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Medellin razes Pablo Escobar's home in symbol of rebirth

Officials in Medellin are turning a page on their city's past with the demolition Friday of an apartment building that former cartel boss Pablo Escobar used to call home.

Rogelio Gomez is the engineer in charge of the demolition. He says that 180 detonators were used to topple the Monaco building and 1,500 people were evacuated for safety reasons.

The explosion took place at 11:53 local time and sent a cloud of dust 10 meters (33 feet) into the air.

Mayor Federico Gutierrez has vowed to build a park from the rubble in memory of the thousands of victims of Escobar's Medellin drug cartel in the 1980s and 1990s.

The building in Medellin's Poblado neighborhood was gutted by a bombing in 1998 and has stayed an unoccupied eyesore ever since.

Source: Fox News World

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Dollar bounces vs yen as risk aversion eases, Brexit saga checks pound

FILE PHOTO: Illustration photo of U.S. Dollar and Japan Yen notes
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Dollar and Japan Yen notes are seen in this June 22, 2017 illustration photo. REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration

March 26, 2019

By Shinichi Saoshiro

TOKYO (Reuters) – The dollar rebounded modestly against the yen on Tuesday as Treasury yields pulled back from 15-month lows as a modicum of calm returned to financial markets gripped by fears of a sharper downturn in the global economy.

The pound stuck to a narrow range with British lawmakers scheduled to vote on a range of Brexit options later in the day.

The dollar edged up 0.15 percent to 110.13 yen and put some distance between a six-week low of 109.70 plumbed the previous day, when fears of a global economic slowdown depressed U.S. yields and boosted investor demand for the yen, a perceived safe haven.

“The dollar has tracked U.S. yields. But the trend may have run its course, with little further downside seemingly remaining for yields,” said Masafumi Yamamoto, chief forex strategist at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo.

“The decline by U.S. equities has also slowed, and this has supported the dollar as it shows that the market’s economic prospects remain reasonably good with the Fed preparing to take a more dovish approach.”

The euro was steady at $1.1316.

The single currency had sunk to a 10-day trough of $1.1273 on Monday, also hit by rising concerns about a slowdown in the euro zone economy but made modest gains overnight after a stronger-than-forecast German business confidence survey.

Sterling was effectively flat at $1.3201 after spending the previous day confined to a narrow range when British lawmakers wrested control of the parliamentary agenda from the government for a day in a highly unusual bid to find a way through the Brexit impasse.

British Lawmakers will now vote on a range of Brexit options later on Wednesday, giving parliament a chance to indicate whether it can agree on a deal with closer ties to the European Union.

The Australian dollar, sensitive to shifts in risk sentiment, was 0.1 percent higher at $0.7118 after gaining 0.45 percent the previous day.

The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield stood at 2.417 percent after declining to 2.377 percent on Monday, its lowest since December 2017.

(Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

Source: OANN

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Japan’s coincident index improves, government maintains economic view

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivers a press conference standing next to the calligraphy 'Reiwa' which was chosen as the new era name at the prime minister's office in Tokyo
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivers a press conference standing next to the calligraphy 'Reiwa' which was chosen as the new era name at the prime minister's office in Tokyo, Japan, April 1, 2019. Franck Robichon/Pool via Reuters

April 5, 2019

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s coincident indicator index improved for the first time in four months in February and the government kept its view to say the economy is at “a turning point”, government data showed on Friday.

Calculated from a range of data including factory output, employment and retail sales, the index, along with other data, will be assessed retrospectively by a government panel of economists and academics to determine where the economy is in the cycle.

The index of coincident indicators rose a preliminary 0.7 point in February from the previous month, the Cabinet Office said.

The government kept its assessment intact to say the economy was at “a turning point towards a downgrade”, meaning the economy may have peaked a few months earlier.

Concern has been growing over Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic policies amid a series of weak data such as exports and factory output.

The index for leading economic indicators, which is a gauge of the economy a few months ahead and is compiled using data such as job offers and consumer sentiment, rose 0.9 point from January.

(Reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim)

Source: OANN

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Deadly crackdown stokes fear among protesters in Venezuela

Jhonny Godoy had taken to Twitter to proclaim his opposition to President Nicolas Maduro, posting a video that showed him running through the streets waving the national flag as protests erupted across Venezuela's capital.

