Airlines Locked Out of Iran Air Space Move to Afghanistan Route

After the air space across large swaths of the Middle East turned into a no-fly zone, the skies over Afghanistan have become increasingly crowded as airlines seek alternative flight paths to connect Asia with Europe and the US.
Flights over Taliban-controlled Afghanistan have surged by 500% over the past week, averaging 280 a day since Israel began its attack on Iran on June 13, according to data from Flightradar24. That compares with 50 flights on average traversing the country each day last month, the flight-tracking site said.

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Yahoo

34 minutes ago

• Yahoo

VivoPower Closes First Phase of US$121 Million Private Placement

LONDON, June 20, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VivoPower International PLC (NASDAQ: VVPR) ('VivoPower' or the 'Company') today announced that it has closed the first phase of the previously announced US$121 million investment round led by His Royal Highness Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki bin Talal Al Saud, and including a consortium of non-U.S. investors pursuant to Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933. This first phase is equivalent to gross proceeds of US$60.5 million. The closing was completed within existing authorized share capital parameters. The remaining 50% is expected to close shortly subject to shareholder approval to increase authorized share capital. Proceeds will support VivoPower's Ripple and XRP-focused treasury and decentralized finance solutions strategy and broader transformation initiatives. The private offering was made only to persons other than 'U.S. persons' in compliance with Regulation S under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the 'Securities Act'). Any securities described in this press release have not been registered under the Securities Act and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to U.S. persons (as defined in Regulation S under the Securities Act) except in transactions registered under the Securities Act or exempt from, or not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act and applicable U.S. state securities laws. Any share issuance under Regulation S cannot be sold for at least 40 days post registration and consummation of the transactions contemplated hereby are conditioned upon the sale and purchase agreements (Subscription Agreements) not having been validly terminated in accordance with their terms, which include but are not limited to material adverse change for the Company including in relation to its securities, delisting or suspension of the Company's shares and non-performance of obligations by either the Company or the investors. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities in the United States or any other jurisdiction. About VivoPower VivoPower International PLC (NASDAQ: VVPR) is undergoing a strategic transformation into the world's first XRP-focused digital asset enterprise. The Company's new direction centers on the acquisition, management, and long-term holding of XRP digital assets as part of a diversified digital treasury strategy. Through this shift, VivoPower aims to contribute to the growth and utility of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) by supporting decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure and real-world blockchain applications. Originally founded in 2014 and listed on Nasdaq since 2016, VivoPower operates with a global footprint spanning the United Kingdom, Australia, North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. An award-winning global sustainable energy solutions B Corporation, VivoPower has two business units, Tembo and Caret Digital. Tembo is focused on electric solutions for off-road and on-road customized and ruggedized fleet applications as well as ancillary financing, charging, battery and microgrids solutions. Caret Digital is a power-to-x business focused on the highest and best use cases for renewable power, including digital asset mining. Forward-Looking Statements This communication includes certain statements that may constitute 'forward-looking statements' for purposes of the U.S. federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements that refer to projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions. The words 'anticipate,' 'believe,' 'continue,' 'could,' 'estimate,' 'expect,' 'intends,' 'may,' 'might,' 'plan,' 'possible,' 'potential,' 'predict,' 'project,' 'should,' 'would' and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Forward-looking statements may include, for example, statements about the achievement of performance hurdles, or the benefits of the events or transactions described in this communication and the expected returns therefrom. These statements are based on VivoPower's management's current expectations or beliefs and are subject to risk, uncertainty, and changes in circumstances. Actual results may vary materially from those expressed or implied by the statements herein due to changes in economic, business, competitive and/or regulatory factors, and other risks and uncertainties affecting the operation of VivoPower's business. These risks, uncertainties and contingencies include changes in business conditions, fluctuations in customer demand, changes in accounting interpretations, management of rapid growth, intensity of competition from other providers of products and services, changes in general economic conditions, geopolitical events and regulatory changes, and other factors set forth in VivoPower's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The information set forth herein should be read in light of such risks. VivoPower is under no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions or otherwise. Contact Shareholder Enquiries media@

