World News

Israeli Flight Forced to Croatia After Ljubljana Landing Refusal 

An Israir flight from Israel to Ljubljana was diverted to Zagreb, Croatia, on Wednesday after Slovenian authorities refused to allow the Israeli carrier to land, triggering an aviation and diplomatic dispute over alleged political interference in an EU open-skies route. 

Israir said flight 6H755 was already en route to Slovenia when it was forced to change course. Passengers were informed during the trip that the aircraft would land in Croatia instead of its planned destination. 

Uri Sirkis, Israir’s CEO, accused Slovenian authorities of blocking the flight because of political opposition to Israel. “The Israir flight scheduled for Ljubljana had to land in Zagreb because the authorities in Ljubljana are refusing Israeli carriers to land, due to their firm political opposition to the route operated by the Israeli government. This is a blatant violation of EU air agreements,” he said. 

Israeli officials treated the incident as a serious breach of aviation norms. The Foreign Ministry, the Civil Aviation Authority, and other Israeli officials were involved in efforts to secure permission for the flight to continue to Ljubljana, but the attempt failed. 

The dispute comes during a political transition in Slovenia. The outgoing government was sharply critical of Israel, while the incoming government is expected to take a friendlier approach. It remains unclear whether direct Israir flights to Ljubljana will resume or when the route might return to normal. 

The incident adds another strain to Israeli-European aviation ties at a time when political disputes over Israel’s conduct have increasingly spilled into areas beyond diplomacy. Slovenia recognized a Palestinian state in 2024 under Prime Minister Robert Golob’s government and, the following year, declared Israeli Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich personae non gratae. 

For Israel, the concern is larger than one diverted flight. Officials fear that if political considerations are allowed to override aviation agreements, other European countries could follow Slovenia’s example, creating uncertainty for Israeli carriers and passengers across the continent. 

source

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — In May 2015, the grisly killing of a pregnant 14-year-old girl named Chiara Páez by her 16-year-old boyfriend triggered massive protests in Argentina that evolved into a generation-defining movement throughout Latin America under the motto of “ Ni Una Menos,” or “Not One Woman Less.”

Now, 11 years after the first Ni Una Menos protest created a collective consciousness about what would come to be known as femicide — the killing of women and girls because of their gender — the nation is convulsing with anger once again.

This time, it’s over the killing of 14-year-old Agostina Vega, in the central city of Cordoba. She arrived at a family friend’s home the night of May 23, expecting to pick up a gift for her mother. Instead, she was sexually assaulted and hanged, initial autopsy results indicate, her body dismembered with a kitchen knife.

Her remains were found in a drainage ditch Saturday, a week after her disappearance, as vigils in her home province erupted into clashes with police.

The outrage has reverberated across the country ahead of Wednesday’s annual Ni Una Menos protest in downtown Buenos Aires, amplifying demands for government action and intensifying criticism of President Javier Milei.

The libertarian ally of U.S. President Donald Trump has called the feminist movement “a ridiculous and unnatural fight,” promoted scrapping femicide from the penal code, and defunded programs supporting victims of gender violence as part of his cultural war and cost-cutting campaign.

This year, lawyers at the Center for Legal and Social Studies, a leading Argentine human rights group, have counted 63 legally registered femicides. But they and other advocates say it can be an uphill battle against the government to get that classification. Some have compiled a list of more than 100 names of women killed this year, arguing that many aren’t properly labeled.

Reports of femicide in Argentina fell 12%, to 200 cases last year compared with 2024, according to statistics published by the Supreme Court. Victims’ lawyers say the change doesn’t reflect a drop in gender-based violence, but instead a failure to properly classify crimes.

“To stop calling femicides by their name, to deny the existence of gender violence — it’s an attempt to rewind the past 20 years,” said Natalia Gherardi, director of the Latin American Team for Justice and Gender, a Buenos Aires-based rights group. “I hope this reaction generated by Agostina’s case, what we show in the streets, will be enough to counter the desire to move backward.”

After Agostina’s death, protesters directed anger at local law enforcement, setting tires alight in the streets of Cordoba. Her family filed a missing person’s report the morning after her disappearance, but over 80 hours passed before phones across the province buzzed with a child abduction alert, according to family lawyer Gustavo Vaca.