Two days later, his family said, rifle-wielding special police agents wearing black masks stormed into their home in the Caracas slum of La Vega, pulled him outside and shot him to death.

The slaying of the 29-year-old was part of a crackdown that has spread fear among young protesters in poor neighborhoods of Venezuela, where a history of steadfast loyalty to Maduro has begun to crack amid hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicine. At least 43 people have been killed in the round of protests that began last month, when Juan Guaido, the head of the opposition-controlled congress, declared himself interim president of the crisis-wracked country.

Human rights groups say some of those deaths appear to be targeted slayings by the National Police Action Force, or FAES, an elite commando unit created in 2017 for anti-gang operations. Rights groups say it is now acting against disaffected youths living in the slums.

"Maduro seeks to sow fear," said Rafael Uzcategui, coordinator of the respected rights group Venezuelan Education-Action Program on Human Rights, known as PROVEA. More than 700 opponents of Maduro have been arrested during the latest push by Venezuela's opposition to oust the socialist leader, according to PROVEA and a crime monitoring group, Observatory of Social Conflict.

Maduro is facing more pressure than ever to cede power in the oil-rich nation. The Trump administration recently sanctioned Venezuela's state-owned oil company, squeezing the country's damaged economy even harder, and Guaido has been recognized as the country's rightful leader by the U.S. and dozens of other nations that argue Maduro's re-election to a second six-year term last year was fraudulent. A new round of sanctions Friday targeted four high-ranking intelligence officials, including the heads of the FAES commando unit and the feared SEBIN intelligence police.

The country has seen the largest protests since 2017, when 120 people died in clashes with national guardsmen and pro-government civilians who fired on the masked demonstrators in middle-class neighborhoods. Now, critics say, Maduro is hitting back by sending security forces into the slums to try to suppress dissent.

PROVEA and Observatory say they recorded 35 deaths during a single week in January — most at night in poor neighborhoods — in addition to eight cases of apparent targeted killings by members of the elite commando unit.

Godoy's cousin, Marvelis Sinai, said that when agents burst into the family's home on Jan. 25, Godoy's mother Ana Buitrago saw her son beaten and dragged out as she begged for his life. Minutes later, she heard two gunshots.

Godoy was shot in the abdomen and foot, and a disposable diaper was shoved in his mouth, apparently to suffocate him, Sinai said.

She said the family believes his killing was linked to the video he posted on Twitter two days earlier.

"I'm going to continue demonstrating because I learned it from my cousin," said Sinai, who works for an opposition politician who hands out free food in the slums. "He died so we can have a free Venezuela."

The case gained special prominence when a tearful Guaido met with Godoy's mother at her home and assured her that her son's death wouldn't be in vain. Later, during a news conference, Guaido blamed the elite police commando unit for the killing.

Authorities have not commented on the case. But it's not the first time the special agents have been linked to deadly operations. PROVEA released a report last month accusing the unit of involvement in more than 200 killings in 2018.

Human Rights Watch also detailed widespread abuses by members of Venezuela's security forces in reports published in 2014 and 2017. It quoted Foro Penal, a Venezuelan group that provides legal aid to detainees, as saying that more than 13,000 people have been arrested since 2014 in connection with anti-government protests.

The Prague-based CASLA Institute, headed by Venezuelan lawyer Tamara Suju, recently gave the U.N. International Criminal Court reports of 536 victims of torture in Venezuela since 2014, including 106 since the beginning of last year. Six nations also made the unprecedented move of asking the court to investigate Venezuela for possible crimes against humanity.

Socialist party chief Diosdado Cabello and Venezuela's defense minister, Gen. Vladimir Padrino Lopez, have denied the accusations of targeted killings. They insist the military follows the constitution and respects human rights.

The attorney general's office has not given a figure for those killed in the recent protests, though Attorney General Tarek William Saab told a local TV channel that eight members of the national guard and the army had been detained for the killings of four people in the rural states of Bolivar and Yaracuy.

Among those who died when the latest protests broke out Jan. 23 was 19-year-old Nick Samuel Oropeza. His family says he was last seen alive fleeing alongside other protesters through the dusty streets of the capital's Las Adjuntas slum as national guardsmen opened fire on people who had blocked streets with mounds of trash. Minutes later, he was found on the ground, his shirt drenched in blood.

