Economy
About 6,000 Audi workers protest over threatened plant closure
Thousands of Audi workers protested Wednesday against the possible closure of the German automaker’s Neckarsulm plant, as parent company Volkswagen moves forward with a restructuring expected to involve tens of thousands of job cuts.
The protest came as rival premium carmaker BMW announced thousands of job cuts, the latest blow to employment in Germany’s auto industry, where high costs, growing Chinese competition and U.S. tariffs are forcing painful restructuring.
“We are scared of factories closing and endangering our future,” Audi worker Melih Cevlik said at the protest in Neckarsulm.
About 6,000 people took part, according to the works council.
Workers demanded clarity from Volkswagen, whose CEO Oliver Blume has warned Neckarsulm is among four German plants that could close after 2030 if no alternative solution is found.
“The staff wants clarity because they’re worried about coming to work. Many families are worried, too,” Audi trainee Frank Wojko said against the din of rattles waved by protesters.
Blume has sought to avoid plant closures and floated alternatives including defence partnerships and production of Volkswagen’s Chinese models, which are not currently sold in Europe, at underutilized factories in Germany.
But no decisions have been taken and the second half of the year is expected to be dominated by tense negotiations with Volkswagen’s powerful labor representatives, including over a proposed doubling of job cuts to 100,000 across the group.
About 15,000 people work at the Neckarsulm site, which produces Audi’s A5, A6 and A8 models and is also home to low-volume production of the all-electric Audi e-tron GT.
Alexander Reinhart, head of the site’s works council, said allocating a high-volume electric vehicle to Neckarsulm could help secure its future.
Audi has been hit by falling sales in the once-lucrative Chinese market and a lack of U.S. manufacturing capacity, leaving it exposed to tariffs.
Last year, it announced plans to cut up to 7,500 jobs in Germany by 2029, mainly in administration and development.
Local mayor Steffen Hertwig warned that closing Neckarsulm would have far-reaching consequences for the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, a traditional automaking region where Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and supplier Bosch have also come under pressure.
“It would be a disaster,” Hertwig told Reuters, warning of a domino effect in the region.
Türkiye’s fast-growing shipbuilding industry is seeking to get a larger role in Nigeria’s maritime modernization push, as the two countries are said to move toward joint production, technology transfer and long-term industrial cooperation.
Nigerian authorities are looking to position Turkish shipyards not only as suppliers of vessels but also as strategic partners capable of helping develop the country’s domestic shipbuilding capacity, Anadolu Agency (AA) said on Wednesday, citing information compiled from industry and government sources.
The initiative was discussed during a government and industry dialogue organized with technology provider DAMISE and the Nigeria-Türkiye Business Council, where participants focused on joint manufacturing, technology transfer, fleet modernization, inland waterway transportation, workforce development and financing models.
The council aims to translate government-level engagement into concrete investment partnerships and production projects between Turkish and Nigerian companies.
In a statement, Nigeria’s Marine and Blue Economy Ministry highlighted the country’s approximately 853-kilometer (530-mile) coastline and more than 10,000 kilometers of inland waterways, inviting Turkish shipbuilders to view Nigeria not only as an export market but also as a potential manufacturing hub for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
From exports to industrial partnership
Türkiye’s shipbuilding industry has expanded rapidly in recent years.
According to Trade Ministry data, the country’s ship exports rose from around $900 million in 2018 to $3 billion in 2025, lifting Türkiye’s global ranking in ship exports from 28th to 10th.
During the same period, Nigeria’s ship imports declined from $3.4 billion to around $500 million, reflecting a shift away from an import-dependent model toward developing domestic production capabilities and technical expertise.
Commercial ties between the two countries have gained momentum following Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s visit to Türkiye earlier this year, with both sides stepping up efforts to expand bilateral trade and industrial cooperation.
The emerging partnership is expected to extend beyond shipbuilding to include technology transfer, specialized vessels, ferries, ship maintenance and repair, and broader maritime infrastructure projects.