Forbes

35 minutes ago

• Forbes

Silicon Valley's Leadership Lessons

Leadership lessons from Silicon Valley for future readiness Mature organizations lose their vitality. Complex organizations lose their responsiveness. Successful incumbent market leaders, because they are typically both mature and complex, lose their charm, and become endangered. Not surprisingly, there has long been a search for ways to restore vigor and zest to such organizations. Inevitably, when such discussions arise, the success of Silicon Valley is cited as an alternative example of both energy and imagination; of being able to move fast and change things in a big way. The recent DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) initiative is one such effort. The advertised idea was to learn from the 'new economy,' and apply those lessons learned to large, bureaucratic, government agencies. That this does not appear to have happened is probably due more to chaotic execution and the mischief of ideologues than to a failure in the promise of Silicon Valley as an organizing inspiration for the rest of us. Not entirely coincidentally, the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) is another example. Inspired, in part, by the American Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA), which, established in 1958 in response to the Soviet Union's Sputnik, has continually played an influential role in Silicon Valley successes, ARIA's American born Ilan Gur sees his organization as a means of supporting UK innovation, which he refers to as a 'tightly wound spring that's ready to release'. What is it, then, about Silicon Valley that leads it to be seen as a source of managerial lessons for organizational success, and what might those lessons be? To answer these questions, I took the opportunity to interview an old friend and IMD colleague, Jim Pulcrano, engineer, entrepreneur, academic, and who for over 25 years has been an observer of Silicon Valley's inner workings, leading more than 80 executive explorations of the Valley in search of such lessons. What follows is a sense of what leadership lessons Silicon Valley might offer those of us who work in mature, old-economy, industries, and especially those of us associated with successful, incumbent, market-leaders, in such industries: Thinking Differently Jim Pulcrano: I think that the Silicon Valley lessons all begin with one word: '"urgency." Mature firms often become comfortable—they've grown strong, built moats, have big balance sheets. But that comfort is a trap. Silicon Valley thrives on discomfort. Everyone there is asking, 'What's next?' and 'How fast can I disrupt myself before someone else does?' Bill Fischer: And how does that urgency manifest itself? Pulcrano: Through relentless questioning. The best innovators don't start with answers—they start with better questions. What if we made a 10X improvement, not 10%? What if we killed our core product before someone else did? What if our future doesn't look like our past? Fischer: This is a dramatically different way of thinking than we typically see in more traditional organizations. Pulcrano: Revitalization requires daring and courage. Mature companies often cling to what worked in the past; the leaders usually built their legacies on products and systems that have outlived their utility and should be disrupted. In contrast, Silicon Valley is all about 'dream big or stay home.' It teaches us that innovation isn't about fine-tuning yesterday's model—it's about asking bold, even uncomfortable, questions. That culture of relentless curiosity that we hear about so often; it's gold. Fischer: So, it's about more than simply having a flashy R&D team? Pulcrano: Exactly. You need a network that nourishes innovation—not just exploits it. One important lesson is that in the Valley geographic proximity makes a difference. Everything is tightly packed together: venture capital, prototyping labs, universities, and legal experts. Ideas bounce around fast. That 'proximity stew' keeps innovation alive. For incumbents, the question becomes: how do we recreate that bubbling ecosystem internally? In a mature company, you've got to mimic that intensity. Create idea collisions. Flatten silos. Interest engineers in talking to marketers, finance to R&D. In Silicon Valley, the network is the superpower. People move freely—from startup to corporate, from VC to academia, then back. The real learning happens in the spaces between. Incumbents need to stop thinking in organizational charts and start thinking in ecosystems. Who do your innovators know outside your organization? What cross-pollination is happening? Who is the go-to person on X? Are you one of them? Leadership lessons Fischer: how different is the practice of leadership in such organizations? Pulcrano: First, leaders must normalize failure. In the Valley, failing fast and moving on is a badge of honor. Max Levchin, Elon Musk's Paypal cofounder, struggled with his first four startups struggled (and mostly failed). The fifth was PayPal. Most legacy firms? They'd have fired him after the second flop. Fischer: Failure becomes data? Pulcrano: Exactly. In the Valley, failure isn't the opposite of success—it's part of the process. That's a cultural shift. Leaders must model that by sharing their own missteps. Celebrate intelligent