Chile’s government downgraded its economic growth forecast for 2024 from 2.7 per cent to 2.6 per cent, and lowered its inflation forecast for the year to 3.7 per cent, the Finance Ministry has said.

Finance Minister Mario Marcel and other ministry officials presented on Wednesday the latest figures to parliament in a Public Finance Report for the second quarter of 2024.

Economic activity “contracted slightly” in the second quarter but “will resume growth” in the third quarter, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the ministry’s macroeconomic coordinator, Andres Sansone.

“Given a somewhat worse performance than expected in the non-mining sectors in the second quarter, the non-mining GDP (gross domestic product) is being reviewed,” he said.

The government slightly upgraded its 2025 growth forecast to 2.6 per cent.

Regarding inflation in 2025, officials revised their figure upwards, from 3.4 per cent to 4.4 per cent, due to higher electricity rates in the first half of the year.

Chile’s economy grew 1.1 per cent in May year on year, below the expectations of the domestic financial market, the central bank reported at the beginning of this month. AGENCIES

 India on Thursday summoned the Sri Lankan Acting High Commissioner in New Delhi to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to register a strong protest over the death of an Indian fisherman during a collision between a Sri Lankan naval vessel and an Indian fishing boat five nautical miles north of Katchatheevu Island, earlier in the day. 

Out of the four Indian fishermen who were on board the vessel, one lost his life and another is missing. Two of the fishermen have been rescued and brought ashore to Kankesanthurai. A search is ongoing for the missing Indian fisherman.

The MEA said that the Indian Consulate officials in Jaffna have been instructed to “immediately rush” to Kankesanthurai and extend all possible assistance to the fishermen and their families.

“The Sri Lankan Acting High Commissioner in New Delhi was called in today morning to the Ministry of External Affairs and a strong protest was registered over the incident. We expressed our shock and anguish at the unfortunate loss of life. Our High Commissioner in Colombo will also be raising the matter with the Sri Lankan government later today,” the MEA stated.

The ministry added that the Indian government has always emphasised the need to deal with issues pertaining to fishermen in a humane and humanitarian manner.

“Existing understandings between the two governments in that regard must be strictly observed. Utmost efforts should be made to ensure that there is no recurrence or resort to the use of force.

“Government attaches the highest priority to the safety and security of Indian fishermen. Issues relating to Indian fishermen have been raised regularly at the highest levels with the Sri Lankan leadership,” it added. AGENCIES

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said the massive IT outage, earlier this month, cost the company $500 million.

He said the figure included not just lost revenue but “the tens of millions of dollars per day in compensation and hotels” in five days, Xinhua news agency reported.

The airline cancelled over 5,000 flights amid the outage through July 25, which was sparked by a botched CrowdStrike software update and took thousands of Microsoft systems around the world offline.

The meltdown was rare for Delta. Its slower recovery from the outage than other airlines prompted an investigation by the US Department of Transportation.

After the outage, Delta’s platforms that match flight crews to planes couldn’t keep up with the changes, leading to further disruptions, according to the company.

Bastian told CNBC on Wednesday that the carrier would seek damages from the disruptions, adding, “We have no choice.”

CrowdStrike has so far made no offers to help Delta financially, Bastian said.

A CrowdStrike spokesperson said in a statement that the company had “no knowledge of a lawsuit and had no further comment.” Microsoft didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, CNBC reported.

“We have to protect our shareholders. We have to protect our customers, our employees, for the damage, not just to the cost of it, but to the brand, the reputational damage,” Bastian was quoted as saying in the report. AGENCIES

 Calling the twin strikes by Israel killing senior leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah during a 24-hour period a “dangerous escalation”, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an international diplomatic push to prevent a broader regional conflict.

“The international community must work together to urgently prevent any actions that could push the entire Middle East over the edge, with a devastating impact on civilians,” the UN chief’s Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an audacious strike inside Iran on Wednesday during his visit for the swearing-in of newly-elected Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, according to Hamas.

A short while earlier, Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was killed in an air strike in Beirut.

