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(This Oct 18 story has been refiled without any changes to the text.) By Raphael Satter WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. court has ordered Israel's NSO Group to stop targeting Meta Platforms' WhatsApp messaging service, a development the spyware company warned could put it out of business. In a 25-page ruling handed down Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton imposed a permanent injunction on NSO Group's efforts to break into WhatsApp, one of the world's most widely used communications platforms.  Hamilton also handed NSO a significant break on the damages awarded in a recently concluded jury trial, reducing the punitive damages it owes Meta from about $167 million to $4 million.  The injunction is likely to pose a challenge to NSO, which has for years been accused of facilitating human rights abuses through its flagship hacking tool, Pegasus.  Pegasus takes advantage of weaknesses in commonly deployed pieces of software to power its surveillance, making WhatsApp one of its bigger targets.  NSO has previously argued that an injunction preventing it from going after WhatsApp "would put NSO’s entire enterprise at risk" and "force NSO out of business," according to the judgment. Meta executives celebrated the decision. “Today’s ruling bans spyware maker NSO from ever targeting WhatsApp and our global users again," WhatsApp chief Will Cathcart said on X. "We applaud this decision that comes after six years of litigation to hold NSO accountable for targeting members of civil society." NSO, which has long insisted its products fight serious crime and terrorism, said it welcomed the 97% reduction in punitive damages and said that the injunction did not apply to NSO's customers, "who will continue using the company’s technology to help protect public safety." The company said it would review the decision and "determine its next steps accordingly.” The company was recently purchased by a group led by Hollywood producer Robert Simonds, according to a report earlier this month in tech publication TechCrunch. Simonds did not immediately return an email. (Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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By Tim Hepher and Allison Lampert CASTELLON DE LA PLANA, Spain (Reuters) -At Castellon airport in eastern Spain, workers in hazmat suits wriggle through hatches of a nearly new Airbus jet, stripping out parts as if gutting a mechanical whale. Once a semi-deserted airport, Castellon has become a graveyard for aircraft caught in a global engine crisis. Despite booming demand for planes, a severe shortage of next-generation fuel-efficient engines has flipped market economics: in some cases, the engines are now worth more than the aircraft they power when offered as spares. The imbalance has led to more than a dozen Airbus jets being dismantled for parts after only a few years in service, with dozens more awaiting their fate, according to industry insiders. AIRBUS JET SCRAPPED AFTER SIX YEARS The unusual trend, driven by delays in Pratt & Whitney GTF engine production and maintenance, has sounded the death knell for jets like the six-year-old A321neo being broken up in Castellon. The A321neo is part of the A320 family, which this month ousted Boeing's 737 as the most-delivered jetliner. The Spanish airport, for years blighted by a lack of passengers, is the growing hub for a lucrative financial trade as UK-based eCube harvests parts from almost-new jets for investor clients. "I can’t say I remember it happening on this scale before, because we’ve never had an issue like this on such a popular engine," said Lee McConnellogue, CEO of the company, which says it can release usable parts or recycle virtually the whole jet. Skilled workers strip out avionics, wheels and wing parts. Engine housings sit on the wings like empty husks, with their precious powerplants wrapped in blue covers to become spares worth up to $20 million. They are urgently needed by airlines forced to ground jets because of queues for engine repairs. The problem worsened in 2023 when Pratt & Whitney disclosed a rare powder-metal defect that could cause cracking, prompting calls for inspections of 600-700 GTF engines through 2026. According to Cirium data, one-third of the GTF-powered Airbus fleet or 636 jets are grounded or in storage. The equivalent percentage for planes with engines from competitor CFM is 4%. Pratt & Whitney and Airbus had no immediate comment. 'SOMETHING WRONG' The jet engine squeeze is disrupting airline operations worldwide, as carriers struggle to meet passenger demand and unlock the promised 15% fuel savings of new aircraft.  Most airlines say they are short of jets after years of delivery delays and are keeping older planes flying longer.  But in some cases, financial owners can earn more by stripping engines than by leasing out the jet itself.  For example, the engines can be rented out as spares for some $200,000 a month each, according to UK-based Cirium. That is at least as much as a whole plane with engines. Add to the pot revenue from breaking up the rest and the deal makes sense. "It's a paradox where there's so much demand, why on earth would people be parting out aircraft," said Austin Willis, CEO of Willis Lease, which bought some of the engines.   The engine bubble overshadowed a recent meeting of the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading (ISTAT), a teeming ecosystem of aircraft traders and lessors who buy, sell or finance almost every aspect of a jet from nose to tail. "It's a financial play … There have been billions of dollars of private equity capital bidding for aircraft and engines to part out in recent years," Naveo consultant Richard Brown said. "It shows aviation has become a super-efficient marketplace," he added in a telephone interview. But airline leaders question how aircraft built to fly for more than 20 years and save millions of gallons of fuel are being dismantled so quickly.  "It tells you something is seriously wrong," said Willie Walsh, head of the International Air Transport Association, which last week predicted $11 billion in costs from supply disruption this year including $2.6 billion in engines alone. Critics say the crisis has its roots in an overreaction to high oil prices above $140 a barrel at around the time engine makers were designing current models. Engine design involves a balancing act between optimising efficiency or durability. "They went too fast and the engines had great improvements in efficiency but they failed on maintenance," leading aviation economist Adam Pilarski told Reuters during the ISTAT event. Engine executives argue the fuel savings benefit airlines on every mile flown, while maintenance delays are temporary. Even so, Pratt admits it will take years to end bottlenecks. Chris Calio, CEO of Pratt & Whitney parent RTX, said last month that groundings had stabilised and would fall, but that “clearly we have more work to do.”  Now some are eyeing the fate of Airbus planes discarded by Spirit Airlines as the U.S. carrier faces bankruptcy. "I don’t think the die is completely cast on what’s going to happen to Spirit, but it’s inevitable that some of those aircraft will (be broken up)," eCube's McConnellogue said.     (Reporting by Tim Hepher in Paris, Allison Lampert in Montreal and Eva Manez in Castellon de la Plana, Spain; Editing by Joe Brock and Matthew Lewis)

