Americas

Orders placed with US factories for business equipment unexpectedly declined in February, suggesting some companies are limiting investment as they await specifics on tariffs and tax policy. The value of core capital goods orders, a proxy for investment in equipment excluding aircraft and military hardware, decreased 0.3% last month, the first drop since October, Commerce Department figures showed Wednesday. The data aren’t adjusted for inflation. Rather than orders that can be canceled, the government uses data on shipments a direct input to gross domestic product, which is when a payment has been made. Core capital goods shipments rose 0.9%, the most in a year and a possible sign companies were racing to get ahead of tariffs. Read Also Oil prices rise to highest levels in three weeks Trump announces 25 pcttariffon countries purchasing oil, gas from Venezuela Mercedes chief calls for EU, US to abolish auto tariffs Before the report, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow forecast penciled in a healthy increase in business equipment spending for the first quarter. "With underlying capital goods shipments also doing well, machinery and equipment investment is on track to rebound this quarter, albeit not by enough to prevent a sharp slowdown in overall GDP growth,” Stephen Brown, deputy chief North America economist at Capital Economics, said in a note. Though many businesses are still committed to making long-term investments, they face uncertainty about President Donald Trump’s vacillating tariffs and questions about tax-cut legislation that has caused consumer confidence to plummet and led to a stock-market rout. Bookings for all durable goods - items meant to last at least three years - rose 0.9%. Excluding transportation equipment, orders increased 0.7%. The Commerce Department’s durable goods report showed commercial aircraft bookings, which are volatile from month to month, dropped 5% after nearly doubling in January. Boeing Co. reported 13 orders in February, down from 36 a month earlier. While often helpful to compare the two, aircraft orders are volatile and the government data don’t always correlate with the planemaker’s monthly figures. Recent purchasing managers surveys illustrate a manufacturing sector struggling for momentum amid the economic uncertainty and a rise in materials prices. The S&P Global manufacturing index slipped back into contraction territory this month.

Africa

Khartoum: The Sudanese army said it recaptured Khartoum airport from the Rapid Support Forces and surrounded the paramilitaries south of the capital on Wednesday, in its latest battlefield gains. The army, battling the RSF since April 2023, had "fully secured" the airport from the paramilitary fighters who had been stationed inside, its spokesman Nabil Abdallah told AFP. The takeover comes a day after the army was accused of one of the war's deadliest air strikes on a market in the western region of Darfur, killing dozens according to the United Nations, while eyewitnesses said they counted 270 bodies buried. Following their recapture of the presidential palace in a key victory on Friday, the army has surged through central Khartoum, seizing state institutions captured early in the war by the RSF. "In the south of the capital, our forces have surrounded the strategic Jebel Awliya area from three directions: north, south and east," a military source told AFP, adding that "all axes are advancing steadily". "The remnants of the RSF militia are fleeing" across the White Nile at the Jebel Awliya bridge, he said, requesting anonymity because he is not authorised to brief the media. The bridge is the paramilitaries' only crossing out of the area, linking it to its positions west of the city and then to its strongholds in Darfur. Across Khartoum, eyewitnesses and activists reported this week RSF fighters retreating southwards, ostensibly towards Jebel Awliya. The RSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Civilians celebrate Since April 2023, the war has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted more than 12 million and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crises. It has also divided the country in two, with the army holding the east and north and the RSF controlling nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south. Following a year and a half of defeats, the army turned the tide late last year, pushing through central Sudan to Khartoum, from which its government was forced to flee to the Red Sea town of Port Sudan early in the war. The RSF had so far maintained its position in Jebel Awliya, as well as the western and southern outskirts of Omdurman -- central Khartoum's twin city just across the Nile. According to the United Nations, more than 3.5 million people were forced to flee the war-ravaged capital. Millions more, unable or unwilling to leave, were left to face hunger, rights abuses and indiscriminate shelling of their homes by both sides. Footage shared on social media appeared to show residents of central Khartoum celebrating the RSF's retreat. "You have endured so much," one young fighter can be heard saying while embracing civilians, in a video which AFP was unable to immediately verify. "The area has been completely empty of the RSF since last night," Osama Abdel Qader, a resident of central Khartoum's Sahafa neighbourhood, told AFP on Wednesday. Rights abuses Abdel Qader and other eyewitnesses said RSF fighters had abandoned the homes they previously occupied, in some areas taking furniture with them. Since the war began, the RSF has been accused of looting and taking over civilian homes, with rights groups documenting systematic sexual violence and other abuses. The United States has placed sanctions on both army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, for war crimes, accusing the latter specifically of genocide in Darfur. The United Nations has expressed grave alarm at "the continued attacks on civilians" across the country, including Monday's air strike on the town of Tora in North Darfur and an RSF artillery attack on a Khartoum mosque on Sunday. "A market -- meant to be a place of daily life and livelihood -- turned into a scene of devastation," the UN's most senior official in Sudan, resident and humanitarian coordinator Clementine Nkweta-Salami, said on Wednesday of the Darfur air strike. "This horrific act is yet another stark reminder of the growing disregard for human life and international humanitarian law in this conflict," she added. Analysts have warned of the RSF's pattern of revenge attacks on civilians, while the army has been accused of allowing its allied groups to persecute civilians thought to have collaborated with the RSF.

Europe

Vilnius: Lithuanian prosecutors said on Wednesday they believed pilot error was to blame for last year's deadly DHL cargo plane crash in Vilnius and called for the surviving pilot to be charged. The plane coming from the German city of Leipzig crashed near Vilnius Airport in November, raising questions over whether the tragedy could be connected to a recent series of sabotage cases. The crash killed one Spanish pilot and injured the three other crew members: a German, a Lithuanian and another Spanish pilot, who is currently receiving treatment in Spain. The Lithuanian prosecutor's office said it had asked Spanish authorities to "charge the pilot of the aircraft and to question him". "The crash... is believed, on the basis of the currently available evidence, to have been caused by human error," it added in a press release. Prosecutors said that evidence suggests the accident may have resulted from the deactivation of the hydraulic system responsible for deploying the wing flaps. Other potential causes have been ruled out based on data obtained during the investigation, they added. The plane crashed about one kilometre (0.6 miles) from the airport, hitting buildings as it skidded several hundred metres. Prosecutors said 16 people whose homes were burnt down afterwards were officially recognised as victims. Germany had initially raised the possibility of outside involvement in the disaster, arguing that it could have been "another hybrid incident". The term "hybrid" is commonly used to describe attacks that do not use conventional military tactics, such as sabotaging infrastructure or launching cyberattacks. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, European countries have often used the term to describe actions against them that they believe originate from Moscow. Lithuanian officials had in the weeks preceding the crash probed alleged acts of incendiary devices being planted on cargo planes.