“The Secretary-General believes that the attacks we have seen in South Beirut and Tehran represent a dangerous escalation at a moment in which all efforts should instead be leading to a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all Israeli hostages, a massive increase of humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and a return to calm in Lebanon and across the Blue Line that separates Lebanon from Israel,” Dujarric said.

While Guterres has been calling for maximum restraint, it alone is not enough “at this extremely sensitive time” and he “urges all to vigorously work towards regional de-escalation”, the spokesperson added.

Iran’s UN Mission warned of an escalation, saying in an X post: “The response to an assassination will indeed be special operations — harder and intended to instill deep regret in the perpetrator.”

While Israel military confirmed it had taken out Shukr, Israel was silent on the killing of Haniyeh, a serious setback to ceasefire efforts in Gaza because the Qatar-based leader was a key negotiator with Israel for a ceasefire and the return of hostages taken by Hamas during the October 7 attack. AGENCIES

 The Chief of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, will give a public address today after the funeral of Hezbollah’s military chief Fuad Shukr, who was killed in an Israeli attack on Tuesday night.

The body of Shukr, who was also an advisor to Nasarullah, was found among the rubble in southern Beirut on Wednesday evening.

Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant has publicly said that Fuad Shukr had the blood of several Israelis on his hands and that the killing of Shukr was a message that Israel would reach out to its enemies anywhere in the world.

It may be recalled that Hezbollah has been continuously attacking Israel since October 8, especially in the Northern Territory of Israel. Israel has evacuated a large number of its population from its Northern Territory.

On July 27, 12 children were killed in a Hezbollah rocket strike on a soccer field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in Golan Heights.

The killings of Fuad Shukr and Ismail Haniyeh are likely to accelerate the war against Israel in the days to come. AGENCIES

 India “will never be a formal ally or partner of the United States” as it is “also a great power” with “its own beliefs, its own interests” but the two can act as allies on the global stage, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has declared.

Not being a formal ally “doesn’t mean that we cannot have the strongest possible relationships as allied nations on the global stage,” he said on Tuesday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in Washington

“I do believe that we bent India’s trajectory in ways that are consequential and very much in our interests,” he added.

He stressed that ties with India are “probably the most important relationship for the United States to get right”.

Campbell’s characterisation of India acting on its interests and having alliances to reach objectives without formal pacts reflects External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s foreign policy rubric of strategic autonomy.

He gave the assessments of ties with India during a committee hearing on strategic competition with China while replying to an interjection from Republican Senator James Risch, who said that front page pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi embracing Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during his recent Moscow visit were a “bitter pill to swallow”.

However, he did add that India is an “important actor. There’s no question about it” and acknowledged India’s and Russia’s “geographical location” and “historical connection”.

Campbell said, “I think we’re likely to hear news of India engaging more directly in Ukraine. I’m grateful for that. I think India wants to play a responsible role globally.”

“One of the hardest things to keep in mind is that India is also a great power and it has its own beliefs, its own interests,” he said.

“There are very few other countries in the world that have such an appeal to the Global South and their ability to engage there is unmatched and we are seeking to work with them,” he said of India’s strategic importance to the US in the context of China’s international diplomacy.

“You’ve got to take comfort in some of these things and recognise fundamentally, that in a number of things that we’re engaged in, India is an active and supportive partner,” he said.

On Washington’s cooperation with New Delhi, Campbell said, “We’ve supported them in intelligence and military along the Line of Actual Control (on the border with China and) in the Indian Ocean”.

Indian and Chinese troops are locked in a tense standoff along the Line of Actual Control with periodic clashes.

In the last major incident, about 20 Indian soldiers and several Chinese were killed in a confrontation in 2022 with makeshift weapons in an area where firearms are mutually banned.

On ties that bind at the level of people, Campbell spoke of the Indian diaspora in the US and the favourable sentiments in India towards the US.

There is a “wonderful diaspora in the United States that connects our two great countries”, he said.

“I believe that the vast majority of people in India want a better relationship with the United States,” he said. “They’re grateful for our bipartisan attention. They liked the work that we’ve done together in education and technology”. AGENCIES

 Indonesia is inviting foreign investors to participate in the development of the green industry, including carbon capture storage (CCS), in North Kalimantan, said Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan.

