Air India crash underscores risks of country’s infrastructure boom
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
Spain rejects NATO’s anticipated 5% defense spending proposal as ‘unreasonable’
NATO allies agreed to spend 2% of GDP on military expenditure after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But the alliance’s plans for defending Europe and North America against a Russian attack require investments of at least 3%. The aim now is to raise the bar to 3.5% for core defense spending on tanks, warplanes, air defense, missiles and hiring extra troops. Spain was the lowest spender in the 32-nation military alliance last year, directing less than 2% on defense expenditure. But Spain isn’t alone among NATO’s low spenders. Belgium, Canada and Italy will also struggle to hike security spending by billions of dollars.. NATO official on Thursday said that discussions between allies were ongoing about a new defense spending plan. European allies and Canada are keen to finalize the spending pledge before the summit.
Most U.S. allies in NATO are on track to endorse U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand that they invest 5% of GDP on their defense and military needs . In early June, Sweden and the Netherlands said that they aim to meet the new target.
A NATO official on Thursday said that discussions between allies were ongoing about a new defense spending plan.
“For Spain, committing to a 5% target would not only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive, as it would move Spain away from optimal spending and it would hinder the EU’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its security and defense ecosystem,” Sánchez wrote in the letter seen by The Associated Press.
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Spain was the lowest spender in the 32-nation military alliance last year, directing less than 2% of its GDP on defense expenditure.
Sánchez said in April that the government would raise defense spending by 10.5 billion euros ($12 billion) in 2025 to reach NATO’s previous target of 2% of GDP.
On Thursday, Sánchez called for “a more flexible formula” in relation to a new spending target — one that either made it optional or left Spain out of its application.
Sánchez wrote that the country is “fully committed to NATO,” but that meeting a 5% target “would be incompatible with our welfare state and our world vision.” He said that doing so would require cutting public services and scaling back other spending, including toward the green transition.
Instead, Spain will need to spend 2.1% of GDP to meet the Spanish military’s estimated defense needs, Sánchez said.
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At home, corruption scandals that have ensnared Sánchez’s inner circle and family members have put the Spanish leader under increasing pressure to call an early election, even from some allies. In April, when Sánchez announced that Spain would reach NATO’s previous 2% spending target, the move angered some coalition members further to the left of his Socialist Party.
NATO allies agreed to spend 2% of GDP on military expenditure after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. But the alliance’s plans for defending Europe and North America against a Russian attack require investments of at least 3%.
The aim now is to raise the bar to 3.5% for core defense spending on tanks, warplanes, air defense, missiles and hiring extra troops. A further 1.5% would be spent on things like roads, bridges, ports and airfields so armies can deploy more quickly, as well as preparing societies for possible attack.
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Rutte had been due to table a new proposal on Friday aimed at satisfying Spain. European allies and Canada are keen to finalize the spending pledge before the summit, and not leave it open for any heated debate that might drag the meeting out.
Poland and the Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — have already publicly committed to 5%, and Rutte has said that most allies were ready to endorse the goal.
But Spain isn’t alone among NATO’s low spenders. Belgium, Canada and Italy will also struggle to hike security spending by billions of dollars.
A big question still to be answered is what time frame countries will be given to reach an agreed-upon new spending goal.
A target date of 2032 was initially floated, but Rutte has said that Russia could be ready to launch an attack on NATO territory by 2030.
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Air India crash underscores risks of country’s infrastructure boom
The number of airports in India has doubled to nearly 160 over the past decade. In many cities, buildings, warehouses, electricity poles and even towering billboards crowd flight paths. In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration enforces “obstruction standards” around airports. In India, experts say, there are fixed regulations, but they are often bent by developers. of India’s infrastructure agenda, the prime minister said in April, will “elevate the aspirations of the youth” and bring “progress for the poor.” “We need more airports, but create them a distance away from the city,” said Jitender Bhargava, a former Air India executive director. “What is amusing us is that the airport is yet to come up, but buildings are coming up first,’’ said Dipankar Datta, a judge on the Bombay High Court. ‘You can’t put a stop to growth, but you have to stop it with adequate precautions.’
At least 28 people were killed in and around the B.J. Medical College, in addition to all but one of the 242 passengers and crew members aboard the flight. While the cause of the accident is still being investigated, aviation experts said the death toll on the ground underscored a long-standing and largely overlooked air safety risk in India: dense construction dangerously close to airports.
Pilots, courts and analysts have warned for years that India’s breakneck urban development was pushing population centers ever nearer to the nation’s runways, as the government’s drive for connectivity collided with a lack of regulatory enforcement. In many cities, buildings, warehouses, electricity poles and even towering billboards crowd flight paths.
