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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Nearly half of all Americans still believe President Donald Trump worked with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after Special Counsel Robert Mueller cleared Trump of that allegation.

Americans did feel slightly more positive about Trump after learning the findings of the 22-month investigation into Russian meddling in the election, the national opinion poll released on Tuesday showed.

But U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s four-page summary of Mueller’s investigation did little to change public opinion about the president’s alleged ties to Russia or quench the public’s appetite to learn more.

According to Barr’s summary released on Sunday, Mueller found no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia in the 2016 election, but did not exonerate the president on the question of obstructing the investigation.

When asked specifically about accusations of collusion and obstruction of justice, 48 percent of poll respondents said they believed “Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election,” down 6 percentage points from last week.

Fifty-three percent said “Trump tried to stop investigations into Russian influence on his administration,” down 2 points from last week.

Public opinion was split sharply along party lines, with Democrats much more likely than Republicans to believe that Trump colluded with Russia and obstructed justice.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll measured the public reaction in the United States on Monday and Tuesday, after the report summary was released, gathering online responses from 1,003 adults, including 948 who said they had at least heard of the summary findings.

The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of its precision, of about 4 percentage points.

Trump’s approval rating got a slight boost, with 43 percent of Americans saying they approved of his performance in office, the highest he has polled so far this year and an increase of 4 percentage points compared to a similar poll last week.

Since January, the proportion of adults who approved of Trump has ranged between 37 percent and 43 percent.

Trump heralded the summary of the Mueller report as a “complete and total exoneration” and vowed to strike back with investigations of his own against unnamed political enemies who he believes are guilty of “evil” and “treasonous things.”

Democrats have called on Barr to release the full report, a position shared by a majority of poll respondents.

Among those familiar with Barr’s summary, only 9 percent said it had changed their thinking about Trump’s ties to Russia and 57 percent said they want to see the entire report.

Thirty-eight percent of all adults, including two out of three Democrats, support efforts by Democratic leaders to continue the Russia investigation in Congress, according to the poll.

The poll also found that 39 percent felt that Trump “should be impeached,” while 49 percent felt that he should not.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Asian shares held steady on Wednesday as investors tried to come to terms with a sharp shift in U.S. bond markets and the implications for the world’s top economy.

Financial spread-betters expect London’s FTSE Frankfurt’s DAX and Paris’s CAC to gain between 0.2 and 0.4 percent when they open.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan ticked up 0.1 percent, while Japan’s Nikkei average lost 0.2 percent.

Chinese stocks outperformed their Asian peers on expectations that Beijing would roll out more measures to support growth after data showed industrial profits shrank the most since late 2011.

The mainland’s benchmark Shanghai Composite rose 0.5 percent, the blue-chip CSI 300 climbed 0.8 percent, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 0.6 percent.

Wall Street’s main indexes tallied solid gains on Tuesday but finished below their session highs in a reflection of the underlying concerns about the economic outlook.

The S&P 500 gained 0.72 percent while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.71 percent.

The 10-year U.S. Treasuries yield rose as high as 2.432 percent from Monday’s 15-month low of 2.377 percent, though the yield curve remained inverted, with three-month bills yielding 2.461 percent, more than 10-year bonds.

The inversion spooked many investors as this phenomenon has preceded every U.S. recession over the past 50 years, triggering a dramatic selloff in stock markets globally late last week and a stampede into longer-dated U.S. government debt.

“While the markets now got out of the extreme nervousness about the U.S. yield curve, there is no denying that U.S. data has been soft of late, hardly dispelling worries about the outlook,” said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities.

The silver lining for stock bulls is that in the past, it has usually taken many months before the United States slipped into recession after the curve was first inverted.

Yet the signs from a raft of economic data, including a set of indicators on Tuesday, were not encouraging.

Home building fell more than expected in February as construction of single-family homes dropped to near a two-year low, while the consumer confidence index by the Conference Board fell unexpectedly.

“We are entering a new phase in markets as the U.S. monetary policy cycle has come to a turning point, from rate hikes to rate cuts,” said Akira Takei, bond fund manager at Asset Management One.

“Not all market participants have changed their mind-set yet. But as time goes by, it will become clear that a rate cut is the real possibility. The curve will be inverted further until the Fed cut rates,” he said.

