The European aerospace firm Airbus has announced that it will stop making the world's biggest airplane the A380 superjumbo. The double-decker aircraft was designed to challenge the 747 of Airbus's rival Boeing. Rob Young reports.
The era of the Superjumbo is drawing to an end, just thirteen years after the A380 flew for the first time, Airbus says it will stop production with the final plane to be delivered in two years' time. The A380 is regarded as a great technological achievement. It's estimated to have cost about fifteen billion pounds to develop. But Airbus has struggled to sell the giant planes with airlines increasingly turning to smaller, more fuel efficient aircraft for long haul flights. The final nail in the coffin was a decision by Emirates, the Gulf Airline that's been the planes biggest fan to cut substantially its outstanding order.
The journalist at the head of an award-winning news website in the Philippines which criticized the country's President has been bailed after spending the night in detention. Maria Ressa, the head of Rappler website was arrested on Wednesday over a libel charge relating to an article published seven years ago. Here's Howard Johnson.
Lots of people have come forward to condemn this move. We've heard from the Vice President of the country Leni Robredo, she said that this is pure political harassment a view that's been echoed by many people in the media here who say that this is a clampdown on freedom of speech. Let's not forget Rapper had urged Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in the past for their coverage of his drug war. Now the president's spokesperson came forward and said that this has got nothing to do with freedom of speech. He says that this is purely a libel case, a private libel case brought by a businessman against Rapper.
Saudi Arabia has expressed regret at a proposal by the European Commission to add it to a list of countries that don't do enough to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism. A report by the official Saudi Press Agency said the Gulf kingdom had taken a number of measures to combat financial irregularities.
Female students at a prestigious Indian college have called for the scrapping of a decades-old Valentine's day tradition in which their male colleagues worship a so-called Virgin Tree. Women at the Hindu college in Delhi say the practice of adorning the tree with ribbons, condoms filled with water and posters representing the curvaceous goddess Damdami Mai is patriarchal and misogynistic. The male students say the ritual is a bit of harmless fun.
