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Roger Stone Complains of Gag Order

Political consultant and longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone on Tuesday complained of a gag order issued in his criminal case, The Hill reports.

The "real reason they want to gag me is so I cannot raise money necessary to mount a vigorous legal defense," he wrote in a fundraising email.

Additionally, he said he has been targeted because of his relationship with the president, and has been surviving on peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches. 

"We both know I have been targeted by Mueller and the Deep State simply because I am a long-time confidant and friend of the president and I effectively helped defeat Hillary Clinton," Stone wrote. "The Democrats want me side-lined in 2020 so I cannot help the president."

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson last Friday said the order was necessary to ensure Stone's right to a fair trial and "to maintain the dignity and seriousness of the courthouse and these proceedings."

Her ruling, which came after a string of media appearances by the outspoken political consultant, is narrowly tailored to comments about his pending case.

Berman on Tuesday called for an emergency hearing to take place Thursday in the wake of Stone posting a threatening message about her on Instagram. His social media post included an image of Jackson's face with crosshairs in the top left corner.

Stone said the photo was misinterpreted.

Source: NewsMax America

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US man to be sent to Australia in Thai national’s killing

Authorities have identified an American suspect in the killing of a Thai national whose battered body was found bound, gagged and wrapped in plastic on the side of a road in a high-profile case in Australia, according to a federal search warrant obtained Tuesday.

Australian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Alex Dion in the killing of 33-year-old Wachira "Mario" Phetmang, whose body was found on the side of a freeway in the suburb of Sydney Olympic Park in June. The arrest warrant for Dion was issued in September while he already was in custody on a domestic violence charge in San Diego, according to the federal search warrant filed by the FBI on Friday.

The warrant, which marks the first time a suspect has been publicly named in Phetmang's killing, was first obtained by Seamus Hughes, a terrorism researcher at George Washington University who mines federal court databases.

Dion, 38, was set to be extradited from San Diego to Australia this coming Friday, according to the warrant. It's unclear whether he has an attorney.

Phetmang, a Thai national who lived in Australia for a decade, was last seen alive on May 25 at a gas station in the Sydney suburb of South Hurstville. An autopsy found that he suffered more than 20 wounds to his head and had multiple skull fractures.

The day he died, Phetmang told his partner he was going to pick up methamphetamine and later met Dion at the gas station, according to surveillance footage, the search warrant said.

Phetmang and Dion left the gas station together in Dion's car, according to the surveillance footage, and that was the last anyone saw of Phetmang.

Dion flew back to the U.S. two days after Phetmang's death but before the body was found on June 6, according to the search warrant.

A boot police believe belonged to Dion was found with Phetmang's body, and the matching boot was later found in Dion's apartment, the search warrant said. Police also believe Dion used a high-pressure washer to scrub the inside of his car, and dumped both his and Phetmang's clothing, two tire irons and a metal bar inside a water-retention tank where he used to work.

When Australian police held a news conference seeking the public's help in the case, Dion called them and tried to blame an associate for Phetmang's killing, while also acknowledging that he had Phetmang's credit cards and cellphones with him in San Diego, according to the search warrant.

Dion told police that he had met Phetmang at the gas station to buy meth but that he left when their associate showed up, a story police say is contradicted by surveillance footage.

The New South Wales Police Force in Australia said in a news release that detectives traveled to San Diego this week to coordinate the extradition and that no further information was available.

Source: Fox News National

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Expense report of the future reduces fraud and headaches

FILE PHOTO: A view inside the lobby of the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square in New York
FILE PHOTO: A view inside the lobby of the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square in New York City, U.S., November 8, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

March 25, 2019

By Beth Pinsker

NEW YORK(Reuters) – It sounds like it should have been impossible to miss, but it took more than a year for an industrial equipment company to discover $12,000 worth of doggie day spa charges on an employee’s expense reports.

Level upon level of corporate management also failed to detect that the same employee was running a scheme to sell more than $200,000 in company equipment on eBay.