Many major economies in the world, including China, Europe and Japan, are already slowing down amid U.S.-China trade frictions and uncertainty over Brexit.

A senior International Monetary Fund official said on Tuesday the trade tensions between Beijing and Washington have caused huge amounts of economic uncertainty and could cut Asia’s economic growth by 0.9 percentage point.

Investors are also wondering about Britain’s plan to exit from the European Union, with potential scenarios spanning from a cancellation of Brexit to a no-deal exit.

Prime Minister Theresa May will address Conservative Party lawmakers, possibly to set out a timetable for her departure, to win support for her twice-rejected Brexit deal as the parliament prepares to vote on a variety of possible options.

Ahead of the so-called “indicative votes,” the pound inched down a slight 0.1 percent/edged 0.2 percent lower to $1.3182.

The euro slipped to a two-week low of $1.1251 as the dollar gained some footing on a rebound in U.S. bond yields. The common currency last fetched $1.1258.

The dollar edged back to 110.61 yen, from Monday’s 1-1/2-month low of 109.70.

The New Zealand dollar took a tumble after the country’s central bank blindsided markets by saying the next move in interest rates would likely be down, abandoning its long-standing neutral stance.

While the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) kept the official cash rate (OCR) at 1.75 percent as expected, it surprised many by flatly stating “the more likely direction of our next OCR move is down.”

The kiwi dollar dived 1.6 percent to a two-week low at $0.6796, while bond and bill futures rallied sharply, taking yields to fresh all-time lows.

The Australian dollar was dragged down in its wake, falling 0.4 percent to $0.7102, though the Aussie did make hefty gains on its kiwi counterpart.

Oil prices remained supported by supply curbs by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus allies and as Venezuela’s main oil export port and four crude upgraders have been unable to resume operations following a massive power blackout.

Brent crude oil futures rose 0.3 percent to $68.17 per barrel while U.S. crude futures edged up 0.1 percent to $60.01.

DUBAI (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights united Washington’s Gulf Arab allies and regional foe Iran in condemnation on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait criticized Monday’s move to recognize Israel’s 1981 annexation and said the territory was occupied Arab land. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi said it was an impediment to peace.

Iran echoed the comments, describing Trump’s decision as unprecedented this century.

“No one could imagine that a person in America comes and gives land of a nation to another occupying country, against international laws and conventions,” President Hassan Rouhani was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

Trump, with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looking over his shoulder during a visit to Washington, signed a proclamation on Monday officially granting U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in a 1967 war and annexed it in 1981, in a move the U.N. Security Council declared unlawful.

“It will have significant negative effects on the peace process in the Middle East and the security and stability of the region,” said a statement on Saudi state news agency SPA.

It described the declaration as a clear violation of the United Nations Charter and of international law.

Trump’s special adviser Jared Kushner visited the Gulf Arab region last month to seek support on the economic portion of a long-awaited peace proposal for the Middle East. Gulf Arab states host U.S. troops and are important for Washington’s regional defense policy.

Qatar, which has been at loggerheads with other Gulf states over its policies, joined them in rejecting Trump’s move and called on Israel to end its occupation of the Golan Heights and comply with international resolutions.

Lebanon said the decision contravened international law.

“The world is witnessing a black day,” Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on Twitter during a visit to Russia.

KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) – A court in Pakistan on Tuesday ordered the government to take custody of two Hindu sisters allegedly kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam, police said, a case that triggered a quarrel with Hindu-majority neighbor India.

Police say the teenagers left their home in mostly Muslim Pakistan’s southeastern province of Sindh on March 20 to be married in Punjab province, where the law does not bar marriages of those younger than 18, unlike Sindh.

“The girls appeared before Islamabad High Court on Tuesday morning,” Farrukh Ali, a police official in their home district of Gothki, told Reuters by telephone.

“The court has directed the deputy commissioner to take their custody,” he added, referring to an administration official in the Pakistani capital.

The court set a deadline of next Tuesday for the submission of a report into an inquiry ordered by Prime Minister Imran Khan, and directed that the girls not return to Sindh until the case was resolved, broadcaster Geo Television said.

Police have detained ten people in the case over their marriages and registered a formal case of kidnapping and robbery by the teenagers, after complaints from their parents.

