Deciphering China has become nearly impossible. Officials continue to insist on the viability of their Covid-zero strategy, curtailing people’s movements and sealing borders even as the rest of the world has all but moved on from the pandemic. Trying to predict when Beijing will give up on this widely criticised policy is pointless. Of key interest now is what’s ...

  For months now, with the US distracted by war in Europe, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has largely been free to accelerate his weapons programs. President Joe Biden — along with US allies Japan and South Korea — needs to start making life harder for him. Kim’s scientists have conducted 16 missile tests since the beginning of the year, ...

  Bloomberg Sri Lanka’s new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe wants to sell the national airline, saying the country’s poorest people who’ve never flown shouldn’t be saddled with its losses. Finding a buyer might not be easy. SriLankan Airlines Ltd, which prior to the pandemic serviced 126 destinations in more than 60 countries, lost $125 million in the year through March ...

  Bloomberg JetBlue Airways Corp is working with consultants to set targets for a new round of cost cuts, even as it prepares to meet surging consumer demand for travel. The airline expects to see “progressive improvement” in its cost performance throughout the rest of this year, following an operational meltdown in April that led to hundreds of flight cancellations ...

  Bloomberg A new Australian airline backed by US investment firm 777 Partners pushed back its launch toward year-end, reflecting the difficulties of starting from scratch during Covid-19 and the global supply-chain crunch. Bonza’s first flights will be in the third or fourth quarter of 2022, as much as six months later than originally planned. Nailing down agreements with domestic ...

Bloomberg More people are flying in more expensive cabins for leisure trips despite airfares rising on surging oil prices and demand, and that’s helped offset a slower recovery in business travel, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). reporters in Singapore. “Consumers had disposable income during the two years of the pandemic. People have saved and therefore they are ...

  Bloomberg The black box for a China Eastern Airlines Corp jet that crashed earlier this year suggests the Boeing Co plane took an intentional nosedive, the Wall Street Journal said. Data recovered from the black box suggest that someone in the cockpit input controls that sent the plane into its deadly descent, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with ...

  Bloomberg The Walton family fortune tumbled almost $19 billion after Walmart Inc slashed its profit outlook. Walmart, controlled by the family, fell 11% in New York trading after the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company reported earnings that lagged analysts’ estimates. Soaring inflation heaped pressure on the retailing giant’s profit margins in the first quarter, testing the company’s appetite to raise prices. ...

Bloomberg Ukraine is working to get more of its fighters out of Mariupol’s beseiged Azovstal compound, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, as Russia threatened to put on trial those it said had “surrendered” at the steel plant. “The evacuation mission continues” overseen by the military and intelligence service with help from “the most influential international mediators,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly ...

Bloomberg Taiwan must gird itself against potential Chinese aggression through military deterrence that includes acquiring the right weapons and proper training, the top US naval officer said. “That is a big lesson learned and a wakeup call, particularly with respect to not only having the right kit but are people trained to use it the right way,” Admiral Michael Gilday, ...