The day after her death, a taxi driver reported that he’d driven Agostina to the house of the family friend, 33-year-old Claudio Barrelier, which security camera footage confirmed.

Agostina’s family has complained that security forces were consumed by concerns of fan violence during a major soccer game in the city of Cordoba that day. Three days later, police raided the house of Barrelier, an ex-boyfriend of Agostina’s mother.

Barrelier is in custody as the main suspect in the case and denies killing Agostina. Investigators say his criminal history shows he had been arrested for abducting a young woman a year ago but was released on bail of $3,500 after 20 days.

When peppered with accusations of foot-dragging, lead prosecutor Raúl Garzón said last week that authorities “are not engaging in any self-criticism.”

Calls grew to characterize Agostina’s killing as a femicide. Security Minister Alejandra Monteoliva has refused to do so.

“A homicide, whatever its nature, is not solely defined by what happens during one hour, two hours, or three hours, where the act itself occurs,” Monteoliva told reporters Monday in her only public comments on the case.

Advocates insist using the term femicide — which carries harsher penalties than other forms of homicide, with a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment in Argentina — is crucial for effective prosecution and victim protection.

“If we don’t name the specific form of violence, if we don’t recognize it, then we can’t understand the problem in all its dimensions, and we can’t create policies to prevent and combat it,” said Lucila Galkin, director of the gender and diversity program for the Argentina chapter of Amnesty International.

Milei has waged a cultural war against gender-based policies — what he sees as a dangerous consequence of socialism.

After Milei railed against the crime of femicide as “legally making a woman’s life worth more than a man’s” at the Davos summit last year, his justice minister announced plans to strip the category from the legal code.

Nothing came of that, but his government now is working to stiffen penalties for women who falsely report cases of gender-based violence. It is awaiting congressional debate.

In the last two and a half years, Milei has dissolved Argentina’s women’s ministry, shut down its anti-discrimination institute, gutted support programs for victims of gender violence, banned the use of gender-inclusive language in official documents, and defunded training in gender issues for public school students and state employees.

Among the affected programs is Acompañar, which assisted 350,000 women with aid equivalent to six months’ minimum wage before it was defunded. A 24-hour hotline to help victims lost two-thirds of its budget and half its staff last year. A government-sponsored program providing free legal assistance to people experiencing domestic violence or sexual abuse has also been dismantled.

On Wednesday, protesters prepared to gather at Plaza Congreso, opposite the seat of the National Congress, as they have every year since Chiara Páez’s death in 2015.

Agostina’s family says they’ll join a Cordoba protest that day to demand justice for her killing under the banner of the movement that once made Argentina a regional beacon for social and legal action on gender equality.

“I think this femicide, which caused so much pain, so much shock, also mobilized us, reminded us that this is a problem concerning all of society,” Galkin said of Agostina’s case.

“We are being forced to have conversations about issues we thought we had agreed on, a topic that we thought had been settled.”

source

By Joshua McElwee

VATICAN CITY, June 3 (Reuters) – Pope Leo heads to Spain on Saturday for a week-long tour, his first visit to an EU country outside Italy, which will culminate with the pontiff meeting migrants in the Canary Islands who braved dangerous Atlantic waters to enter Europe.

Leo, who drew the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump after criticising his anti-immigration policies, is expected to attract large crowds on the June 6 to 12 visit and will also be the first pope to address the Spanish parliament.

The first U.S. pope’s itinerary includes stops in Madrid, Montserrat and Barcelona, where he will inaugurate the newest tower of the Sagrada Familia, the famed modernist basilica that has become the world’s tallest church.

DEADLY MIGRATION ROUTE

On the last two days of the visit, Leo will travel to the Spanish islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, off the western coast of Africa, where he will meet ​with migrants and organizations dedicated to helping them.

The visit to the islands will send a signal that the pope stands “shoulder to shoulder” with migrants, said Caya Suárez Ortega, who heads the Church’s leading NGO in the Canary Islands.

“The first thing the migrants said to me when they were invited (to the papal meetings) … was their enormous gratitude that he would stand alongside them,” said Suárez, director of Caritas Canarias.

More than 3,000 people died in 2025 trying to ​reach the Canary Islands, often in makeshift dinghies, according to NGO Caminando Fronteras.