A bullet destroyed his kidney and punctured a lung, said his mother, Ingrid Borjas, a 38-year-old lawyer.

"This needs to be investigated," Borjas said, her voice breaking with emotion. "Justice needs to be served for my son and for others."

___

Fabiola Sanchez on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fisanchezn

Source: Fox News World

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In Mueller report’s release, Trump looks for vindication, but new fights loom

Nearly two years of fevered speculation surrounding Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe will come to a head in a dramatic television finale-like moment on Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m. ET, when Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein are set to hold a press conference to discuss the Mueller report's public release.

It was not immediately clear exactly when on Thursday the DOJ would release the redacted version of the nearly 400-page investigation into Russian election meddling. But with just hours to go until that moment, hopes for finality amid a deep national divide -- and persistent accusations of far-flung conspiracies -- are all but certain to remain unrealized.

Although Barr has already revealed that Mueller's report absolved the Trump team of illegally colluding with Russia, Democrats have signaled that the release will be just the beginning of a no-holds-barred showdown with the Trump administration over the extent of report redactions, as well as whether the president obstructed justice during the Russia investigation.

FOX NEWS POLL: TRUMP POPULARITY HOLDING STEADY AFTER MUELLER SUMMARY RELEASE

Trump’s legal team is preparing to issue a comprehensive rebuttal report on Thursday, to challenge any allegations of obstruction against the president, Fox News has learned.

The lawyers originally laid out their rebuttal in response to written questions asked by Mueller’s team of the president last year, according to a source close to Trump's legal team.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller drives away from his Washington home on Wednesday. Outstanding questions about the special counsel's Russia investigation have not stopped President Donald Trump and his allies from declaring victory. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

Special Counsel Robert Mueller drives away from his Washington home on Wednesday. Outstanding questions about the special counsel's Russia investigation have not stopped President Donald Trump and his allies from declaring victory. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

Barr has said redactions in the report's release are legally mandated.to protect four broad areas of concern: sensitive grand jury-related matters, classified information, ongoing investigations and the privacy or reputation of uncharged "peripheral" people.

Those individuals, Barr said, did not include Trump. "No, I'm talking about people in private life, not public officeholders," the attorney general said at a hearing last week.

ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT PETER STRZOK'S PHONE TOTALLY WIPED AFTER HE WAS FIRED FROM MUELLER TEAM

In a filing in the ongoing Roger Stone prosecution on Wednesday, the DOJ revealed that certain members of Congress will be able to see the Mueller report "without certain redactions" in a secure setting. Stone, a longtime confidant of the president, is awaiting trial on charges including giving false statements and obstructing justice.

Barr and Rosenstein are expected to take questions at the Thursday press conference, which was first announced in a radio interview by Trump and confirmed by the DOJ, and they'll likely be pressed on the precise nature of the final redactions.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Democrat New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, has said he is prepared to issue subpoenas "very quickly" for the full report if it is released with blacked-out sections, likely setting in motion a major legal battle.

NUNES' CRIMINAL REFERRALS OVER MISCONDUCT DURING RUSSIA PROBE COULD INVOLVE 'TWO DOZEN' INDIVIDUALS

Grand jury information, including witness interviews, is normally off limits but can be obtained in court. Some records were eventually released in the Whitewater investigation into former President Bill Clinton and an investigation into President Richard Nixon before he resigned.

Attorney General William Barr reacts as he appears before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee to make his Justice Department budget request, Wednesday, April 10, 2019, in Washington. Barr said Wednesday that he was reviewing the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. He said he believed the president's campaign had been spied on and he was concerned about possible abuses of government power. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Attorney General William Barr reacts as he appears before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee to make his Justice Department budget request, Wednesday, April 10, 2019, in Washington. Barr said Wednesday that he was reviewing the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. He said he believed the president's campaign had been spied on and he was concerned about possible abuses of government power. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Both of those cases were under somewhat different circumstances, including that the House Judiciary Committee had initiated impeachment proceedings. Federal court rules state that a court may order disclosure "preliminary to or in connection with a judicial proceeding," but prominent Democrats -- including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- have dismissed suggestions that Trump should face impeachment.

Another major area of scrutiny will be Barr's decision, along with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, that Mueller had not uncovered sufficient evidence to prosecute Trump for obstruction of justice.