Only a fraction of expense reports are closely examined, so it is no wonder that companies experience more than $7 billion in annual losses from fraud, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

By using robots, instead of relying on random spot checks, companies are catching fraud more than twice as fast and fraud losses are halved, said Andi McNeal, director of research for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

That is what happened when the industrial equipment company put in place an artificial-intelligence program from Oversight Systems, which was able to quickly ferret out the culprit.

“It started out as a small infraction that led to an investigation that led to other things,” said Terrence McCrossan, chief executive of Atlanta-based Oversight Systems, which audits about $2 trillion worth of employee spending each year and works with employers like the U.S. Department of Defense, McDonald’s and General Electric.

The expense reporting universe is being overhauled to use artificial intelligence to get a 100 percent overview of employee submissions. In addition to monitoring fraud, companies are streamlining the way employees file expenses.

Soon, employees around the world will stop fussing with paper receipts and crying over hotel bills, then waiting weeks to get reimbursed while their paperwork travels through the corporate labyrinth. Managers will no longer be stuck in the middle of the process, policing spending, and companies will stop losing so much money to waste and fraud.

TEST CASES

Some changes have already occurred, ranging from corporate card charges that automatically attach to electronic expense reports to seamless experiences for business travelers who stay at approved hotels.

One of SAP Concur’s newest offerings is Concur Detect by AppZen, which does a 100 percent audit of incoming expense reports.

AppZen analyzes expenses by looking for risk. Only about 10 percent of expenses that flow through a company have a problem that needs to be addressed, said Anant Kale, CEO of AppZen, based in San Jose, California.

The algorithm can clear expense reports with no issues almost instantly, so that these employee outlays can be reimbursed as quickly as two days.

If a charge has a red flag, it goes to a human auditor. One Concur Detect customer, Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc, said it had reduced the number of expense reports that required review by one-third.

Kale has been surprised by the kind of problems that are popping up since AppZen’s 2016 launch.

“Employees are claiming the same expense multiple times. That happens more often than you can imagine,” Kale said. “It’s not fraud, but an honest mistake.”

AppZen also finds many expenses that are disallowed by corporate policy. Some of these are for strip clubs, in-room movies during business travel or charging gifts at a hotel shop.

Oversight Systems has identified questionable expenses like eyelash extensions, lost sunglasses and an employee who billed for a new shirt after he spilled coffee on himself on the way to a meeting.

There is also true fraud. Oversight Systems, for instance, found an employee who expensed for parking over and over using the same receipt each time. By the time the fraud was discovered, the parking lot no longer even existed.

What makes the difference between catching wrongdoers and companies’ losing money? Better compliance and making audits more efficient, said the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ McNeal.

As much as machines can learn and improve their performance, people are more complicated. AppZen, for instance, has yet to run a clean screen on a company where it catches no problems, no matter how much effort a company puts into employee education and catching disallowed expenses before they are filed.

“You’re never going to get all of them to comply – that’s just human nature,” McNeal said. “You’re just trying to let the fewest grains get through the sieve.”

(Editing by Lauren Young and by Leslie Adler)

Source: OANN

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Video of officers in Alabama hitting woman investigated

An Alabama police department is investigating a video of an arrest that shows two Tuscaloosa police officers punching and using a baton to hit a woman during a traffic stop.

News outlets report 22-year-old Jhasmynn Sheppard is charged with disarming a police officer, assault and resisting arrest. One officer's account of the Friday arrest is detailed in court documents filed Tuesday.

The officer says Sheppard was pulled over after leaving the scene of a wreck. He says she was making "furtive" movements and incoherent statements and then resisted arrest.

He says Sheppard was taken to the ground and took his baton. He says another officer arrived and assisted him. He says he suffered minor injuries. Sheppard denies taking the weapon.

Authorities didn't immediately release the officers' identities.

Source: Fox News National

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Trump Orders Policy U-Turn On North Korea-Related Sanctions

Evie Fordham | Politics and Health Care Reporter

President Donald Trump announced on Twitter Friday he was reversing course on new sanctions on Chinese companies doing business with North Korea.

“It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea,” Trump wrote. “I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!”