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“Many of us have been pointing out that you are announcing growth, but we are terribly behind on safety,” said Mohan Ranganathan, a former instructor pilot and aviation safety consultant.
Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s infrastructure agenda, the number of airports in India has doubled to nearly 160 over the past decade, with plans to add 50 more by 2030. At a ribbon-cutting ceremony in April at a new airport in Haryana, Modi said the project would “elevate the aspirations of the youth” and bring “progress for the poor.”
“We need more airports, but create them a distance away from the city,” said Jitender Bhargava, a former Air India executive director.
In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration enforces “obstruction standards” around airports, with rules defining the height of objects that could pose a threat to navigation. In India, experts say, there are fixed regulations, but they are often bent by developers.
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In Mumbai, the country’s financial hub, lawyers and a former air traffic control employee have been locked in a court battle with developers since 2014, hoping to force the removal of buildings and other obstacles near the runway at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.
In 2017, the Bombay High Court ordered authorities to remove 137 structures obstructing the flight path. But the builders appealed to the airport authority to stay the demolitions, and that appeal is still pending.
A court filing in 2022 said most of the original structures were still standing, and 498 new ones had been built. The number of problematic structures is now likely to be in excess of a thousand, according to Yeshwanth Shenoy, the lawyer who filed the petition.
Alok Aradhe, chief justice of the Bombay High Court, told the regulator for India’s aviation authority at a hearing in March that “you cannot sit tight over it, endanger lives of passengers and permit violations to continue.”
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Just to the east, in the city of Navi Mumbai, where construction has begun on a new airport set to open this year, regulators have already relaxed height restrictions on nearby infrastructure, from 180 feet to 525 feet.
“What is amusing us is that the airport is yet to come up, but buildings are coming up first,” Dipankar Datta, then a judge on the Bombay High Court, observed in 2022. “Development is needed, but not at the risk of people.”
The issue extends well beyond Mumbai. In the western state of Gujarat, courts rebuked authorities in 2019 for failing to act against 27 builders for their height violations near Surat Airport. In New Delhi, regulators identified 365 obstructions near Indira Gandhi International Airport after a legal petition in 2017. In the central city of Nagpur, a right to information request last year revealed that 63 structures were obstructing flight paths at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport, according to the Times of India.
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“You can’t put a stop to growth, but you have to grow with adequate precautions,” Bhargava said.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Airports Authority of India did not respond to requests for comment.
In other places, the government has struggled to obtain and convert private property to improve airport security. In 2017, in the southern state of Kerala, federal regulators proposed extending the infamously short runway at the Kozhikode International Airport — on a plateau surrounded by steep drops — from 9,200 feet to 11,500 feet, but the plan stalled over land disputes and bureaucratic gridlock.
In 2020, a flight operated by Air India Express, a subsidiary of Air India, skidded off the runway during a heavy downpour, tumbling into a gorge and killing 21 people. In the aftermath, the Kerala state government vowed to redouble its efforts to acquire land to lengthen the runway. But “five years after the crash, no runway extension has happened,” Shenoy said.
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Following the tragedy in Ahmedabad, Ranganathan said India needs to take “proactive steps” to bolster aviation safety, “even if it hurts development.”
Critics say broader oversight is needed for transportation projects of all kinds, as the country races to expand not just its airports, but also its roads and railways. In July 2024, Indian Transportation Minister Nitin Gadkari told Parliament that at least 26 bridges on national highways had collapsed between 2021 and 2024.
Between 2014 and 2024, 748 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured in nearly 700 separate train accidents, India’s railway minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, revealed to Parliament in August.
Until last week, aviation had remained a relative bright spot.
A wild bear enters Lithuania’s capital. Hunters refuse a government request to shoot the animal
A young female bear caused a stir after wandering out of the forest and into the leafy suburbs of the Lithuanian capital. For two days, the brown bear ambled through the neighborhoods of Vilnius , trotted across highways and explored backyards. The government then issued a permit for the bear to be shot and killed. That did not go down well with Lithuania’s hunters who refused, aware that there is only a tiny number of the protected species in the entire country. Brown bears are native to the region and were once common.
The government then issued a permit for the bear to be shot and killed.
That did not go down well with Lithuania’s hunters who refused, aware that there is only a tiny number of the protected species in the entire country.
The Lithuanian Association of Hunters and Fishermen said it was shocked by the government order.
The association’s administrator, Ramutė Juknytė, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the bear was a beautiful young female who was about 2 years old and did not deserve to be shot. “She was scared but not aggressive. She just didn’t know how to escape the city but she didn’t do anything bad,” he said.