The pope comes to Spain as Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government has opened a mass amnesty programme, allowing an estimated 500,000 immigrants to apply for legal status.

Sanchez, who has been lauded abroad after sharply criticizing Trump, is trailing in polls and coming under fire over a string of corruption allegations against his party.

Leo will give two addresses in Madrid to Spain’s political leaders: on Saturday at the Royal Palace after meeting King Felipe and Queen Letizia, and on Monday at parliament.

NUMBERS OF PEOPLE INTERESTED IN VISIT ‘ASTONISHING’

The pope has adopted a more forceful tone in recent months and issued a fervent manifesto last week urging global governments to slow down the development of AI systems.

Leo, who spent decades as a missionary and bishop in Peru before becoming pope last May, is expected to speak Spanish throughout the trip.

Organisers of the pope’s Spain trip said interest in the visit has been strong, with more than 500,000 requesting to attend events.

The largest event is likely to be an outdoor Mass on Sunday in Madrid’s landmark ​Plaza de Cibeles, said Rafael Rubio, the national coordinator for the visit. “The numbers are astonishing,” he said.

The last pope to visit Spain was Benedict XVI, in 2011.

Narciso Michavila Nuñez, a sociologist with the Spanish consulting firm GAD3, said young Spaniards have shown particular interest in the visit. “This is the first time they are going to see a pope,” he said.

After three days in Madrid, Leo is travelling to Catalonia, the autonomous region in northeastern Spain.

In Montserrat, 60 km (37 miles) northwest of Barcelona, he will visit and have lunch with Benedictine monks who live at an 11th century abbey nestled inside the cliffs of a mountain range.

Sister Teresa Forcades, part of a nearby separate community of Benedictine nuns, said her group had not been invited to take part in the papal events there.

“No nun … has been invited to greet the pope or to the lunch,” she said. “Maybe if Pope Leo knew about it, he would like to change it.”

A Vatican spokesman did not respond to a question about why the nuns had not been invited to the events.

POPE LIKELY TO MEET ABUSE VICTIMS

Although it is not on the public agenda, Leo is also likely to have a meeting with Spanish survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.

A 2023 report by Spain’s human rights ombudsman estimated hundreds of thousands of victims of clergy abuse there over decades, echoing similar scandals that have shaken the Church in places across the globe.

The Vatican usually does not announce meetings between the pope and survivors in advance, so as to protect the survivors’ privacy.

Leo, who has undertaken three earlier trips outside Italy since becoming pope, is not known to have previously met with abuse survivors during a visit.

(Reporting by Joshua McElwee; Editing by Alex Richardson)

source

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW, June 3 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin has read long-term ally Armenia the riot act: persist in wanting to join the European Union and you can kiss goodbye to cheap Russian oil and gas.

The Russian leader issued the warning before a parliamentary election in Armenia on Sunday, which polls suggest the party of Western-leaning Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will win.

It is not an empty threat. Armenia, a landlocked country of 3 million with centuries-old ties to Russia, is highly dependent on Moscow, which has imposed temporary bans on important Armenian exports before the vote.

But Putin’s words also reflect an uncomfortable truth for Moscow. Waging war in Ukraine with no end in sight after more than four years of fighting, Russia is mounting an intensifying and increasingly complex rearguard action around the world to try to retain its geopolitical clout.

While Moscow focuses resources on the war in Ukraine, the European Union and the United States have been courting and squeezing traditional Russian allies and interests, both in what Moscow sees as its own backyard and also further afield.

From Havana and Caracas, from Belgrade to the steppes of Central Asia, and even in west Africa, where Moscow’s forces are helping fight Islamists, Russian influence is under pressure.

RUSSIAN CONCERN

Armenia, a longstanding recipient of Russian largesse and home to a Russian military base, signed a partnership agreement with the U.S. last month and Pashinyan won fulsome endorsement from President Donald Trump.

Armenia, once part of the Soviet Union, also passed a law last year setting out a legal basis for it to join the EU.

“Of course we are deeply concerned about the Armenian authorities’ policy of rapprochement with the Euro-Atlantic community whose core policy is directed against Moscow,” Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, told reporters.

“The Anglo-Saxons are openly boasting about ‘detaching’ Armenia, as they say, from the bear hug of ‘authoritarian Russia’”.