The incident prompted a rare public intervention by a top Indian official in its neighbor’s domestic affairs, when Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Twitter she had asked India’s ambassador in Pakistan for a report on news of it.

Pakistan was “totally behind the girls”, Information and Broadcasting Minister Fawad Chaudhry said on social media in response to Swaraj’s Sunday message, but asked India to look after its own minority Muslims.

At a news conference on Sunday, he referred to religious riots in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat in 2002 that killed more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims.

In Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, Pakistan accuses India of human rights violations, a charge New Delhi denies.

Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will seek a second term in a general election starting next month. He has taken a tougher stand towards Pakistan in the past five years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A fight brewed between Democrats and Republicans over the public release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, while President Donald Trump kept up attacks on his critics on Monday.

As the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Republican chairman called for an investigation into the origins of the probe of any Trump campaign links with Russians, the Senate leader blocked a second attempt by Democrats to pass a measure aimed at pushing the Justice Department into full disclosure of the report.

Six committee chairs in the Democratic-led House of Representatives called on U.S. Attorney General William Barr, in a letter seen by Reuters, to release the full Mueller report to Congress by April 2. Earlier this month, the House voted 420-0 in favor of making the report public, with no Republican opposition.

Barr on Sunday released a four-page summary of conclusions of the investigation that detailed Russian interference but cleared the Republican president’s campaign team of conspiring with Moscow.

No one outside the Justice Department has yet seen the report, including the White House. The Justice Department has not said whether it will release Mueller’s full report, but Barr has said he will be as transparent as possible.

A person familiar with the matter said there were no plans at this time to show the Mueller report to the White House.

Trump on Monday vented his anger at the inquiry and vowed investigations into unnamed political enemies who did “evil” and “treasonous things.” The probe left unresolved the question of whether Trump engaged in obstruction of justice.

Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and a Trump ally, told reporters he would ask for an investigation. Barr told Graham in a telephone call that he would be willing to testify to the panel about the Mueller probe, according to a spokesman for the senator.

Republican U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, noting that it took nearly two years for Mueller to conduct his investigation, said after blocking the Democratic measure: “It’s not unreasonable to give the special counsel and the Justice Department just a little time to complete their review in a professional and responsible manner.”

Trump said on Monday that “it wouldn’t bother me at all” if the report were released but that it was up to Barr.

The end of the Mueller inquiry did not spell the end of the investigative pressure on Trump by Democrats, who gave no indication of easing up on their multiple congressional investigations into his business and personal dealings.

Democratic lawmakers were likely to face a protracted legal battle that will turn on Trump’s right to keep communications with his advisers private, legal and political experts said.

One of Trump’s lawyers, Jay Sekulow, said at least part of the report should be withheld.

Sekulow said it “would be very inappropriate” to release the president’s written answers to questions posed by the special counsel, calling the responses provided in November confidential. After lengthy negotiations, Trump reversed his previous stance that he would be willing to submit to an in-person interview with the Mueller team, ultimately agreeing only to provide written answers.

FIGHTING BACK
The president and his allies in Congress went on the offensive as the summary gave him a political victory ahead of his 2020 re-election bid, with no allegations of criminal wrongdoing brought against him.

“There are a lot of people out there that have done some very, very evil things, very bad things, I would say treasonous things against our country,” Trump told reporters at the White House, without mentioning anyone by name or citing specific actions.

Trump pledged new investigations but did not specify who would conduct them or who should be targeted. Trump in the past has called for investigations of Hillary Clinton, the Democrat he defeated in 2016.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders called for congressional hearings to investigate prominent Trump critics including former U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey and other FBI figures.

In an appearance on NBC’s “Today” program, Sanders said: “The media and Democrats have called the president an agent of a foreign government. That is an action equal to treason, which is punishable by death in this country.”

Asked if Trump owed Mueller an apology, Sanders added: “I think Democrats and the liberal media owe the president and they owe the American people an apology.”

Trump had repeatedly accused Mueller, a former FBI director, of running a “witch hunt” with a team of “thugs” and having conflicts of interest. But asked on Monday if Mueller had acted honorably, Trump said: “Yes.”

Mueller, who submitted his confidential report on his findings to Barr on Friday, neither accused Trump of obstruction of justice in trying to impede the investigation nor exonerated him of obstruction, according to the summary.

Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller, concluded the investigation’s evidence “is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”

The Mueller investigation had cast a cloud over Trump’s presidency but he has declared himself fully exonerated, despite what Barr’s summary said on the obstruction of justice issue.

On March 5, Mueller visited the Department of Justice’s main office in Washington to meet with Barr and Rosenstein and told them he would not be reaching a conclusion with respect to obstruction, a decision that was unexpected, a department official said.

The Kremlin said on Monday that President Vladimir Putin was ready to improve ties with the United States following the release of Barr’s summary and called on Washington to formally recognize there was no collusion. Russia repeated its denial of U.S. intelligence agencies’ findings that it meddled in the election.

Mueller, in previous legal filings, described a Russian campaign to interfere in the election through hacking and propaganda to sow discord in the United States, harm Clinton and boost Trump. Mueller charged 12 Russian intelligence officers, 13 other Russians accused of taking part in a disinformation campaign and three Russian companies.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Defense shifted $1 billion to plan and build a 57-mile section of “pedestrian fencing”, roads and lighting along the border between the United States and Mexico, the Pentagon chief said on Monday.

Last week, the Pentagon gave Congress a list that included $12.8 billion of construction projects for which it said funds could be redirected for construction along the U.S.-Mexico border.

U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency last month in a bid to fund his promised border wall without congressional approval.

Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said in a memo to Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen that the Department of Defense had the authority to support counter-narcotics activities near international boundaries.

Shanahan authorized the U.S Army Corps of Engineers to begin planning and executing the project that would involve building 57 miles of 18-foot-high fencing, constructing and improving roads, and installing lighting within the Yuma and El Paso sections of the U.S.-Mexico border.

LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Theresa May was under pressure on Monday to give a date for leaving office as the price to bring Brexit-supporting rebel lawmakers in her party behind her twice-defeated European Union divorce treaty.

At one of the most important junctures for the country in at least a generation, British politics was at fever pitch and, nearly three years since the 2016 EU membership referendum, it was still unclear how, when or if Brexit will ever take place.

With May humiliated and weakened, ministers lined up to insist she was still in charge and to deny a reported plot to demand she name a date to leave office at a cabinet meeting at 1000 GMT on Monday.

“Time’s up, Theresa,” Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper said in a front page editorial. It said her one chance of getting the deal approved by parliament was to name a date for her departure.

“I hope that the cabinet will tell the prime minister the game is up,” Andrew Bridgen, a Conservative lawmaker who supports Brexit, told Sky News.

“The prime minister does not have the confidence of the parliamentary party. She clearly doesn’t have the confidence of the cabinet and she certainly doesn’t have the confidence of our members out there in the country,” he said.

Ministers will discuss at 0900 GMT how to address parliament’s attempts to take control of Brexit before a meeting of May’s cabinet team, a government source said.

The United Kingdom, which voted 52-48 percent to leave the EU in the referendum, remains deeply divided over Brexit.

Just 24 hours after hundreds of thousands of people marched through London on Saturday to demand another referendum, May called rebel lawmakers to her Chequers residence on Sunday in an attempt to find a way to break the deadlock.

“The meeting discussed a range of issues, including whether there is sufficient support in the Commons to bring back a meaningful vote (for her deal) this week,” a spokesman for May’s Downing Street office said.

Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Steve Baker attended along with ministers David Lidington and Michael Gove who had been reportedly lined up as caretaker prime ministers. They were forced on Sunday to deny they wanted May’s job.

MAYDAY?
May was told by Brexiteers at the meeting she must set out a timetable to leave office if she wants to get her deal ratified, Buzzfeed reporter Alex Wickham said on Twitter.

May told the lawmakers she would quit if they voted for her twice-defeated European Union divorce deal, ITV news said.

The Sun’s political editor, Tom Newton Dunn, said some ministers were urging May to pivot to a no-deal Brexit as the only way to survive in power.

The deal May negotiated with the EU was defeated in parliament by 149 votes on March 12 and by 230 votes on Jan. 15.

To get it passed, she must win over at least 75 MPs – dozens of rebels in her Conservative Party, some opposition Labour Party MPs and the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which props up her minority government.

The Sunday Times reported 11 unidentified ministers agreed May should stand down, warning she has become a toxic and erratic figure whose judgment has “gone haywire”.