In his four-page summary of Mueller's findings released late last month, Barr stated definitively that Mueller did not establish evidence that Trump's team or any associates of the Trump campaign had conspired with Russia to sway the 2016 election -- "despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign."

But on obstruction, Barr wrote that Mueller had laid out evidence on "both sides" of the issue, even as he acknowledged that it would be more difficult to prosecute an obstruction case without evidence of any underlying crime. That evidence, on Thursday, will go under the microscope.

FBI MADE 11 PAYMENTS TO AUTHOR OF DISCREDITED DOSSIER USED TO JUSTIFY SURVEILLANCE OF TRUMP AIDE

The report may also contain unflattering details about the president's efforts to exert control over the Russia investigation. And it may paint the Trump campaign as eager to exploit Russian aid and emails stolen from Democrats and Hillary Clinton's campaign.

The report's release will also be a test of Barr's credibility, as the public and Congress judge the veracity of a letter he released relaying what were purported to be Mueller's principal conclusions.

Barr, who was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to the role of attorney general in 1991 before reclaiming the role in February, has endured withering criticism from Democrats who say he is covering for the president.

Mueller is known to have investigated multiple efforts by the president over the last two years to influence the Russia probe or shape public perception of it.

In addition to examining former FBI Director James Comey's firing, Mueller scrutinized the president's reported request that Comey end an investigation into Trump's first national security adviser; his relentless attacks on former Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his recusal from the Russia investigation; and his role in drafting an incomplete explanation about a meeting his oldest son took at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected lawyer.

But this week, Trump, who has long said that voicing his opinions about the "witch hunt" against him wasn't a crime -- showed no signs of backing down.

WHAT'S GOING TO BE INSIDE THE TRUMP TEAM'S MUELLER COUNTER-REPORT?

"Wow! FBI made 11 payments to Fake Dossier’s discredited author, Trump hater Christopher Steele," Trump wrote on Wednesday. "The Witch Hunt has been a total fraud on your President and the American people! It was brought to you by Dirty Cops, Crooked Hillary and the DNC.

On Monday, he wrote: "Mueller, and the A.G. based on Mueller findings (and great intelligence), have already ruled No Collusion, No Obstruction. These were crimes committed by Crooked Hillary, the DNC, Dirty Cops and others! INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS!"

Republicans, including House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, have pushed aggressively for answers into the origins of the Mueller probe, which began shortly after Trump fired Comey in May 2017.

Trump cited several justifications for terminating Comey, including what the president called his mismanagement of the Hillary Clinton email probe, and Comey's refusal to publicly announce that the president was not under investigation.

The former FBI head acknowledged in testimony in December that when the bureau initiated its counterintelligence probe into possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Russian government in July 2016, investigators "didn't know whether we had anything."

An op-ed in The Washington Post earlier in the week, entitled "Admit it: Fox News has been right all along," pointed to the role in the media in spreading the Russia collusion narrative.

Justice Department legal opinions say that a sitting president cannot be indicted, but Barr said he did not take that into account when he decided the evidence was insufficient to establish obstruction.

That conclusion was perhaps not surprising given Barr's own unsolicited memo to the Justice Department from last June in which he said a president could not obstruct justice by taking actions — like the firing of an FBI director — that he is legally empowered to take.

Overall, Mueller brought charges against 34 people — including six Trump aides and advisers — and revealed a Russian effort to influence the 2016 presidential election.

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Twenty-five of those charged were Russians accused either in the hacking of Democratic email accounts or of a hidden but powerful social media effort to spread disinformation online.

Five former Trump aides or advisers pleaded guilty to charges unrelated to collusion and agreed to cooperate in Mueller's investigation, including former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.

Fox News' Brooke Singman, Jake Gibson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Youngest captain, loving son: Ethiopian pilots honored in death

A relative carries a portrait photograph of Ethiopian Airlines pilot Yared Getachew as he mourns at the scene of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 plane crash, near the town Bishoftu
A relative carries a portrait photograph of Ethiopian Airlines pilot Yared Getachew as he mourns at the scene of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 plane crash, near the town Bishoftu, near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri

March 20, 2019

By Maggie Fick

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The dreams of the two young men soared as high as the Ethiopian Airlines planes they proudly flew.

Handsome, cosmopolitan Yared Getachew was to marry another plane captain this year. Studious, serious Ahmednur Mohammed rented his first apartment with his maiden paycheck in February.