risk-taking, not just polished outcomes. Nobody wants to fail, it's f**king awful, but if you're trying to do something new, whether it be the technology, the business model or some combination, failure is likely, so learn from it. Second, diverse thinking isn't a bonus—it's a baseline. The best decisions in VC firms often come after heated debates. The VC firm Greylock Partners has even studied this—their biggest wins were investments that triggered the fiercest internal arguments. So if your executive team always agrees, you're in trouble. Fischer: That's quite a departure from many boardrooms; it reminds me of the adage: 'polite teams get polite results.' Pulcrano: It is. And that leads to another principle: permissionless innovation. In the Valley, junior people prototype without asking for five layers of approval. Those prototypes could be products or sales models. Leaders should ask themselves: "Am I enabling action, or am I an obstacle?" Fischer: What does that look like in practice? Pulcrano: One example is Google X. When a moonshot project failed—after years and millions invested—the team that shut it down got a bonus. Why? Because they made the right call. They stopped something that wasn't going to work and freed resources for better bets. Does Culture Really Eat Strategy for Breakfast? Fischer: Peter Drucker famously told us that 'culture eats strategy for breakfast,' so I'm interested in what you think about organizational culture, and how important it is for success in Silicon Valley? Pulcrano: A few things about culture: First: optimism. Even when Silicon Valley Bank [SVB] collapsed, in 2023, the Valley shrugged and poured money into AI startups the next week. That attitude? 'What if it works?'—it's infectious. Second: role models. Everyone in the Valley knows someone who built something, or at least tried. That proximity to success makes ambition feel doable. Third: constructive promiscuity. At a typical Valley barbecue, people swap business cards before burgers. It's not impolite—it's expected. Fischer: Am I right in thinking that the way you see it in Silicon Valley is that a lot of culture is tactical? Pulcrano: In the Valley, it's curiosity and opportunity rolled together. Everyone is 'on the make' always, but everyone is also looking to help, invest, and collaborate. That ethos is powerful. But it can fade—especially as wealth accumulates, risk aversion creeps in, and firms become protectionist. What does the Future of Silicon Valley Look Like? Fischer: I'm in interested in how durable these lessons might be? Silicon Valley has dominated for over fifty years. But can it continue? What might the next fifty look like? Pulcrano: That's a provocative question. I'm optimistic, but cautiously so. Silicon Valley's strength has always been reinvention. Semiconductors, personal computing, the internet, biotech, social media, AI—wave after wave. Each time, it adapted. But now? Fischer: You're not convinced? Pulcrano: I'm seeing signs of incumbent behavior. Some of the giants—Google, Meta, Apple—are acting like the very firms they once disrupted. Risk-averse. Bureaucratic. More lawyers than engineers. That's worrying. Fischer: So, what would it take to stay relevant? Pulcrano: It needs fresh blood. And that's under threat. Immigration policies, visa restrictions—they're slowing down the global talent pipeline. Remember, 60% of the Valley's tech workforce isn't U.S.-born. Choke that off, and the Valley stops breathing. Fischer: So, the magic is in the mix? Pulcrano: Always has been. People come not just from Harvard and MIT, but from India, China, Nigeria, Slovenia. They bring their ambitions, the chips on their shoulders. That stew of dreams and hunger—that's Silicon Valley's secret sauce. Fischer: Can other regions replicate the magic of Silicon Valley? Pulcrano: Not exactly, but they can recreate parts of it. You need three ingredients: talent, money, and ideas, and they must come together efficiently. But it's the efficiency with which you mix them that makes the difference. Fischer: That efficiency being? Pulcrano: Access. In the Valley, the customer, the VC, the tech shop, the legal expert—they're all accessible within 30 minutes. You pitch an idea at breakfast, and prototype it by dinner. That's hard to reproduce in sprawling ecosystems or hierarchical, process-driven multinationals. Fischer: How can incumbents inside large firms imitate that? Pulcrano: Start small. Create internal innovation hubs where people are free to experiment. Kill bureaucracy. Protect intrapreneurs. Build a real network of mentors. Most importantly, ensure sharing and success are incentivized. If ideas stay locked in departments, or behind IP walls, you've already lost. Final Thoughts Fischer: This has all been very interesting! If you could leave our readers with one challenge—especially leaders in mature firms—what would it be? Pulcrano: Ask yourself: 'Am I creating a space where innovation is possible, or merely tolerated?' Then look around. If your team is afraid to disagree, if failure is punished, if new ideas die in PowerPoint—your culture needs rewiring. And, if you are wondering whether you need to go to California to do this: you don't. The Valley isn't a place—it's a mindset. You just need to think like a rebel—and surround yourself with others who will, too.