Brexit had been due to happen on March 29 before May secured a delay in talks with the EU. Now a departure date of May 22 will apply if parliament passes May’s deal. If she fails, Britain will have until April 12 to offer a new plan or decide to leave without a treaty to smooth the transition and avoid an economic shock.

Lawmakers are due on Monday to debate the government’s next steps on Brexit, including the delayed exit date. They have proposed changes, or amendments, including one which seeks to wrest control of the process from the government in order to hold votes on alternative ways forward.

Amendments are not legally binding, but do exert political pressure on May to change course.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of collusion between U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia in the 2016 election, but left unresolved the issue of whether Trump obstructed justice by undermining the investigations that have dogged his presidency.

Even though Mueller’s findings on obstruction of justice were inconclusive, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said in a summary released on Sunday that Mueller’s team had not found enough proof to warrant bringing charges against Trump.

It marked a political victory for Trump. He quickly claimed “complete and total exoneration”, while his Democratic opponents expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome and vowed to continue congressional inquiries into his business and personal dealings.

The Kremlin said following the release of Barr’s summary that President Vladimir Putin was ready to improve ties with the United States but was up to Washington to make the first move.

“In this case, the ball is absolutely in their court. It was given to Trump in Helsinki,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters on Monday, referring to a summit between Putin and Trump in the Finnish capital in July 2018.

Peskov repeated Moscow’s denial of any interference in U.S. elections and internal affairs or those of any other country.

“…It’s hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat,” Peskov said.

Mueller’s 22-month investigation ended with a finding that no one in Trump’s campaign “conspired or coordinated with the Russian government”, according to Barr’s four-page summary of the confidential report.

The long-awaited report into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russian efforts to help him defeat his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, marked a milestone in his presidency as he prepares for his 2020 re-election battle.

Trump has described the Mueller inquiry as a “witch hunt”, saying there was no collusion with Russia and denying he obstructed justice. He is certain to use the report to attack his Democratic opponents in the 2020 race.

“This was an illegal takedown that failed,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. “It’s a shame that our country had to go through this.”

Many of Trump’s opponents had accused him of obstructing the Russia investigation when he fired then-FBI Director James Comey in 2017.

Mueller himself did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump broke the law, but he presented his evidence to Barr to make a determination.

“While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” Barr quoted Mueller as writing in the final report on an investigation that led to indictments and convictions of several of Trump’s senior former aides.

Barr, a Trump appointee who took office last month, said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that the evidence did not justify bringing obstruction charges.

Democrats, however, said they wanted to see Mueller’s report for themselves as they launch congressional investigations of their own into the 2016 election and Trump’s business and financial dealings.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the fact that Mueller did not clear Trump on the obstruction issue “demonstrates how urgent it is that the full report and underlying documentation be made public without any further delay.”

U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a Republican, said Barr should release as much of Mueller’s report as possible.

It remained unclear, however, how much more would be made public.

Mueller formally ended his investigation on Friday after bringing charges against 34 people, including Russian agents and former key allies of Trump, such as his campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former national security adviser Mike Flynn and his personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

None of those charges, however, directly related to whether Trump’s campaign worked with Moscow.

While Mueller’s team backed the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia worked to help Trump win the 2016 election, it concluded that Trump’s team did not collude with Moscow.

“The Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign,” Barr said in his summary of Mueller’s report.

LEGAL FIGHTS
Trump, who had been uncharacteristically quiet on Twitter for much of the weekend as the country awaited Mueller’s conclusions, was in his private quarters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when he got the news from his advisers.

“This is very good!” Trump said, according to White House spokesman Hogan Gidley.

And Trump was clearly in a good mood as he returned to Washington from Mar-a-Lago on Sunday evening.

The closure of the special counsel’s probe gives Trump a boost but it does not mark the end of his legal woes.

Other investigations are focused on his businesses and financial dealings, hush-money payments to two women who said they had affairs with him, and questions over the funding of his charitable foundation and presidential inaugural committee.

Democrats who control the House of Representatives are also preparing a series of their own inquiries.

On the issue of obstruction, Barr said Mueller’s report flagged “‘difficult issues’ of law and fact concerning whether the president’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction.”