The U.S. Treasury had announced the new sanctions Thursday, not Friday as Trump wrote, and they immediately received “swift pushback” from both the Chinese and North Korean governments, reported Fox News. (RELATED: Dan Crenshaw Breaks Silence On Trump’s McCain Feud)

“President Trump likes Chairman Kim [Jong Un] and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said when asked about Trump’s tweet.

President Donald Trump (R) and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un hold a meeting during the second US-North Korea summit at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi on February 28, 2019. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump (R) and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un hold a meeting during the second US-North Korea summit at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi on February 28, 2019. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump’s decision came a day after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin detailed the U.S. decision to impose sanctions on two China-based companies.

“The United States and our like-minded partners remain committed to achieving the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea and believe that the full implementation of North Korea-related UN Security Council resolutions is crucial to a successful outcome,” Mnuchin said in a statement Thursday, according to Fox News. “Treasury will continue to enforce our sanctions, and we are making it explicitly clear that shipping companies employing deceptive tactics to mask illicit trade with North Korea expose themselves to great risk.”

Trump and Kim may have another summit this year after their most recent summit in late February fell apart.

Trump had used Twitter in early March to weigh in on the U.S. and South Korea’s decision to end their annual large-scale joint military exercises.

Follow Evie on Twitter @eviefordham.

Send tips to evie@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Source: The Daily Caller

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U.S.-backed force won’t release jihadists but says countries must take them back

FILE PHOTO - A member loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) waves an ISIL flag in Raqqa
FILE PHOTO - A member loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) waves an ISIL flag in Raqqa, Syria June 29, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

February 18, 2019

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Kurdish-led authorities in north Syria said on Monday they would not free foreign Islamic State detainees but countries must repatriate them, after U.S. President Donald Trump said jihadists would be freed unless Europe takes them back.

With U.S. help, the Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish YPG militia, are poised to seize Islamic State’s last holdout in eastern Syria. Trump urged European countries on Saturday to take back their citizens and put them on trial, warning “we will be forced to release them” otherwise.

Abdulkarim Omar, co-chair of foreign relations in the SDF region, said the number of foreign fighters in prisons, along with their wives and children in refugee camps, was growing by the dozens every day. He said there were around 800 detained fighters from nearly 50 nationalities, in addition to at least 700 wives and 1,500 children in the camps.

“We will not release them. We could never do this,” Omar said. But he reiterated warnings that any attack on the region by Turkey, which has vowed to crush the YPG, would tie spark chaos, allowing the jihadists to escape.

“It seems most of the countries have decided that they’re done with them, let’s leave them here, but this is a very big mistake,” he said.

Without more effort to prosecute fighters and rehabilitate their families, the foreigners in SDF custody are a “time bomb” for the region and the world, he said.

The Kurdish fighters worry about the prospect of a Turkish assault, especially after Trump announced plans in December to withdraw the U.S. forces backing them. Washington says it will ensure its allies are safe after it withdraws.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis; Editing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff)

Source: OANN

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Witness: White officer panicked after shooting black teen

A witness in the shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer said Wednesday he saw the officer standing on the sidewalk, panicking, saying, "I don't know why I shot him. I don't know why I fired."

The trial of former East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld continued into a second day Wednesday in a Pittsburgh courtroom where three witnesses were called during morning testimony.

John Leach, a neighbor who lives a few houses away from where the June shooting took place, said he was on the front porch when Rosfeld fired three bullets into 17-year-old Anton Rose II after pulling over an unlicensed taxicab suspected to have been used in a drive-by shooting minutes earlier. Rose was a front-seat passenger in the cab and was shot as he fled.

Rosfeld, 30, faces a charge of criminal homicide.

Leach, the second witness to testify Wednesday, said after the shooting, he was standing by Rose's body, watching Rosfeld on the sidewalk nearby saying repeatedly, "I don't know why I shot him. I don't know why I fired."

He said later, he saw other officers consoling Rosfeld as he was crying, bent over, and hyperventilating. He said Rosfeld looked like he was about to pass out.

Leach said he saw Rosfeld pointing a gun at Rose while at least one of Rose's hands was in the air. Then, Rose turned and ran, he said.