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The organization tracks the movements of bears. It believes there is only five to 10 bears in the Baltic nation, but does not have a precise number.
The drama began on Saturday when the bear entered the capital. It was the first time in many years that a bear had entered the city and it became a national story. The animal came within about 4-5 kilometers (about 2-3 miles) of the city center.
Since causing a stir with their permit to kill the bear, Lithuanian authorities have been on the defensive.
Deputy Environment Minister Ramūnas Krugelis said that a kill permit was issued purely as a precaution in case the bear posed a threat, according to a report by the Lithuanian broadcaster LRT.
The hunters proposed a more humane approach: sedation, tracking and relocation.
As the debate over the bear’s fate unfolded, she took matters into her own paws and wandered out of the city.
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Juknytė said that the bear was recorded by a camera on Wednesday, peacefully wandering through a forest some 60 kilometers (40 miles) from Vilnius while munching on corn.
Brown bears are native to the region and were once common. They were wiped out in Lithuania in the 19th century due to hunting and habitat loss.
Putin says he’s open to meeting Zelensky, even as he denies his legitimacy
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he is open to meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But he says he would meet only after all details of a peace deal are hammered out. He suggested that the democratically elected Ukrainian leader would not have a legal right to sign the agreement. Russia hit a nine-story building in Kyiv on Tuesday, killing 23 residents, with five more killed elsewhere in the city. The U.S.-sponsored peace process has been faltering, with little progress toward any kind of cessation of hostilities.. Ukraine Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha noted that it had been 100 days since Ukraine accepted the U.s.-proposed ceasefire, while Russia continues to demand numerous conditions before considering suspending hostilities. “100 days of Russian manipulations and missed opportunities to end the war. 100 days of Russia escalating terror against Ukraine rather than ending it,” he tweeted.
Putin said negotiations between working groups could resume next week but said he would meet with Zelensky only after all details of a peace deal were hammered out, and even then, he suggested that the democratically elected Ukrainian leader would not have a legal right to sign the agreement.
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“We are ready to meet, and by the way, I said I am ready to meet with everyone, including Zelensky,” Putin said. “But that is not the question. The question is who will sign the documents,” he said, repeating a central piece of Kremlin propaganda that denies Zelensky’s political legitimacy.
Russia’s demands of Ukraine as a condition for peace have not changed and amount to Kyiv’s capitulation: agreement never to join NATO, to be neutral, to give up five Ukrainian regions, including territory that Russia does not even occupy, to slash the size of its military and to end Western military support.
On Thursday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha noted that it had been 100 days since Ukraine accepted the U.S.-proposed ceasefire, while Russia continues to demand numerous conditions before considering suspending hostilities.
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“100 days of Russian manipulations and missed opportunities to end the war. 100 days of Russia escalating terror against Ukraine rather than ending it,” he tweeted.
Despite Trump offering Russia a series of major concessions, including endorsing its demand to exclude Ukraine from NATO and keep territory it has occupied, the peace process has stalled. The Trump administration has now appeared to take a step back from mediation efforts, with some analysts declaring that his effort to broker a swift deal was all but dead.
“We are ready for substantive negotiations on the settlement principles. All it takes is that the Ukrainian side is ready to act wisely,” Putin said, calling on Kyiv’s Western allies to press Ukraine to accept “the current reality” and stop fighting.
He said that if Kyiv did not agree to Russia’s terms soon, its position could worsen, boasting that Russia was advancing across the entire front line, a claim not supported by military analysts. Russia has been gaining ground on three fronts — near Sumy in northeastern Ukraine and in the Donetsk region near Pokrovsk and Novopavlivka.
“We will not allow Ukraine to have the armed forces that would eventually threaten Russia and its people,” Putin said. “No doubt, if we fail to agree with Ukraine peacefully, we will seek to achieve our goals by military methods.”
Russia hit a nine-story building in Kyiv on Tuesday, killing 23 residents, with five more killed elsewhere in the city.
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In a statement posted Thursday, Zelensky said that the attack on Kyiv was “a reminder to the world that Russia rejects the ceasefire and chooses to kill.”
“I am grateful to all our partners who understand: Ukraine must become stronger every day. I am grateful to all those who are ready to put pressure on Moscow to make it feel the real cost of war,” he wrote on Telegram.
Despite video of the strike and reporting of the destruction, casualties and rescue operation that followed, including footage of a mother and father breaking down after their child’s body was pulled from the wreckage, Putin insisted Thursday that Russia targeted only military facilities, a line that Kremlin officials have unswervingly followed throughout the war, no matter the evidence to the contrary.
“The strike did not target residential areas. It was aimed at facilities of the defense sector, plants manufacturing military hardware, and this is what we are doing,” he said.