Their lives, along with 155 others, ended when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 plunged into a field moments after take-off in a still unexplained disaster.

Yared, 29, was captain; Ahmednur, 25, his first officer.

Yared was a popular and brilliant student who became the airline’s youngest ever captain at 27, said his father Getachew Tessema, a retired plastic surgeon and dentist.

He spoke to Reuters after a ceremony at the Kenyan embassy in Addis Ababa to honor the 32 Kenyan victims from the crash. Yared’s mother was Kenyan, making him a citizen of two nations.

“I’m very bitter,” 80-year-old Getachew said, sitting hunched with his head in his hand as he reflected on Yared’s shattered marriage plans.

“At least if he had had a child,” he trailed off painfully as friends nodded in understanding.

Yared’s brother Meno Getachew Tessema, 39, sat next to his father, sometimes putting an arm around him as the ceremony progressed. Yared visited Meno’s family in Toronto when the young pilot came to train on flight simulators in Miami twice in the past two years.

By the time of the crash, Yared had amassed 8,100 hours of flying experience, the airline said, unusual at his age but no surprise to the family. They remembered him as a committed student who shone at school as a child in his mother’s native Kenya and as a teenager in his father’s home country Ethiopia.

He went straight into Ethiopian Airlines’ Aviation Academy after high school. “His dream was to be a pilot,” said Meno, a corporate lawyer. “He was diligent, hardworking, he had a consistent work ethic … he was a rising star of Ethiopian Airlines.”

ARCHITECT TURNED PILOT

Sitting next to Yared in the cockpit on March 10 was Ahmednur Mohammed.

While the pair’s professionalism has been lauded, air safety experts fear they – and pilots in a similar crash in Indonesia in October – may not have been sufficiently versed in a new automated anti-stall system in the Boeing 737 MAX series.

The middle of three sons of a small business owner, friends from the sleepy eastern city of Dire Dawa remember Ahmednur as unusually driven to study when others would spend afternoons relaxing in the shade, chewing the narcotic leaf qat.

He spent five years at college studying his first love – architecture – where he earned the nickname 5-10 for his legendary 17-hour library stints, and received gentle ribbing for the neatness of his room.

Even as a student, Ahmednur’s skill earned him some small interior design commissions, friends said.

But the dutiful son feared he would not be able to make enough money as an architect to help his family, said his father Mohammed Omar, a white-haired 60-year-old in a carefully pressed worn suit.

So he switched to aviation school and completed two years of training. After school hours, he would visit a friend whose brother was a pilot and sit in the living room, running through cockpit checklists and motions on the couch, the friend said. He graduated with a commercial pilot’s license, the airline said.

“He would call me every three days. He would talk about his plans, he said that he was going to help his family,” his father told Reuters after Islamic prayers in Ahmednur’s memory at a relative’s house on the outskirts of Addis Ababa.

Last Friday, mosques in both the capital and Dire Dawa held prayers for Ahmednur, the family said.

After a few months rest, he began working for Ethiopian Airlines, visiting other nations — Israel, South Africa, Burkina Faso — and earning his first salary.

He adored it, said his brother Menur Mohammed.

Ahmednur amassed 350 flying hours and had just started living alone for the first time when the family heard his plane had gone down.

“It took us long to believe he was dead,” his cousin Imran Mohammed, 30, told Reuters.

“He was so excited to live on his own.”

The family wants the airline or government to build a bridge or a school, something tangible to commemorate Ahmednur: pilot, architect, son. “We want to see something in his name, to remember him,” his father said softly.

(Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

Source: OANN

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Alabama teacher who ran out of sick days caring for young daughter with cancer gets big gift from colleagues

An Alabama teacher whose infant was diagnosed with cancer received over 100 sick days from coworkers who pooled their own together so he could spend time with his child.

David Green, a teacher at Mae Jemison High School in Huntsville, ran out of sick days at work, according to his wife, Megan, who posted a plea to Facebook last month.

PATIENT'S REQUEST FOR PIZZA ON HOSPITAL WINDOW GETS GREAT RESPONSE

She detailed that the family wanted Green to be able to spend time with Kinsley, their daughter who at 10 months old was diagnosed with leukemia and undergoing chemotherapy at a hospital in Birmingham.

"Kinsley is the biggest daddy’s girl and needs him to be here as often as he can, so she would be so thankful for any donated days so she can spend time with her Daddy."