Russian war bloggers and analysts say Russia is facing a concerted and largely Western attempt – as in other regions across the world – to squeeze it out of the wider South Caucasus region, of which Armenia is part.

“In such conditions, the question of adapting Russian strategy (to embrace soft power and economic levers) becomes key,” said Russian analytical Telegram channel “The Secret Chancery”, which has over 400,000 followers.

One source close to the Russian government said Moscow could see that countries such as Armenia were “all waiting to see how the war (in Ukraine) ends” and some were already building new ties while Moscow was largely distracted elsewhere.

For Moscow, Armenia’s hosting a meeting of European leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last month was the last straw.

Since then, Russia has temporarily banned the import of many Armenian goods, warned it might cut off cheap oil, gas and rough diamond exports, suggested Armenia could be expelled from the Eurasian Economic Union, a Russian-led trade bloc, and recalled its envoy to Armenia for consultations.

Dmitry Medvedev, the outspoken deputy chairman of Russia’s powerful Security Council, also hinted that Armenia’s prime minister could, if not careful, suffer the fate of Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky whom Josef Stalin had killed with an ice pick.

RUSSIA UNDER PRESSURE

Meanwhile, Trump, who Moscow hoped would have strong-armed Ukraine into suing for peace by now, has instead targeted three traditional Russia-friendly countries – Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.

His actions have lifted oil prices, offering some respite to the war-battered Russian economy, but they have also exposed Moscow’s inability to meaningfully help old friends. Havana has received only one shipment of Russian oil so far.

In Europe, Moscow complains it faces an increasingly hostile continent that is re-arming while holding out the prospect of EU membership to countries where Russia once held sway.

Putin ally Viktor Orban lost power in Hungary in April, leading to the unlocking of billions of euros in EU funding for Budapest. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, another Russian ally, is under pressure, with moves under way to abolish visa-free entry for Russians as Belgrade seeks EU membership.

Russia is also feeling the heat in Transdniestria, a Russian-garrisoned separatist enclave which is internationally recognised as part of Moldova, whose current political leadership wants to join the EU.

Russia is also worried about what it casts as encroaching Western influence in Central Asia, while in the South Caucasus Putin is trying to move past a rocky period in relations with oil-producing Azerbaijan, which has strengthened ties with the West in recent years.

(Editing by Timothy Heritage)

source

DUBAI, June 3 (Reuters) – An Iranian drone and missile attack struck Kuwait’s international airport early on Wednesday, causing injuries and forcing authorities to divert flights, Kuwait’s state news agency reported.

The attack caused “severe damage” to the airport’s T1 building, the report said, citing the General Civil Aviation Authority.

The U.S. military earlier said two Iranian missiles fired at Kuwait fell short or broke apart en route, and three missiles launched at Bahrain were intercepted by U.S. and Bahraini forces.

U.S. Central Command added that Iran launched ballistic missiles toward regional neighbours but all failed to hit targets.

U.S. forces conducted strikes on Qeshm Island in response to attempted attacks by Iran and defeated multiple Iranian ballistic missiles and drones.

(Reporting by Ahmed Elimam; Editing by Kate Mayberry and Andrew Heavens)

source

NEW DELHI (AP) — A fire swept through a building in a New Delhi neighborhood Wednesday, killing at least four people and injuring several others, officials said.

The building in the Malviya Nagar neighborhood in the southern part of the city had a restaurant on the ground floor and residential units above. Fire crews rescued 37 people from the building, fire official Abhilash Malik said.

The fire was extinguished, but how it started was not immediately clear.

Four bodies were recovered from the site, while at least seven people were taken to hospitals for treatment, Jitendra Kumar, a senior administrative official, said.

Fires are common in India, where building laws and safety norms are often flouted by builders and residents.

source

TRUJILLO, Peru (AP) — In a desert area along northwestern Peru’s Pacific coast, Gladys Saavedra eyed with suspicion the strangers who arrive at the small market where she works alongside a group of women who, despite meager sales, must collectively give $300 a month to extortionists or risk paying an even higher price.

The market in Trujillo was set on fire last June when the women refused to give in to threats. Days later, they marched, demanding protection from authorities. Nothing changed. But that didn’t surprise Saavedra, as police had failed her in August 2024, when her house was attacked with explosives in another extortion attempt.