Nigeria’s National Inland Waterways Authority has also invited Turkish shipyards and maritime technology companies to participate in developing vessels, ferry terminals and public-private partnership projects across the country’s roughly 3,000 kilometers of navigable inland waterways.
Türkiye’s maritime sector includes around 85 active shipyards, a Turkish-owned fleet of more than 2,270 vessels and an extensive maritime education network, providing opportunities for cooperation in engineering, training, maintenance and technology transfer.
Gateway to West African markets
Industry officials see production and maintenance facilities established in Nigeria serving not only domestic demand but also neighboring West African markets.
Nigeria’s Cabotage Act, which provides incentives for vessels built, owned and operated locally, is viewed as an additional factor encouraging Turkish companies to establish local partnerships rather than rely solely on exports.
Analysts say a strategy centered on joint production, maintenance and operational partnerships with Nigerian firms could provide Turkish shipbuilders with a more sustainable long-term presence in the market.
Fishing vessels, offshore support ships, fleet renewal, ship repair and inland waterway transport are expected to offer the strongest near-term opportunities for cooperation.
Over the longer term, discussions are expected to expand to include green shipping, maritime decarbonization, technical workforce development and joint financing mechanisms.
The next round of talks, focusing on matching Turkish shipyard capabilities with Nigeria’s fleet modernization needs, is scheduled for the coming days, while a separate session on financing and workforce capacity is planned for Aug. 5.
The framework for a 2027 Maritime Cooperation Road Map is expected to be unveiled following the discussions.
The number of ships transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Tuesday reached the highest level since July 19, preliminary shipping data showed on Wednesday.
Thirty-nine commodity ships passed through the waterway on Tuesday, while five transited on Wednesday, according to ship-tracking data from analytics firm Kpler, with only a few transiting through the Strait of Hormuz.
Two of the five ships exiting the Bab el-Mandeb on July 29 were carrying crude oil, including very large crude carrier (VLCC) Sophia and the Aframax tanker Ocean Laureate.
Separately, of the 39 ships passing through on July 28, 20 ships entered the strait while 17 exited, the data showed.
Among those exiting, three were Aframax tankers carrying crude. The Aisopos and Gustav exited to the Gulf of Aden, each carrying more than 750,000 barrels of oil, while the Karachi is carrying around 430,000 barrels of crude bound for Pakistan.
Of the ships that entered, two were tankers carrying petrochemical products. The Velos Aquarius is carrying 345,000 barrels of methyl tertiary butyl ether, a type of gasoline blendstock, for delivery to the west of Suez and the Sea Ambition is carrying nearly 93,000 barrels of chemicals bound for Türkiye.
Some ships could still be sailing with their transponders turned off.
Yemen’s Houthis said on Tuesday they fired ballistic missiles at a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea, stepping up enforcement of a newly declared maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia. That followed earlier attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil sites. China has held direct talks with the Houthi movement to enable its tankers to sail through the Red Sea, sources have said.
Only eight commodity ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, with five entering and three exiting, Kpler data showed, while one passed through on Wednesday so far.
VLCC Nissos Kea, currently empty, was one of the five ships entering the Strait on Tuesday.
Iran, meanwhile, has reportedly ruled out Oman’s proposal for regional joint management of the Strait of Hormuz, hitting hopes of a swift diplomatic breakthrough in the war.
The rogue agent that escaped from OpenAI and carried out a days-long hacking spree at AI company Hugging Face also breached a customer at another tech firm, New York-based Modal Labs, a report said Tuesday, citing a Modal executive and two other sources familiar with the matter.
Modal executives emphasized that the company itself was not hacked. According to a timeline published by Hugging Face on Tuesday, the rogue agent broke into a sandbox, or an isolated testing environment, “hosted on a third-party provider’s infrastructure” before turning it into a launchpad for the broader hack.
The third-party provider was not named in the blog post, but Modal’s chief technology officer, Akshat Bubna, said the agent exploited vulnerable code written by a customer that was hosted on Modal’s platform.
Modal said the customer had “published an unauthenticated endpoint that allowed anyone on the internet to use their sandboxes for code execution” – the digital equivalent of leaving a door open on the internet.