Green's wife asked any educators throughout the state if they could donate their own sick time — and they pulled through.

According to WHNT, teachers and administrators donated more than 100 of their own sick days for Green, who reportedly only need roughly 40 days.

Educators in the Huntsville, Alabama area donated more than 100 of their own sick days to David Green so he could spend time with his family.

Educators in the Huntsville, Alabama area donated more than 100 of their own sick days to David Green so he could spend time with his family. (Courtesy of Megan Green)

The principal of Goldsmith Schiffman Elementary told the news station that a teacher at the school "took the news story and [emailed] it out to the entire faculty."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"You know, you want to send words of encouragement, you want to do something to help, but this was a real physical way that we could help him and his family," Anna Kachelman, a first-grade teacher at the school, said.

Anyone looking to assist the Green family can find their GoFundMe page and Amazon wishlist online.

Source: Fox News National

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A worker holds a nozzle to pump petrol into a vehicle at a fuel station in Mumbai
FILE PHOTO: A worker holds a nozzle to pump petrol into a vehicle at a fuel station in Mumbai, India, May 21, 2018. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

April 26, 2019

By Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Surging global oil prices will pose a first big challenge to India’s new government, whoever wins an election now under way, especially as domestic prices have been allowed to lag, meaning consumers are in for a painful surge as they catch up.

For oil-import dependent India, higher global prices could lead to a weaker rupee, higher inflation, the ruling out of interest rate cuts and could further weigh on twin current account and budget deficits, economists warned.

But compounding the future pain, state-run fuel suppliers and retailers have held off passing on to consumers the higher prices during a staggered general election, which began on April 11 and ends on May 23, according to sources familiar with the situation.

That delay is expected to be unwound once the election is over. And there could be additional price increases to make up for losses or profits missed during the period of delayed increases, the sources said.

In some major Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, pump prices are adjusted periodically so they move largely in tandem with international crude prices.

That was what was supposed to happen in India but the election means there have been many days when pump prices have been unchanged.

In New Delhi, for example, while crude oil prices have gone up by nearly $9 a barrel, or about 12 percent, in the past six weeks, gasoline prices have only risen by 0.47 rupees a liter, or 0.6 percent.

State-controlled fuel suppliers and retailers declined to say why they had delayed price increases, or discuss whether there has been any pressure from the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A government spokesman declined to comment.

The opposition Congress party said Modi’s government was violating its own policy of daily price revision by advising the state oil companies to hold prices steady.

“The government should cut fuel taxes otherwise consumers will have to pay much higher oil prices once the elections are over,” said Akhilesh Pratap Singh, a senior leader of the Congress party.

(GRAPHIC: India Polls: Fuel price hike lags crude surge – https://tmsnrt.rs/2XLlxik)

Nitin Goyal, treasurer at the All India Petroleum Dealers Association, representing fuel stations in 25 states, said prices were similarly held down for 19 days in the southern state of Karnataka last year, when it held state assembly elections.

Only for them to surge after the vote.

“Consumers should be ready for a rude shock of a massive jump in retail prices, similar to the level we have seen in the Karnataka state election,” Goyal said.

‘CREDIT NEGATIVE’

Sri Paravaikkarasu, director for Asia oil at Singapore-based consultancy FGE, said retail prices of gasoline and gasoil prices would have been up to 6 percent, or about 4 rupee, higher if they had been allowed to rise in line with global prices.

“Indian pump prices have failed to keep up with the recent uptrend in crude prices,” Paravaikkarasu said.

“With the country’s general elections underway, the incumbent government has been keeping pump prices relatively unchanged.”

India had switched to a daily price revision in June 2017 from a revision every two weeks, as the government allowed retailers to set prices.

But the government faced protests last October when retailers raised prices by up to 10 rupees a liter after the crude oil price went above $80 a barrel, forcing it to cut fuel taxes.

Global prices rose to their highest level in 2019 on Thursday, days after the United States announced all Iran sanction waivers would end by May, pressuring importers including India to stop buying Tehran’s oil. [O/R]

Higher oil prices will mean Asia’s third largest economy is likely to see growth of less than 7 percent rate this fiscal year, economists said. Growth slowed to 6.6 percent in the October-December quarter, the slowest in five quarters.

