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strike’s potential economic impact. President Lee Jae Myung also told a Cabinet meeting that collective labour action should remain within “certain limits”. The dispute has unfolded against the backdrop of an AI boom that is benefiting South Korean tech groups, boosting national growth and the stock market. Both Samsung and its domestic rival SK hynix posted record profits in the first quarter, driven by global demand for AI chips. Long staunchly anti-union, late founder Lee Byung-chul once vowed never to allow unions “until I have dirt over my eyes”. Samsung Electronics’ first labour union was formed in the late 2010s. – AFP NEW DELHI: India’s aviation authorities will send a fuel control switch from a Boeing 787 to the United States for further inspection, the government said, even though initial checks found no fault. Air India had grounded a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner on Feb 2 before takeoff in London after one of the pilots reported a possible defect. The pilot’s report stated that the fuel control switch “slips from ‘RUN’ to ‘CUTOFF’ when pushed slightly and does not lock positively in its selected position”, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said. Following the report, Air India conducted tests on the aircraft and across its Boeing 787 fleet in line with recommendations from Boeing. “Upon review of the inspection results and evidence provided, OEM (original equipment manufacturer) concluded that the Fuel Control Switch was mechanically functioning as designed and considered the unit serviceable,” the ministry statement read. “The DGCA India, as part of continued airworthiness of the involved Fuel Control Switch, has directed for their inspection at OEM facility in presence of DGCA officers.” The US inspection comes ahead of the separate final report into the crash of an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner that killed 260 people shortly after takeoff on June 12, 2025. – AFP US likely to charge ex-president of Cuba WASHINGTON: The Trump administration is expected to announce criminal charges against former Cuban president Raul Castro, in a move that would mark a step-up in Washington’s pressure campaign against the Caribbean island. The charges against Castro, 94, are expected to be based on a 1996 incident in which Cuban jets shot down planes operated by a group of Cuban exiles, a US Justice Department official told Reuters last week on the condition of anonymity. President Donald Trump has been seeking regime change in Cuba, where communists have been in charge since Raul Castro’s late brother Fidel Castro led a revolution in 1959. The US has effectively imposed a blockade on the island by threatening sanctions on countries supplying it with fuel, triggering power outages and delivering blows to its fragile economy. Cuba has yet to comment directly on the threat of indictment though Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez expressed defiance in public comments on May 15. “Despite the (US) embargo, sanctions and threats of the use of force, Cuba continues on a path of sovereignty towards its socialist development,” Rodriguez said. Born in 1931, Raul Castro was a key figure alongside his older brother in the guerilla war that toppled US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. – Reuters Boeing fuel switch sent for inspection

Xi and Putin during a welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing yesterday. – REUTERSPIC

Xi, Putin condemn Trump missile shield plan

o Leaders praise strong ties

According to the union’s lawyer, around 50,500 workers were set to walk off production lines for 18 days from today following the breakdown of negotiations with management. Samsung’s management said the talks failed because “acceding to the labour union’s excessive demands would risk undermining the fundamental principles of the company’s management”. The standoff has raised concerns in South Korea, where semiconductors account for about 35% of exports and are a key pillar of the economy. The presidential office had expressed “deep regret” over the collapse of talks earlier, urging both sides to continue negotiations given the Key issues such as gas pricing remain unresolved, and analysts expect negotiations could take years. The Kremlin said both sides reached a “general understanding on the parameters” of the project, although no details or clear timeline were agreed. Xi said the countries should focus on long term strategy and promote a “more just and reasonable” global governance system. “China-Russia relations have reached this level because we have been able to deepen political mutual trust and strategic cooperation,” Xi said at the start of his meeting with Putin. Putin said after the talks that ties had “reached a truly unprecedented level and continue to develop.” Both sides signed a statement on strengthening comprehensive strategic coordination and a declaration advocating multi-polarity in the world order. “The global agenda of peace and development is facing new risks and challenges, with the danger of fragmentation of the international community and a drift back toward the law of the jungle,” their joint declaration said. – Reuters

would resume, the ministry said. Samsung reported a roughly 750% jump in first-quarter operating profit year-on-year, while its market capitalisation topped US$1 trillion (RM3.97 trillion) for the first time this month. The union had called for the scrapping of a bonus cap set at 50% of annual salaries and for 15% of operating profit to be allocated to bonuses. “Around 10pm on May 19, the labor union agreed to the mediation proposal put forward by the National Labour Relations Commission; however, management expressed its refusal,” it said in a statement earlier yesterday. “The labour union will lawfully commence a general strike tomorrow as scheduled.” China as a pillar of stability in a world rocked by trade wars and military conflicts. While the summit with Trump was largely about managing tensions between the world’s two most powerful countries, the meeting with Putin posed a different challenge – how to demonstrate progress in a relationship that the two sides have already proclaimed is “without limits”. But there was no apparent breakthrough on a massive new natural gas pipeline, the Power of Siberia 2, that the two sides have been discussing for years. Moscow had signalled ahead of the visit that it was seeking further energy agreements with China, including pipeline supplies and sea-borne shipments. During Putin’s last visit in September 2025, Russian gas giant Gazprom said both sides had agreed to move forward with Power of Siberia 2, a 2,600km pipeline to carry 50 billion cu m of gas per year from Russia to China via Mongolia. China has said very little publicly about the project. While Xi said cooperation in energy and resource connectivity should be the “ballast stone” in China-Russia relations, he did not mention the pipeline.

BEIJING: China and Russia condemned President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defence shield plans and Washington’s “irresponsible” nuclear policy at a joint summit yesterday, a week after President Xi Jinping hosted Trump in Beijing. A statement from Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin said Trump’s plan for a ground- and space-based missile interceptor system posed a threat to global strategic stability. It also criticised the United States over the expiry of the last remaining treaty restricting the size of the US and Russian nuclear arsenals, which lapsed in February with Trump failing to respond to Moscow’s proposal to extend the limits by a year. Xi and Putin, who have met more than 40 times, both stressed the closeness of the Russia-China ties that they sealed in 2022 with the signing of a strategic partnership treaty, less than three weeks before Moscow’s full scale invasion of Ukraine. For Xi, it capped a remarkable week of diplomacy in which he has set out to showcase

Samsung, union resume negotiations with minister mediating SEOUL: Samsung Electronics and its workers’ union resumed talks yesterday with South Korea’s labour minister mediating, in a last-ditch attempt to avert a strike.

The labour union at the world’s top memory chipmaker had said it would begin a strike today after talks over bonuses broke down, raising concerns about potential disruption to semiconductor production. The walkout was expected to dwarf a 2024 strike that drew about 6,000 workers, as anger flares among staff over how the company distributes its massive profits from an artificial intelligence-fuelled boom. But negotiations between management and the union mediated by the labour minister