“Modal’s platform or isolation were not compromised in any way,” Bubna said.
Although the compromise of a Modal customer was just an initial step in the wider hacking campaign against Hugging Face, it shows that the rogue agent roamed further afield than was previously known.
OpenAI declined to comment specifically on the hack of one of Modal’s customers, instead referring Reuters to an update in which the company said that its rogue agent had broken into four accounts at four separate services.
OpenAI did not identify those services, but a person familiar with the matter identified Modal as one. The company said it had not identified “any other activity at the level of severity or scale of what we’ve shared related to Hugging Face, which involved a platform-level compromise.”
The early July intrusion at Hugging Face, carried out by an out-of-control agent that OpenAI was testing, drew global attention, evoking science-fiction scenarios of artificial intelligence run amok.
Last week, Reuters reported that OpenAI did not notice that its agent had gone haywire until well after the threat was contained and the FBI was alerted. OpenAI said at the time that there were inaccuracies in the Reuters reporting but did not elaborate.
The company said in its Tuesday update that it had taken the AI model being tested and “deactivated, encrypted, and restricted it from research access.”
Russia charged Pavel Durov, the founder, owner and CEO of the messaging app Telegram, with aiding terrorism and put him on an international wanted list, the country’s top domestic security agency said Wednesday.
In response, Telegram’s official account on the social media platform X posted an image of the Russian-born billionaire making an obscene gesture with his middle finger.
The charges against Durov, who was born and began his career in Russia but later moved abroad, came as the Russian authorities restrict Telegram, one of the most popular messaging apps in the country. It is part of a long-term effort to bring the internet under the Kremlin’s full control that has intensified since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Federal Security Service, also known as the FSB, accused Telegram’s administration in a statement of failing to remove “numerous channels, chats and bots” that are “actively used by Ukrainian intelligence agencies, terrorist, and extremist organizations to prepare and coordinate acts of sabotage and terrorism, mass murder, and cyberfraud” in Russia, which resulted in “numerous human casualties.”
The agency accused Ukrainian security services of using a popular dating chatbot on Telegram to lure and recruit Russians for “sabotage and terrorist activities,” and said 46 users of the chatbot, from 12 to 22 years old, have been detained across Russia since July 2025 for assaulting law enforcement officers, arson and other acts.
Durov earlier this year announced that the Russian authorities opened a criminal investigation against him and accused them of fabricating pretexts to restrict access to Telegram as part of an attempt to “suppress the right to privacy and free speech.”
Durov’s current whereabouts unclear
If convicted, the entrepreneur could face up to life in prison in Russia.
Telegram did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Its official website says that the company is based in Dubai and that Durov, who holds dual citizenship of France and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), lives there, too.
The FSB statement did not specify what mechanism Russia would use to get Durov arrested.
The global police organization Interpol did not immediately respond to a request for comment. If Moscow does request a Red Notice, however, the process is unlikely to be quick, a source with knowledge of the situation told Reuters.
Dubai has friendly relations with Moscow and growing ties in energy, business and finance. But handing him over to Russia could risk damaging the emirate’s image as an attractive hub for enterprise and technology.
Durov posted that he was in Georgia last week, but his current whereabouts are unclear.
Russia restricted Telegram
Russian authorities have engaged in multipronged efforts to rein in the internet. They have adopted restrictive laws and banned websites and platforms that don’t comply and focused on improving technology to monitor and manipulate online traffic.
Multiple popular social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and X, have been banned in Russia; YouTube has been throttled; popular messaging apps, such as Signal and Viber, have been blocked, and the most popular ones – WhatsApp and Telegram – have been restricted.
Russia’s popular Facebook-like social media platform VK, founded by Durov long before he launched the Telegram messaging app, had come under the control of Kremlin-friendly companies. Russia tried to block Telegram between 2018-20 but failed.
While it’s still possible to circumvent some of the restrictions by using virtual private network services, many of them are routinely blocked, too.