Rating agency CARE has warned that a 10 percent rise in global oil prices could increase demand for dollars, putting pressure on the rupee and widening the current account deficit.

India’s oil import bill rose by nearly one-third in the fiscal year ending March 31 to $140.5 billion, against $108 billion the previous year.

“The increase in international oil prices is a credit negative for the Indian economy,” ICRA, the Indian arm of the Fitch rating agency, said in a note.

“Every $10/ bbl increase in crude oil prices increases the fiscal deficit by about 0.1 percent of GDP.”

Any big price rise would also build a case for the central bank to keep rates steady, or even raise them.

The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee, which cut the benchmark policy repo rate by 25 basis points this month, warned that rising oil and food prices could push up inflation.

Policymakers are worried that a sustained increase in the oil price in the range of $70-75/barrel or higher can move the rupee down by 3-4 percent on an annual basis.

The rupee has depreciated by 1.24 percent against the dollar since a year high in mid-March.

($1 = 70.1800 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma; Editing by Martin Howell and Rob Birsel)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Uber's logo is displayed on a mobile phone in London, Britain
FILE PHOTO: Uber’s logo is displayed on a mobile phone in London, Britain, September 14, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah Mckay/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc unveiled terms for its initial public offering on Friday, telling investors it would seek to sell as much as $10.35 billion in stock at a valuation of up to $91.5 billion.

In a regulatory filing, Uber set a target price range of $44-$50 per share for its IPO. The company will sell 180 million shares in the offering, with a further 27 million sold by insiders.

In the filing, Uber also reported a net loss attributable to the company for the first quarter of 2019 of around $1 billion and revenues of roughly $3 billion.

(Reporting by Joshua Franklin; editing by Patrick Graham)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Jet Airways aircraft are seen parked at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai
FILE PHOTO: Jet Airways aircraft are seen parked at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, India, April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Aditi Shah and Abhirup Roy

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) – The grounding of India’s Jet Airways is turning into a quick windfall and long-term opportunity for international airlines keen to scoop up nearly a million outbound passengers from what was once the nation’s biggest airline.

Jet, which previously had a fleet of around 120 largely Boeing Co planes, was forced to indefinitely halt all flight operations on April 17 after its banks rejected the carrier’s plea for emergency funds.

The carrier’s descent into crisis has benefited international airlines in the form of rising fares and demand, data showed.

Fares from India to cities such as Dubai, London, New York, Singapore and Bali in the first quarter of 2019 rose between 4 percent and 32 percent from a year ago, according to Indian travel portal MakeMyTrip Ltd.

In the peak travel months of May and June, fares to London have spiked as much as 36 percent and tickets to San Francisco are up nearly 20 percent from a year ago, according to data from travel portal Yatra.com.

“For the next three months it’s actually bonanza time for international players,” said Ashish Nainan, a research analyst at CARE Ratings. “At least until the middle of June, the fares are not going to come down.”

Due to rising demand, even before Jet’s lessors grounded planes, carriers such as British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, Singapore Airlines Ltd and United Airlines saw an up to a 27 percent increase in passenger numbers from India in the last quarter of 2018, data from India’s aviation regulator showed. That is the latest period for which the data is available.

India is one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets, clocking 15-20 percent domestic growth in recent years. It has long had only two full-service long-haul carriers, state-run Air India and Jet.

Jet is now hoping to be bailed out by a new investor, with final bids due on May 10.

INCREASING CAPACITY

Before its grounding, Jet had the biggest share of India’s outbound international air traffic, carrying 12 percent of the 7.8 million passengers headed overseas in the Oct-Dec quarter, down from 14 percent a year earlier, data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation showed.

For an interactive graphic on Jet’s market share, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2WvDQYi

For an interactive graphic on average daily flights by the airline, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2FeFDel

The total number of passengers traveling overseas with Jet fell 10 percent during the last quarter of 2018 even as the outbound travel market grew about 5 percent.

Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines posted a 27 percent increase in passengers from India, Cathay registered 17 percent growth and British Airways saw a 10 percent rise in the same period.

Cathay said the events at Jet combined with increasing demand for travel had led it to deploy larger aircraft with more seats on some Indian routes.

“In the long term we would certainly like to be able to offer more capacity into India, not just on our existing routes but by establishing new services to secondary cities,” Cathay said in a statement.