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By Stefano Rebaudo and Kevin Buckland (Reuters) -The dollar rose against the yen and slipped versus the euro on Monday as investor focus temporarily shifted to political developments in Japan and the euro area, while lingering concerns about U.S. credit risks weighed on sentiment. The yen weakened as hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi looked poised to become Japan’s first female prime minister following a decisive parliamentary vote on Tuesday.  Her expected premiership, backed by a new coalition with the right-wing Japan Innovation Party, has raised investor concerns over potential fiscal expansion, which could weigh on the Japanese currency. “Market participants will now be watching closely to see what fiscal plans are put together by the new coalition government,” said Lee Hardman, senior currency economist at MUFG. “Japan Innovation Party’s own fiscal plans have been described as ‘moderately expansionary’,” he added. The dollar rose 0.1% to 150.75 yen, after hitting 151.20 earlier in the session. Bank of Japan board member Hajime Takata, who voted against keeping rates steady in September, reiterated on Monday his case for resuming rate hikes, providing some support for the Japanese currency.  Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock index closed more than 3% higher, hitting an all-time peak on expectations of an expansionary fiscal policy. [.T] The BOJ next decides monetary policy on October 30, with market-implied odds of a quarter-point rate increase at 23%, according to LSEG data. The euro edged higher against the dollar as political tensions in France eased, but investor caution lingered. Markets remain reluctant to fully price out French risk from the euro, with the government’s decision to freeze pension reform offering only a temporary political breather while complicating already fragile budget talks. The euro was up 0.1% at $1.1664. “This week the focus should stay on the U.S., and a further souring of credit sentiment could send the euro on a path to $1.180,” said Francesco Pesole, a foreign exchange strategist at ING. Market participants are closely watching Wall Street futures, which were up 0.34%. Indexes ended higher on Friday as investors took comfort in reassuring remarks from U.S. President Donald Trump on China, while upbeat quarterly results from regional banks helped ease concerns over credit risks. The Australian dollar rose on Monday, cheered by reasons to be a bit more upbeat on top trade partner China, with data showing its economy reasonably resilient to U.S. tariffs and Trump toning down some of his trade rhetoric. Official data on Monday showed China's economy grew 1.1% in the third quarter, to top forecasts, while industrial output also beat with a rise of 6.5%. Although the 4.8% annual growth rate marked the weakest pace in a year, it kept the country on track to meet its official growth target of around 5%. The Aussie gained 0.3% to $0.6504 on Monday. China's yuan was little changed in offshore trading at 7.1235 per U.S. dollar. "There's an element – to use the Cold War language – of mutually assured destruction when it comes to total rare earth exports curbs and 100% tariff rates, with both the U.S. and Chinese more or less acknowledging that," said Kyle Rodda, a markets analyst at Capital.com. "As a result, the markets are pricing in that things will de-escalate," Rodda added. "However, the markets are likely to remain jittery until such backdowns are explicitly announced." (Reporting by Stefano Rebaudo and Kevin Buckland; Editing by Sam Holmes and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

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(Reuters) -Amazon's cloud services unit AWS was hit by an outage on Monday, causing connectivity issues for many companies around the world and disrupting services for several popular websites and apps including Fortnite and Snapchat. "We can confirm increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region," AWS said in an update on its status page. AI startup Perplexity, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and trading app Robinhood attributed the outages to AWS. "Perplexity is down right now. The root cause is an AWS issue. We're working on resolving it," Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said in a post on X. AWS provides on-demand computing power, data storage and other digital services to companies, governments and individuals. Disruptions to its servers can cause outages across websites and platforms that rely on its cloud infrastructure. AWS competes with Google's and Microsoft's cloud services. AWS and Amazon did not respond to a request for comment. Amazon's shopping website, PrimeVideo and Alexa were all facing issues, according to Downdetector. Fortnite, owned by Epic Games, Roblox, Clash Royale and Clash of Clans were among the gaming sites that were down, while Paypal's Venmo and Chime were some of the financial platforms that faced issues, the outage tracking website said. Uber rival Lyft's app was also down for thousands of users in the U.S. Messaging app Signal's President Meredith Whittaker also confirmed on X that their platform was hit by the AWS outage as well. (Reporting by Shubham Kalia, Devika Nair and Ananya Palyekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

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(Reuters) -Multiple online platforms including Amazon's cloud unit AWS, Robinhood, Snapchat and Perplexity were down on Monday, Downdetector said, while the CEO of Perplexity said the root cause was an AWS issue. Amazon.com, PrimeVideo and Alexa were all facing issues, according to Downdetector. Paypal's Venmo was also down. (Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)