That level of violence by Peruvian gangs is the main concern for voters who will elect a new president in a runoff election Sunday. Many will leave their homes to vote fearful of becoming crime victims again during their trip to the polls.

“You can’t even stick your head out for fear of being shot,” Saavedra, 49, said.

The first extortion cases reported in Trujillo took place more than 20 years ago, but the phenomenon has spread throughout Peru in the last five years. During that period, extortion complaints increased fivefold, reaching 28,948 cases last year, while murders doubled, reaching 2,226 in 2025, according to official data.

Police and security experts attribute the expansion of criminal gangs in Trujillo to their involvement in illegal gold mining. They say the gangs initially profited by providing security to illegal gold miners in a nearby town, then used the proceeds to hire hitmen, buy weapons and strengthen their presence in the city.

According to official data, illegal mining generates approximately $7 billion annually, much more than the roughly $1.2 billion generated annually by drug trafficking.

The first victims of extortion were public transportation companies, whose drivers were killed if payment was not made. Transportation workers continue to be targeted, with at least 239 drivers killed last year across the country, according to the independent Observatory of Crime and Violence.

Of those killed, more than half were motorcycle taxi drivers, widely used on the outskirts of cities where roads are often unpaved. But it has been the murders of bus drivers that have triggered transportation strikes and protests.

Experts attribute the increasing power of organized crime in Peru to the profits that decades-old criminal groups are earning from illegal gold mining in the Andes and the Amazon. In 2025, Peru exported 100 tons of illegally mined gold, nearly matching the 109 tons of legally mined gold it exported.

In a Trujillo neighborhood where a quarter of the country’s footwear is manufactured, union leader Máximo Varas said that around 1,500 small business owners in that industry pay extortionists to be able to work.

“Everyone pays — even I get extorted. No one is safe,” he said.

Across Trujillo, several buses, restaurants, corner stores, nightclubs and even schools have stickers placed on their facades. These include a puma, a cross and a Batman logo. Police said the stickers indicate that the businesses have paid extortion fees. So, authorities sometimes go around Trujillo removing those stickers and replacing them with ones from law enforcement.

For businessman Iván Díaz, 58, violence has increased “unreasonably” in Trujillo. In 2023, he was kidnapped for 11 days by criminals dressed as police officers who dragged him from his office. To obtain a $250,000 ransom, his captors cut off part of two fingers on his right hand and sent videos of the torture to his family to “advance the payment.”

“I had to adapt to reality and keep a cool head,” Díaz said.

In May, the courts sentenced four members of the criminal group Los Pulpos, which emerged in Trujillo in the 1990s and later expanded to neighboring Chile, to life imprisonment for Díaz’s kidnapping.

The Ministry of Economy estimated in July that crime costs Peruvians some $5 billion annually. This figure includes state investment to fund police operations, but also private spending on surveillance cameras and security guards.

Peru’s outlying neighborhoods lack paved roads, potable water and electricity, but above all, they lack a police presence. In contrast, wealthier municipalities like the capital’s San Borja, where the two presidential candidates — the conservative Keiko Fujimori and the progressive Roberto Sánchez — live, have a large number of uniformed officers as well as an additional force of private security agents patrolling their streets.

Security experts maintain that combating crime requires an anti-corruption purge of the national police force, which has some 130,000 officers, and significant funding for investigations.

An agent investigating organized crime groups who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the press told The Associated Press that due to a lack of technology, the police cannot track the phones associated with the digital wallets that criminals use to receive extortion payments.

Harvey Colchado, a congressman-elect and retired police officer, said each of the country’s 70 police investigative units had a monthly budget of $29,000 five years ago, but now, they have no funds as the state allocated the money elsewhere. He added that this is compounded by laws approved in recent years with the support of the parties of Fujimori and Sánchez that make it difficult to prosecute criminals.

The laws Colchado referred to eliminated preliminary detention in certain cases and raised the threshold for seizing criminal assets and carrying out searches.

“This is a cancer,” Saavedra said. “(Police) don’t have the resources to trace the calls, to know where the messages are coming from. That’s the only way to stop it.”