Defense attorney Patrick Thomassey said Rosfeld did not intend to shoot anyone that day and did nothing wrong in his fatal encounter with Rose.

"You think Michael Rosfeld got up on the 19th of June and thought he was going to shoot someone? Of course not," he said.

Prosecutors said Rosfeld gave inconsistent statements about the shooting, including whether he thought Rose had a gun.

The video of the shooting, shot by neighbor Lashaun Livingston, was posted online, triggering protests in the Pittsburgh area last year, including a late-night march that shut down a major highway.

A jury of six men and six women, including three African-Americans, was selected across the state in Harrisburg last week and will be sequestered in a Pittsburgh hotel for the duration of the trial, expected to take a week or more.

Additional video was shown in court, taken by a University of Pittsburgh student who was in his car at a stop sign about 600 feet (183 meters) away, the defense said. Peyton Deri said he couldn't really see if there was anything in the hands of Rose or the vehicle's other occupant, Zaijuan Hester.

The families of Rose and Rosfeld were in the courtroom Tuesday.

Rose's mother sent a letter to prosecutors Wednesday urging them to counter the defense's portrayal of her son as "just another thug."

In the letter, she asks prosecutors to paint a picture of her son as he truly was.

"He was a rose that grew from concrete. Despite darkness all around him, he was kind, loving and funny," she writes in the letter dated Tuesday. "The smile that emanates from photos of him truly reflects who he was."

She goes on to describe how he taught other children in the neighborhood how to roller blade and skateboard, and even gave away his skates to kids in need.

Rose had been riding in the front seat of the unlicensed taxicab when Hester, in the backseat, rolled down a window and shot at two men on the street.

Hester, 18, of Swissvale, pleaded guilty Friday to aggravated assault and firearms violations for the shooting, which wounded a man in the abdomen. Hester told a judge that he, not Rose, did the shooting.

Source: Fox News National

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Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London
Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London, Britain, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Gerhard Mey

April 26, 2019

By Hanna Rantala

LONDON (Reuters) – Irish rockers The Cranberries are saying goodbye with their final album released on Friday, a poignant tribute to lead singer Dolores O’Riordan who died last year.

“In the End” is the eighth studio album from the band that rose to fame in the early 1990s with hits likes “Zombie” and “Linger”, and includes the final recordings by O’Riordan, who drowned in a London hotel bath in January 2018 due to alcohol intoxication.

Work on the album began during a 2017 tour and by that winter, O’Riordan and guitarist Neil Hogan had penned and demoed 11 tracks.

With O’Riordan’s vocals recorded, Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan and drummer Fergal Lawler completed the album in tribute to her.

“When we realized how strong the songs were, that was the deciding factor really… There was no point… trying to ruin the legacy of the band,” Noel Hogan said in an interview.

“It was obvious that Dolores wanted this album done because when you hear the album, you hear the songs and how strong they are, and she was very, very excited to get in and record this.”

The Cranberries formed in Limerick in 1989 with another singer. O’Riordan replaced him a year later and the group went on to become Ireland’s best-selling rock band after U2, selling more than 40 million records.

O’Riordan, known for her strong distinctive voice singing about relationships or political violence, was 46 when she died.

“She was actually in quite a good place mentally. She was feeling quite content and strong and looking forward to a new phase of her life,” Lawler said.

“A lot of the lyrics in this album are about things ending… people might read into it differently but it was a phase of her personal life that she was talking about.”

The group previously announced their intention to split after the release of “In The End”.

“We are absolutely gutted we can’t play (the songs) live because that’s something that’s been a massive part of this band from day one,” Noel Hogan said.

“A few people have said to us about maybe even doing a one off where you have different vocalists… as kind of guests of ours. A year ago that’s definitely something we weren’t going to entertain but I don’t know, I think it’s something we need to go away and take time off for the summer and have a think about.”

Critics have generally given positive reviews of the album; NME described it as “(seeing) the band’s career go full-circle” while the Irish Times called it “an unexpected late career high and a remarkable swan song for O’Riordan”.