Singapore Airlines, in an email to Reuters, said the Indian market is “very promising” but declined to give details of airfare levels or demand patterns in the wake of Jet’s exit, citing a quiet period before the release of its annual results.

DOMESTIC GAINS

Jet’s grounding has also had a big impact on the domestic market, with inter-city air fares to major cities such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata soaring more than 20 percent in May and June, according to Yatra.com.

The spike in fares is expected to underpin strong earnings for IndiGo and SpiceJet Ltd, which are set to report results for the quarter ended March 31 in the coming weeks.

“Domestic Indian carriers are the main benefactors, but I suspect if Jet fails to be revived by May 10 then Vistara and other airlines that ply international routes, particularly the lucrative Gulf market, are the main winners,” said Shukor Yusof, the head of aviation consultancy Endau Analytics. Vistara is a joint venture of India’s Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines.

Inadequate bilateral traffic rights between India and other countries, however, could be an impediment to foreign carriers’ hopes of winning business lost by Jet, some analysts said.

“Even before Jet’s operational shutdown, international capacity was significantly constrained,” said Kapil Kaul, CEO for South Asia of consultancy CAPA. “We have now more serious capacity challenge … this is unlikely to be stabilized in the near term.”

A new national government likely to be in place sometime after elections end in May is expected to address the international capacity constraints, and once bilateral agreements are eased airlines including Emirates, Turkish and Qatar would immediately benefit, said Kaul.

“We would love to add more flights but we are at the limit of the allocation granted to us for traffic rights,” Emirates Chief Commercial Officer Thierry Antinori told reporters in Dubai on Wednesday.

(Additional reporting by Alexander Cornwell in Dubai, Jamie Freed in Singapore and Tanvi Mehta in Mumbai; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The company logo for pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is displayed on a screen on the floor at the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: The company logo for pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is displayed on a screen on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

April 26, 2019

By Pushkala Aripaka and Ankur Banerjee

(Reuters) – AstraZeneca Plc beat first-quarter sales and earnings expectations on Friday as the British drugmaker benefited from a push into cancer drugs and emerging markets including China.

Newer treatments such as lung cancer drug Tagrisso, now the company’s top selling medicine, have helped the drugmaker’s return to growth after years of crumbling sales due to patent losses on older drugs.

Sales in China have shown explosive growth, more than doubling since 2012, but AstraZeneca executives on Friday said that may not be sustained.

“The enormous growth you currently see in China, 28 percent, probably is not sustainable, but we feel very bullish that the growth will continue to be at a pace of between 15 percent and 20 percent,” Ruud Dobber, executive vice president, BioPharma, told Reuters.

Shares of the company were down 0.2 percent at 5,878 pence at 1031 GMT.

The turnaround in AstraZeneca’s fortunes has been powered by a push into cancer treatments led by Chief Executive Pascal Soriot, who saw off a 2014 takeover bid from Pfizer in part by promising annual sales of $45 billion by 2023.

In the first quarter, sales from its oncology unit rose 59 percent to $1.89 billion, accounting for 35 percent of total product sales.

The company has moved deeper into cancer therapy market through wide-ranging deals, including those for immunotherapy and targeted therapy. Last month, it agreed a multi-billion dollar oncology deal with Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd.

Interactive graphic on AZN’s top 10 drugs by sales – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W5XIRX

“We’re reaching that point where after years of having to keep faith, we have actually got something tangible to believe in,” Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Nicholas Hyett said.

AstraZeneca also backed its annual sales and earnings forecast and said it has extensively prepared for UK’s anticipated exit from the European Union, even in the event of a no-deal exit.

The company has already spent more than 40 million pounds ($52 million) on Brexit preparations, including stockpiling six weeks’ worth of drugs in the UK and four weeks in continental Europe to guard against shortages.

AstraZeneca said product sales rose 14 percent at constant currency to $5.47 billion in the quarter, led by its lung cancer drug Tagrisso and respiratory treatment Pulmicort.

Interactive graphic on AZN’s quarterly oncology sales – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W9tbCD

China sales increased by 28 percent to $1.24 billion in the quarter, accounting for nearly a quarter of overall product sales.

Core earnings came in at 89 cents per share in the quarter. Analysts on average were expecting core earnings of 85 cents per share and product sales of $5.29 billion, according to a company provided consensus of 19 analysts.

(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka and Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr/Keith Weir)

Source: OANN

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