“We want the CCS industry to grow into a major business in the future. Therefore, I invite foreign investors to engage in Kalimantan,” Luhut said during the opening of the 2nd International and Indonesia Carbon Capture and Storage Forum in Jakarta on Wednesday.

The green industrial zone in North Kalimantan is projected to produce 3 million tonnes of electronic alumina and 5 million tonnes of steel, Xinhua news agency reported.

Additionally, 265 GWh of new energy batteries will be produced, as will 1.4 million tonnes of polysilicon.

Luhut predicts that green products from this zone will be visible within seven to eight years. Currently, the government is aiming to improve efficiency and simplify laws to help investors build Indonesia’s green industry, including CCS. AGENCIES

Iran would seek revenge for the alleged Israeli assassination of Hamas Politburo Chief Ismail Haniyeh in a “well-managed” way without escalating the regional crisis, an Iranian expert said.

“We would witness an escalation of tension in the region, but in a managed way,” Hassan Beheshtipour, a Tehran-based international affairs analyst, told Xinhua.

Beheshtipour emphasised that intensifying the crisis is not in Iran’s interest nor in that of the resistance groups. He noted Iran’s past actions, such as its measured response to the deadly Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria in early April, as examples of Iran’s strategic approach, Xinhua news agency reported.

Haniyeh, who was invited to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday, was killed along with his bodyguard early Wednesday when their residence in Tehran was hit, according to Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, which accused Israel of carrying out the “terrorist attack” and vowed “a harsh and painful response.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Israel had prepared the ground for a “harsh punishment” for itself.

The alleged Israeli assassination of Haniyeh occurred a day after Israel claimed that a strike in the Lebanese capital of Beirut had killed Fouad Shokor, Hezbollah’s top military commander.

On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would respond with overwhelming force to any counter-attacks, following the deaths of Haniyeh and Shokor.

He said the country is prepared “for any scenario,” adding it “will exact a very heavy price against any aggression — from any front.” AGENCIES

 Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued an order for Iran to strike Israel directly, in retaliation for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, a media report said, citing three unnamed Iranian officials.

Khamenei gave the order at an emergency meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council on Wednesday morning, shortly after Iran announced that Haniyeh had been killed, The New York Times quoted the three Iranian officials as saying.

Of the three officials, two are members of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), the report said.

Earlier, Khamenei in a message published on his website stressed that Israel prepared the ground for a “harsh punishment” for itself.

In two statements on Wednesday, the IRGC accused Israel of assassinating Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards at their residence in Tehran in a “terrorist attack”.

It extended condolences over the “martyrdom” of Haniyeh and his bodyguard, adding Haniyeh was among the dignitaries invited to Tehran to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday and had, over the past years, paid numerous visits to Iran.

The IRGC condemned the “criminal act” as in defiance of international regulations and laws, saying Israel “will receive a harsh and painful response” from Iran.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also, in a post on social media platform X, expressed condolences over Haniyeh’s “martyrdom”, saying Iran would defend its territorial integrity, dignity, honour, and pride and make the Israelis, which he described as “terrorist occupiers”, regret their “cowardly move”. AGENCIES

 Former US President Donald Trump has triggered a controversy by raising questions on the racial identity of his Democratic rival Kamala Harris during a convention of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in Chicago.

“She (Harris) was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black,” media reports quoted Trump as saying.

“So, I don’t know, is she Indian or Black?… I respect either one but she obviously doesn’t,” the Republican former President added while addressing NABJ’s annual convention on Wednesday.

Harris, the first Black woman and Asian American to serve as vice president, is the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, both immigrants to the US.

As a senator, Harris was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Michael Tyler, the communications director for Harris’ campaign, in a statement on Wednesday, said that “the hostility Donald Trump showed on stage today is the same hostility he has shown throughout his life, throughout his term in office, and throughout his campaign for president as he seeks to regain power”.

“Trump lobbed personal attacks and insults at Black journalists the same way he did throughout his presidency — while he failed Black families and left the entire country digging out of the ditch he left us in,” Tyler said.

Reacting to the former President’s remarks, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “It’s insulting and no one has any right to tell someone who they are how they identify.” AGENCIES