Their early songs still play on the radio. This week, “Dreams” was performed at the funeral of journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot dead in Londonderry last week as she watched Irish nationalist youths attack police following a raid.

“We wrote them as kids, as a hobby and 30 years later they are on radio and on TV, like all the time… That’s far more than any of us ever thought we would have,” Noel Hogan said.

“That would make Dolores really happy because she was very precious about those songs. Her babies, she called them and to have that hopefully long after we’re gone… that’s all any band can wish for.”

(Reporting by Hanna Rantala; additoinal reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

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2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston, Texas, U.S. April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

April 26, 2019

By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Senator Elizabeth Warren will introduce a bill Friday that offers new protections for U.S. military families facing unsafe housing, following a series of Reuters reports revealing squalid conditions in privately managed base homes.

The Reuters reports and later Congressional hearings detailed widespread hazards including lead paint exposure, vermin infestations, collapsing ceilings, mold and maintenance lapses in privatized base housing communities that serve some 700,000 U.S. military family members.

(View Warren’s military housing bill here. https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dy5aht)

(Read Reuters’ Ambushed at Home series on military housing here. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/usa-military)

The Massachusetts Democrat’s bill would mandate both regular and unannounced spot inspections of base homes by certified, independent inspectors, holding landlords accountable for quickly fixing hazards. The military’s privatization program for years allowed real estate firms to operate base housing with scant oversight, Reuters found, leaving some tenants in unsafe homes with little recourse against landlords.

The bill would also require the Department of Defense and its private housing operators to publish reports annually detailing housing conditions, tenant complaints, maintenance response times and the financial incentives companies receive at each base. The provisions aim to enhance transparency of housing deals whose finances and operations the military had allowed to remain largely confidential under a privatization program since the late 1990s.

The measure would also require private landlords to cover moving costs for at-risk families, and healthcare costs for people with medical conditions resulting from unsafe base housing, ensuring they receive continuing coverage even after they leave the homes or the military.

“This bill will eliminate the kind of corner-cutting and neglect the Defense Department should never have let these private housing partners get away with in the first place,” Warren said in a statement Friday.

The proposed legislation comes after February Senate hearings where Warren, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 U.S. presidential election, slammed private real estate firms for endangering service families, and sought answers about why military branches weren’t providing more oversight.

Her legislation would direct the Defense Department to allow local housing code enforcers onto federal bases, following concerns they were sometimes denied access. Warren’s office said a companion bill in the House of Representatives would be introduced by Rep. Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico.

In response to the housing crisis, military branches are developing a tenant bill of rights and hiring hundreds of new housing staff. The branches recently dispatched commanders to survey base housing worldwide for safety hazards, resulting in thousands of work orders and hundreds of tenants being moved. The Defense Department has pledged to renegotiate its 50-year contracts with private real estate firms.

Congress has been quick to take its own measures. Earlier legislation proposed by senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris of California, along with Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, would compel base commanders to withhold rent payments and incentive fees from the private ventures if they allow home hazards to persist.

(Editing by Ronnie Greene)

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FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London
FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London, Britain, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar

(Reuters) – Deloitte quit as Ferrexpo’s auditor on Friday, knocking its shares by more than 20 percent, days after saying it was unable to conclude whether the iron ore miner’s CEO controlled a charity being investigated over its use of company donations.

Blooming Land, which coordinates Ferrexpo’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, came under scrutiny after auditors found holes in the charity’s statements.

Ferrexpo on Tuesday said findings of an ongoing independent investigation launched in February indicated some Blooming Land funds could have been “misappropriated”. It did not provide any details or publish its findings.

Shares in Ferrexpo, the third largest exporter of pellets to the global steel industry, were 23.4 percent lower at 206.1 pence at 1022 GMT following news of Deloitte’s resignation.

“Ferrexpo’s shares are deeply discounted vs peers … following the resignation of Deloitte, we expect downside risks to dominate Ferrexpo’s shares near term.” JP Morgan analyst Dominic O’Kane said in a note on Friday.

Swiss-headquartered Ferrexpo did not provide a reason for the resignation of Deloitte, which declined to comment, while Blooming Land did not respond to a request for comment.

