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Hello, I'm Chris Barrow with the BBC News.
The European plane maker Airbus says it's ordering immediate modifications to thousands of its aircraft after discovering that intense solar radiation could corrupt data crucial to their flight controls. About 6,000 planes are thought to be affected. Here's our global affairs reporter Sebastian Usher. As far as we know at the moment this can be fixed and for most of the planes involved around 5,000 of them this should be a very quick fix. This should be able to be done just in a few hours. This is a software update. There are maybe a thousand planes which will need to have new hardware, new computer installed. That means they could be grounded for weeks. So that means that there is obviously a greater potential for disruption. But the A320 is the most popular plane that Airbus produces, the fact that it is that particular plane that this problem has been found with obviously has consequences. President Trump has again intervened in Sunday's presidential election in Honduras, urging people to vote for the right-wing candidate Nasry Asfura. He's also said he'll pardon the former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández who's in jail in the United States on drugs charges. Will Grant reports from Honduras. The idea that the U.S. president would release someone who was widely considered in Central America to have had clear links to drug traffickers while president would have major repercussions in Honduras. It would also raise questions about Washington's claims to be serious about tackling drug smuggling in the region. The U.S. will be carrying out a huge naval build-up in the Caribbean on the one hand while on the other potentially releasing the man found guilty by a U.S. federal judge of one of the most notorious examples of drug trafficking by a sitting president since the crimes of the Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega in the 1980s. In Ukraine, President Zelenskyy has called for unity after his chief of staff resigned. Andriy Yermak stepped down after anti-corruption investigators searched his residence earlier in Kyiv. Mr. Yermak had been under pressure for links to senior figures suspected of involvement in a massive corruption scandal but he's not been named as a suspect and denies wrongdoing. The Prime Minister of Senegal Ousmane Sonko has described this week's coup in neighboring Guinea-Bissau as a "sham" and demanded its disrupted election be allowed to continue. Speaking in Parliament, he said Guinea-Bissau's Electoral Commission must declare the winner of last Sunday's election. "What happened in Guinea is an unjustified sham. To be brief, I first demand that the electoral process be finalized and that the commission announce the winner. The individuals who were arrested, including Domingos Pereira, who wasn't even a candidate and was arrested and couldn't even access his medication, must be released." Before the results could be announced the incumbent president fled to Senegal, saying the army had seized power. BBC News. President Trump has said he's cancelling all executive orders and other documents signed by his predecessor Joe Biden using a mechanical device known as an auto pen, suggesting this would mean almost all of them. It's not clear to what extent he has the legal authority to do so. Writing on social media, Mr. Trump claimed, without giving evidence, that people around Mr. Biden had used the auto pen to sign documents without his knowledge. Turkey's maritime authorities say there have been explosions followed by fires on two Russia-bound oil tankers in the Black Sea. One of the vessels was sailing north of the Bosporus Strait when the explosion occurred. The other tanker was reportedly struck further east. The authorities say the vessels may have hit mines or been struck by drones. Both are on a list of ships subject to sanctions imposed against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The leader of Hezbollah has given a defiant televised speech following this week's Israeli strike on southern Beirut in which the Iran-backed group's military chief was killed. Sheikh Naim Qassem spoke on the targeting of Haytham Ali Tabatabai in a televised address. "This is a blatant aggression and a heinous crime. We have the right to respond and we will determine the timing for that." Sheikh Qassem said that while Hezbollah had respected the ceasefire signed a year ago, Israel persisted with numerous military strikes. Israel says Hezbollah continues to be a threat and must be disarmed. Scientists believe they have detected lightning on Mars for the first time. Using data from NASA's Perseverance rover, researchers in France recorded electrical activity associated with storm fronts. They say the discovery has direct implications for the study of Mars' climate and its potential habitability. But some scientists caution that the signals were heard but not seen. BBC News. |