Barr said the decision was left to him by Mueller, and he said there was not enough evidence to move forward with such a charge.

“The report identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constitute obstructive conduct, had a nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding, and were done with corrupt intent … each of which … would need to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” Barr explained in his letter to lawmakers.

Nadler called for Barr to testify to Congress, citing “very concerning discrepancies and final decision making at the Justice Department”.

Still, Trump’s closest allies were delighted. Vice President Mike Pence hailed it as a “total vindication of the President of the United States and our campaign” and many Trump voters saw it as a victory over Trump’s opponents.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, noted Mueller’s conclusion that Trump’s campaign did not conspire with Moscow, but said he was disturbed by Russian efforts to “interfere with our democracy” and looked forward to reviewing additional information from the special counsel’s report.U.S. intelligence agencies concluded shortly before Trump took office in January 2017 that Moscow meddled in the election with a campaign of email hacking and online propaganda aimed at sowing discord in the United States.

SINGAPORE/ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Boeing Co said it invited more than 200 global airline pilots, technical leaders and regulators for an information session on Wednesday as it looks to return the 737 MAX to commercial service.

The meeting is a sign that Boeing’s planned software patch is nearing completion, though it will still need regulatory approval.

Over the weekend, Ethiopian Airlines executives had questioned whether Boeing had told pilots enough about “aggressive” software that pushes the plane’s nose down, a focus of investigation into a deadly crash in Ethiopia this month that led to the global grounding of 737 MAX jets.

The informational session in Renton, Washington on Wednesday is part of a plan to reach all current and many future 737 MAX operators and their home regulators to discuss software and training updates to the jet, Boeing said in a statement.

Garuda Indonesia, which on Friday said it planned to cancel its order for 49 737 MAX jets citing a loss of passenger trust after the crashes, was invited to the briefing, CEO Ari Askhara told Reuters on Monday.

“We were informed on Friday, but because it is short notice we can’t send a pilot there,” he said, adding the airline had requested a webinar with Boeing but that idea had been rejected.

A Boeing spokeswoman said the Wednesday event was one of a series of in-person information sessions.

“We have been scheduling and will continue to arrange additional meetings to communicate with all current and many future MAX customers and operators,” she said.

Garuda has only one 737 MAX and had been reconsidering its order before the Ethiopian crash, as has fellow Indonesian carrier Lion Air, which experienced a deadly crash in October.

Lion Air Managing Director Daniel Putut said Boeing had informed the airline of the Wednesday meeting but it might not attend. He declined to provide further comment.

Singapore Airlines Ltd said on Monday its offshoot SilkAir, which operates the 737 MAX, had received the invitation to the Wednesday event and would send representatives.

Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore representatives will also attend, a spokeswoman for the regulator said.

Korean Air Lines Co Ltd, which before the grounding had been due to receive its first 737 MAX in April, said it planned to send pilots to Renton. South Korean low-cost carrier Eastar Jet will send two pilots, a spokesman said.

Ethiopian Airlines did not respond immediately to a request for comment about the meeting.

The 737 MAX is Boeing’s best-selling plane, with orders worth more than $500 billion at list prices.

Teams from the three U.S. airlines that own 737 MAX jets participated in a session in Renton reviewing a planned software upgrade on Saturday.

A U.S. official briefed on the matter Saturday said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not yet signed off on the software upgrade and training but the goal is to review them in coming weeks and approve them by April.

It remained unclear whether the software upgrade, called “design changes” by the FAA, will resolve concerns stemming from the ongoing investigation into the March 10 Ethiopian Airlines crash, which killed all 157 on board.

“After the crash it came to our attention that the system is aggressive,” Yohannes Hailemariam, vice president for flight operations at Ethiopian, told local reporters speaking in the Amharic language.

“It gives a message of stalling and it takes immediate action which is faster than the action which pilots were briefed to take by Boeing,” said Yohannes, himself a pilot with over 30 years of experience, including flying Boeing’s 777 and 787.

The U.S. official said planned changes included 15 minutes of training to help pilots deactivate the anti-stall system known as MCAS in the event of faulty sensor data or other issues. It also included some self-guided instruction, the official added.

American Airlines said Sunday it will extend flight cancellations through April 24 because of the grounding of the 737 MAX and cut some additional flights.