Funding for Blooming Land’s CSR activities is provided by one of Ferrexpo’s units in Ukraine and Khimreaktiv LLC, an entity ultimately controlled by Ferrexpo’s CEO and majority owner Kostyantin Zhevago, Ferrexpo said on Tuesday.

Ferrexpo’s board has found that Zhevago did not have significant influence or control over the charity, but Deloitte said it was unable reach a conclusion on this.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact Zhevago.

In a qualified opinion, a statement addressing an incomplete audit, Deloitte said it had been unable to conclude whether $33.5 million of CSR donations to Blooming Land between 2017 and 2018 was used for “legitimate business payments for charitable purposes”.

Deloitte said on Tuesday that total CSR payments made to Blooming Land by Ferrexpo since 2013 total about $110 million.

Ferrexpo, whose major mines are in Ukraine, has said that the investigation was ongoing and new evidence pointed to potential discrepancies.

Zhevago, 45, who ranked 1,511 on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires for 2019 with a net worth of $1.4 billion, owns the FC Vorskla soccer club and has been a member of Ukraine’s parliament since 1998.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar in Bengaluru and additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; editing by Gopakumar Warrier, Bernard Orr)

Source: OANN

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Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba
Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba, Mozambique April 26, 2019 in this still image obtained from social media. SolidarMed via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

April 26, 2019

By Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer

JOHANNESBURG/LUANDA (Reuters) – Cyclone Kenneth killed at least one person and left a trail of destruction in northern Mozambique, destroying houses, ripping up trees and knocking out power, authorities said on Friday.

The cyclone brought storm surges and wind gusts of up to 280 km per hour (174 mph) when it made landfall on Thursday evening, after killing three people in the island nation of Comoros.

It was the most powerful storm on record to hit Mozambique’s northern coast and came just six weeks after Cyclone Idai battered the impoverished nation, causing devastating floods and killing more than 1,000 people across a swathe of southern Africa.

The World Food Programme warned that Kenneth could dump as much as 600 millimeters of rain on the region over the next 10 days – twice that brought by Cyclone Idai.

One woman in the port town of Pemba died after being hit by a falling tree, the Emergency Operations Committee for Cabo Delgado (COE) said in a statement, while another person was injured.

In rural areas outside Pemba, many homes are made of mud. In the main town on the island of Ibo, 90 percent of the houses were destroyed, officials said. Around 15,000 people were out in the open or in “overcrowded” shelters and there was a need for tents, food and water, they said.

There were also reports of a large number of homes and some infrastructure destroyed in Macomia district, a mainland district adjacent to Ibo.

A local group, the Friends of Pemba Association, had earlier reported that they could not reach people in Muidumbe, a district further inland.

Mark Lowcock, United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, warned the storm could require another major humanitarian operation in Mozambique.

“Cyclone Kenneth marks the first time two cyclones have made landfall in Mozambique during the same season, further stressing the government’s limited resources,” he said in a statement.

FLOOD WARNINGS

Shaquila Alberto, owner of the beach-front Messano Flower Lodge in Macomia, said there were many fallen trees there, and in rural areas people’s homes had been damaged. Some areas of nearby Pemba had no power.

“Even my workers, they said the roof and all the things fell down,” she said by phone.

Further south, in Pemba, Elton Ernesto, a receptionist at Raphael’s Hotel, said there were fallen trees but not too much damage. The hotel had power and water, he said, while phones rang in the background. “The rain has stopped,” he added.

However Michael Charles, an official for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said heavy rains over the next few days were likely to bring a “second wave of destruction” in the form of flooding.

“The houses are not all solid, and the topography is very sandy,” Charles said.

In the days after Cyclone Idai, heavy inland rains prompted rivers to burst their banks, submerging entire villages, cutting areas off from aid and ruining crops. There were concerns the same could happen again in northern Mozambique.

Before Kenneth hit, the government and aid workers moved around 30,000 people to safer buildings such as schools, however authorities said that around 680,000 people were in the path of the storm.

(Reporting by Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer; Writing by Emma Rumney; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Alexandra Zavis)

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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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