
March 11, 2025


Mach railway station in southwest Pakistan has turned into a makeshift hospital for freed hostages after separatist militants stormed a train - Copyright AFP Banaras KHAN

Maaz Khan

Pakistan security forces were set to launch a “full-scale operation” on Wednesday to free train passengers taken hostage by militants, including suicide bombers, officials said.

Separatist militants bombed part of a railway track and stormed the train with more than 450 passengers on board on Tuesday afternoon, in southwest Balochistan province where violence has been rising.

Dozens of hostages have been freed and three people killed, including the train driver, since the attack erupted in Sibi district.

“A full-scale operation is planned for the morning to rescue the train hostages and others,” a security official in the area told AFP.

The official said that forces “faced challenges due to the darkness of night”.

“We are taking precautions to avoid any actions that could endanger civilian hostages,” he added.

Security sources said the “terrorists have positioned suicide bombers right next to innocent hostage passengers”.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi announced late Tuesday that “more than 100 hostages” have been free, while security sources said those included “58 men, 31 women and 15 children”.

It was not immediately clear how many people remained on the train.

The assault was immediately claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist group behind rising violence in the province which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

Muhammad Kashif, a senior railway government official in provincial capital Quetta, told AFP that “over 450 passengers onboard” had been taken hostage.

Hostages freed on Tuesday said they had to walk for hours through mountainous terrain to reach safety.

“I can’t find the words to describe how we managed to escape. It was terrifying,” Muhammad Bilal who had been travelling with his mother on the Jafar Express train, told AFP.



– Punjabis ‘taken away’ –



The driver of the train, a police officer and soldier were killed in the assault, according to paramedic Nazim Farooq and railway official Muhammad Aslam, both at Mach railway station.

One passenger described gunmen sorting through identity cards to confirm who was from outside of the province, similar to a spate of recent attacks carried out by the Baloch Liberation Army.

“They came and checked IDs and service cards and shot two soldiers in front of me and took the other four to, I don’t know where,” said one passenger who asked not to be named, after walking four hours to the nearest train station.

“Those who were Punjabis were taken away by the terrorists,” he added.

Around 80 of the released passengers were taken to provincial capital Quetta under “tight security”, said a police official who was not authorised to speak to the media.

Security forces have been battling a decades-long insurgency in impoverished Balochistan, but violence has soared in the western border regions with Afghanistan, from north to south, since the Taliban took back power in 2021.

The BLA claim the region’s natural resources are being exploited by outsiders and have increased attacks targeting Pakistanis from other regions.

In February, BLA militants killed seven Punjabi travellers after they were ordered off a bus.

Argentine football fans, protesters clash with police at pensions march


By AFP
March 12, 2025

A patrol car and garbage cans were set on fire and several streets barricaded with debris at a protest march in support of Argentine pensioners - Copyright AFP EDWIN BERCIÁN

Tomás VIOLA, Leila MACOR

Argentine police fought running battles Wednesday with hundreds of protesters, including numerous football fans, during an anti-austerity march by pensioners in Buenos Aires.

Scores of riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon to try to disperse stone-throwing protesters, many of whom wore football jerseys for what turned out to be one of the most violent demonstrations yet against President Javier Milei’s budget-slashing policies.

The demonstrators, many waving national flags and pictures of the late football great Diego Maradona, were met by a major security presence outside Congress, which was in session when the protests began.

Columns of riot police on foot, backed by officers on motorbikes, fought for over two hours to clear a central avenue of protesters who threw firecrackers, stun grenades and stones taken from broken-up sidewalks.

A patrol car and garbage cans were set on fire and several streets barricaded with debris.

Thirty-one people were arrested, police said.

A video of a police officer pushing and hitting an elderly woman who fell to the ground, her head bleeding, has been shared thousands of times on social media.



– ‘Dictatorship’ –



The protestors chanted “Out with them all” and “Milei, garbage, you are the dictatorship!”, comparing his rule to that of Argentina’s 1976-1983 military junta.

The protest is the latest in a years-long series of pensioner demonstrations, always on a Wednesday, that usually draw just a few dozen people.

This week, several football clubs called for a show of solidarity with pensioners, some of whom have been teargassed or baton-charged in recent protests over their diminishing purchasing power.

Fans of River Plate, Boca Juniors, Racing, Independiente and several other clubs joined the march.

Emotions have been running high in the South American country with the start of the trial Tuesday of seven medical staff accused of homicide over Maradona’s death in 2020.

Maradona died alone in a rented house in Buenos Aires, where he was being cared for after brain surgery.

He died of heart failure and acute pulmonary edema and his medical team is accused of having been criminally negligent in his care.

For the past week, calls to support struggling pensioners have been circulating with a video from 1992 of Maradona stating: “You have to be a real coward not to defend retirees.”

“Ole, Ole, Diego, Diego,” some of the protesters shouted Wednesday.

While pensioners have been complaining for years, their economic situation has worsened dramatically under self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” Milei.

“We have to unite and take to the streets to defend our rights and our sovereignty,” 60-year-old Patricia Mendia, who was wearing a Quilmes club jersey, said as she marched alongside her 84-year-old mother.

Security Minister Patricia Bullrich posted a photo on her X account showing a line of police facing off with protesters whom she dismissed as “hooligans.”

Pensioners have taken the most pain in a year of drastic austerity.

Pensions increases have fallen far short of inflation.

Nearly 60 percent of retirees receive only the minimum amount, equivalent to some $340 per month.

Last year, Milei vetoed a law that would have increased pensions by a fraction of the boost needed to maintain their purchasing power.

He has also scrapped price controls on medicines, forcing some pensioners to choose between food and life-saving drugs.