At the same time, Russia actively promotes the “national” messaging app known as MAX, which critics say could be used for surveillance. The platform is touted by developers and officials as a one-stop shop for messaging, online government services, making payments and more. It openly declares it will share user data with authorities upon request, and experts also say it doesn’t use end-to-end encryption.
Arrest in France
Durov has faced criminal investigations elsewhere.
In 2024, he was arrested in Paris over allegations that his platform was being used for illicit activity, including drug trafficking and the distribution of child sexual abuse images. Durov said in March 2025 that he returned to Dubai after spending “several months” in France.
The Kremlin at the time criticized the French authorities for their move against Durov as “selective.”
“I know that many countries have raised concerns about the platform being used in certain ways by certain individuals and entities whose activities could harm the economy or security of certain countries. I think the Russian government might also have had some questions,” President Vladimir Putin said in September 2024, after Durov’s arrest.
“But all platforms of this kind are guilty of this. If this is what they’re doing to Durov, then others should probably be arrested,” the Russian leader said, adding that the French government’s “actions are not entirely clear to me, as they are selective.”
BMW is set to offer voluntary redundancy to nearly half of its German staff as the premium carmaker moves to eliminate 8,000 jobs by the end of 2027, a report said Wednesday.
About 40,000 of BMW’s roughly 85,000 permanent German employees would receive the offers from October, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said, citing a company source.
The source added that production line workers would be spared the cuts.
“The workforce will ultimately be reduced by around 8,000 people by the end of 2027,” the source said. “We’re planning on the basis of that.”
BMW employs about 154,000 people worldwide and the offer would be open to German employees in desk-based roles, the source said.
The plan had taken about six weeks to negotiate between the board and BMW’s works council, the source added.
Suffering from slimmer margins on electric cars, U.S. tariffs and above all intense Chinese competition, German carmakers have sought to cut overheads.
Volkswagen is weighing up to 100,000 job cuts across its 10 brands while Mercedes-Benz has its own voluntary redundancy program.
A BMW employee present at a staff meeting announcing the plans said the carmaker’s CEO had called the situation critical, partly blaming European regulations that force the sale of electric cars despite patchy demand as well as increasing tariff barriers around the world.
“We are talking about a substantial change to the rules of the game,” CEO Milan Nedeljkovic told staff. “That is also a consequence of political mandates that are out of step with the market.”
“Neither the protectionism nor far-reaching changes in the market are going to disappear,” he added.
BMW’s press office confirmed a restructuring plan for the company’s white-collar workers, but would not provide any figures.
Trouble in China
Deciding early on to maintain petrol and diesel options for its customers, BMW has so far been widely seen to have weathered the storm better than its peers, avoiding costly strategy changes at the same time as seeing its electric sales rise.
But the carmaker issued a shock profit warning last month, saying that business in China was proving even worse than expected amid fierce competition and a sluggish economy.
BMW’s vehicle deliveries in China were last year already at their lowest level since 2017 and they fell 30% year-over-year in the three months to June.
“BMW is now responding to the slump in the Chinese market whilst simultaneously working to strengthen the competitiveness of its German sites,” said Horst Ott, head of the Bavarian branch of the powerful IG Metall union, who sits on BMW’s supervisory board under a German system giving labor representatives half the seats.
But he warned that “provisions under collective bargaining agreements are non-negotiable. The company is also making use of natural staff turnover.”
‘Immense’ pressure
The redundancy program is expected to meaningfully reduce BMW’s costs by 2028, the source said, with the bulk of departures coming next year.
Cutting its profit outlook last month to a margin potentially as low as 1% at its cars business, BMW said restructuring measures would cost it in the second half of 2026.
The costs this year would probably run into the hundreds of millions, the source said, adding that the exact figure was uncertain and depended on uptake.
The news throws a spotlight on the woes of Germany’s crucial automotive sector.
Industrial companies in Germany last year cut 124,000 jobs, according to consultancy EY, about double the figure for 2024, and losses were concentrated in the automotive sector.