___

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

source

TRUJILLO, Peru (AP) — Trujillo mourned its dead, killed in crime waves that have targeted this Peruvian city. Small business owners struggle and extortion by gangs is rampant as in many other places across the South American country.

Insecurity has emerged as a key concern ahead of a presidential runoff in Peru on Sunday, shaping people’s daily routines and influencing how Peruvians see their country’s future.

Over the past five years, extortion has increased fivefold, reaching nearly 29,000 reported cases in 2025. During the same period, killings have more than doubled, with authorities saying that 2,226 people were killed last year.

Criminal groups increasingly target small businesses, transport workers, market vendors and other entrepreneurs, demanding regular payments in exchange for allowing them to operate.

The impact extends far beyond the economic cost. Across the country, residents describe living with a constant sense of vulnerability as bomb attacks, kidnappings, killings and threats have surged.

It seems everyone in Peru knows someone who has been the victim of crime. Neighbors or loved ones have been extorted in order to keep their business open — or they have been kidnapped or killed.

Finding bodies on the streets or pulled out of ravines has become commonplace.

In some neighborhoods, businesses display symbols indicating they are paying extortion fees, while others invest heavily in private security to compensate for a limited police presence.

Security experts attribute the growing influence of organized crime to profits generated by illegal mining and other activities, as well as chronic underfunding of police investigative units and outdated technology. They also point to recent legal changes that have made it more difficult for authorities to detain suspects, seize criminal assets and dismantle criminal networks.

___

This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors.

___ Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

source

PARIS, June 2 (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame on Tuesday inaugurated a memorial in Paris to honour the victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda.

Macron said the memorial placed the genocide of the Tutsis “at the heart of our capital and our history”, and that it was “the culmination of a long and painstaking quest for the truth”.

• In May 2021, during a visit to Rwanda, Macron recognised his country’s responsibility in the Rwandan genocide and said he hoped for forgiveness, seeking to reset relations after years of Rwandan accusations that France was complicit in the 1994 slaughter of an estimated 800,000 people — mostly ethnic Tutsis. However, he stopped short of issuing a formal apology.

• This was after a commission established by Macron concluded in March 2021 that France had been blinded by its colonial attitude to events leading up to the genocide and bore a “serious and overwhelming” responsibility for failing to foresee the slaughter.

• The memorial on the banks of the Seine river in the heart of Paris is named “L’Archive”. It was designed by Portuguese artist Grada Kilomba. It consists of two black steles and bears an engraved tribute to the hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children massacred between April and July 1994.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon)

source

HONG KONG (AP) — General Mills is selling its Häagen-Dazs ice-cream shops in mainland China to an investor group that includes Chinese tea brand Ningji.

Minneapolis-based General Mills said in a statement late Monday that the deal will allow the buyers to exclusively sell the Häagen-Dazs brand in ice cream shops and gifting businesses across mainland China. General Mills will continue to sell Häagen-Dazs ice cream to Chinese retail and food service operations.

Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. The deal is expected to close by the end of this year.

General Mills didn’t immediately respond Tuesday when asked how many Häagen-Dazs stores it has in China. In its latest annual report, General Mills said it operated 332 ice cream parlors worldwide.

Ningji operates around 3,000 retail tea outlets in China. It opened its chain of stores in 2021 and has received funding from ByteDance, the Beijing-headquartered creator of TikTok, and Shunwei Capital.

Yaling Jiang, an independent Chinese consumer analyst, said Häagen-Dazs has been charging premium prices in China “without delivering sufficient product value or cultural relevance.”

Its line of products — traditional ice cream with higher fat content — has “passed its peak” in China at a time when low-fat, airy gelato options are becoming more common, she said.

Foreign businesses have also been shifting ownership of their operations toward Chinese investors as Chinese consumer confidence has stagnated and economic growth has slowed.

Starbucks said in November that it would form a joint venture with Chinese private equity firm Boyu Capital in a deal worth about $4 billion that allows Boyu to hold up to a 60% stake in its operations in China.

In February, Toronto-based Restaurant Brands International — the parent of U.S. fast food chain Burger King — said it had formed a joint venture with Chinese investment firm CPE to operate and expand the Burger King restaurant chain in China.

CPE invested about $350 million into the joint venture under the deal terms, and owns approximately 83% of the business.

source