Yahoo

an hour ago

• Yahoo

Opinion - Does Trump see an off-ramp for Iran's leaders and a historic tipping point?

President Trump has come to possibly one of the most historic tipping points of our time — a tipping point he may have accelerated. A tipping point which, if things continue in this direction, might recalibrate the Middle East for the better for decades to come. The question then becomes: How best to increase the positive momentum? One of the main reasons I believe Trump has been a successful and transformative president is because he brought decades of real-world business experience into the Oval Office for the first time in decades. Love them or not, Joe Biden was a 50-plus-years career politician; Barack Obama was a little-experienced local Chicago politician; George W. Bush was a 'nepo' politician who rode the coattails of his father; Bill Clinton was an academic and career politician; George H.W. Bush was a courageous war hero who then fell into a career of politics and diplomacy; Ronald Reagan was an actor and two-term governor of California; and so on and so on. All these presidents were still creatures of politics and beholden to their particular party. Aside from being the first president in our lifetimes to bring decades of real-world business experience into the White House, Trump gleefully and very publicly cut the special interests' umbilical cords which connected so many presidents to the entrenched elites in D.C. Hence the creation of the 'Never Trump' movement and now a decade of 'Trump Derangement Syndrome.' Trump does believe in 'America First.' To make that expression a reality, he is willing to break with the entrenched elites, outrage the legacy media, ignore academics who never worked in the real world, defy the 'globalist' leaders of other nations and, sometimes, challenge the thinking and perceptions of the MAGA movement. We are witnessing all those Trump tactics with regard to the latest Israel-Iran conflict. In the business world, you are often faced with 'buy,' 'sell' or 'sit this one out' opportunities. While building his global business empire, Trump has engaged in such negotiations thousands of times. More often than not, he acted upon instincts honed by decades of success. Many MAGA supporters — and quite possibly Trump himself — initially viewed the current Israel-Iran war as a 'sit this one out' situation. But Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities may have created an unplanned tipping point for Trump towards much greater peace and stability in the region, while strengthening the national security of the U.S. Going back to before to his first presidential campaign in 2015, Trump had long condemned the Iraq war, the tragic loss of life and the neocons and hawks who incessantly called for that invasion. We saw that same conviction from Trump when it came to the war in Ukraine. He wanted peace and was desperate to stop the useless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of human beings. During his decades of being a master business negotiator, Trump also knew that it was wise — and was often the key tactic — to offer the CEO and upper management of the company he was dealing with a face-saving off ramp. Trump may now sense that the leadership of Iran is desperate for such an off ramp. There is no doubt that Trump believes Iran to be a rogue state directly responsible for the killing and maiming of thousands of American soldiers; of controlling the most ruthless and dangerous terrorist organizations in the world; of openly calling for the annihilation of America; and which is directly destabilizing the Middle East, while causing the deaths and suffering of literally millions of people in the region. But that is the truth of the present and the past. What if one were presented with the rarest of opportunities — to affect the truth of the future? What if, via the actions of others, certain policies and happenstance, you were gifted a window to rid the world of a truly evil entity capable of killing millions? But it was a window quickly and maybe permanently slamming shut. No president in our lifetimes has pushed to keep Americans out of harm's way or for global peace more than Trump. He owes no one an apology nor an explanation. Trump does want peace — but knows peace and freedom come at a cost. In his first term, he saw the window to eliminate ISIS and jumped through it to crush the vilest terrorist organization the world has ever known. With regard to Iran, Trump ordered the elimination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a man directly responsible for the killing and maiming of countless American troops. Businessman Trump has operated with the 'carrot and stick' method his entire adult life. Usually while flying by the seat of his pants. Trump created the 'America First' movement. Now, his instincts may be telling him he has a fleeting sliver of time to create an 'Iran First' movement for the long-suffering people of that nation — a people yearning to live in peace, who hate those who have turned their nation into a murderous theocracy. Iranians are poised to act, but they need a tipping point to give them cover not to be slaughtered in the streets if they rise as one to reclaim their country. Trump may be about to give them that tipping point. Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.