BMW last year opened a new plant in lower-cost Hungary and Mercedes-Benz earlier this month unveiled an extension to its Kecskemet plant in the same country that more than doubled its size, making it the firm’s largest in Europe.
Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kaellenius, speaking to reporters and investors at the carmaker’s financial results presented Tuesday, said that given international competition, the German car industry needed to do more with less.
“The whole sector could benefit from improved productivity, no two ways about it,” he said. “The pressure is immense.”
BMW is due to announce first-half earnings Thursday.
Tehran has rejected Oman’s proposal for regional joint management of the Strait of Hormuz, a report said Wednesday, dashing hopes for a swift diplomatic breakthrough in the war that has disrupted Gulf trade for months.
Oman proposed a new regional deal aimed at resolving the conflict over the critical strait, through which about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flowed before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February.
However, Tehran ruled out Oman’s proposal for regional joint management of the strait, saying it had no chance of success, a senior Iranian official told Reuters.
The U.S. and Saudi Arabia are trying to pressure Oman to advance their “unrealistic plans” regarding the strategic strait, the official told Reuters. Iran insisted the entire inbound route through the strait and part of the outbound route must be under Iranian control, the official added.
A 50-50 joint control arrangement with Oman would not serve Iran’s interests, though Tehran considers Oman a valuable neighbor, the official said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said on Wednesday its forces struck three oil tankers in the strait and forced them to stop after they ignored warnings for taking an “unsafe and illegal route.”
The IRGC Navy said in a statement that it continued to maintain full control over the strategic waterway and warned that “unlawful U.S. military interference” and instructions to vessels in the region would not go unanswered.
Oil prices surge again
Oil prices rose over $3 a barrel on Wednesday as attacks intensified once again.
The U.S. and Saudi Arabia launched strikes on Iran-backed groups in Iraq on Wednesday, saying they were responsible for drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities, prompting Iran to warn that blaming it for such attacks was a “major miscalculation.”
The U.S.-Saudi strikes in eastern Iraq occurred just hours after the U.S. military said its air defenses had averted a surprise Iranian attack on U.S. troops in the region. The IRGC said on Wednesday it had fired several ballistic missiles at U.S. military installations in Jordan.
Jordan’s military said its air defenses intercepted and shot down five Iranian missiles targeting the kingdom on Wednesday.
Back-and-forth attacks in recent days have ended a brief pause in the fighting, after U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly called off a two-week U.S. bombing campaign and Iran appeared to follow suit.
Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday that its air defenses destroyed several drones targeting oil facilities in the kingdom’s Eastern Province. Iran-backed groups launched the attacks from Iraqi territory, Saudi Defense Ministry spokesperson Turki al-Maliki said.
Later in the day, U.S. Central Command and Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said the two countries hit multiple sites across eastern Iraq that they said had been used by Iran to direct drone attacks.
Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) said a number of its official headquarters in different parts of Iraq were attacked on Wednesday by what it described as U.S. and Saudi forces. The PMF said preliminary reports indicated several people were killed and others wounded, with damage to a number of its buildings and facilities.
Speaking to state TV in Iran, an Iranian defense official strongly denied any connection between projectiles fired from other countries toward Saudi targets.
The unnamed military official, quoted by state broadcaster IRIB, said attributing attacks on U.S. interests in the region to Iran was a “major miscalculation.”
Oman proposes joint management of Hormuz
In an effort to resolve the conflict over the Strait of Hormuz, Oman had presented Iran with a plan backed by Gulf states to manage the waterway that would include collecting voluntary fees from ships.
Under the Omani proposal, Iran would not exercise sole control and fees would be voluntary, a Gulf source and a Western diplomat briefed on the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.
The system would be analogous to one in place on Asia’s Strait of Malacca, where Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore ask ships to pay voluntary contributions to fund navigation, environmental protection and search-and-rescue operations.
Iran effectively shut the strait after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. A deal last month between the U.S. and Iran partially reopened the strait, with future talks planned to resolve larger issues including Iran’s nuclear program. But the agreement collapsed in early July after Iran fired on vessels using a shipping channel it does not recognize.
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