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U.S.-backed forces in Syria say deadline for Islamic State surrender passed, attack to start

A fighter from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) sits at a back of a truck, near the village of Baghouz, Deir Al Zor province
A fighter from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) sits at a back of a truck, near the village of Baghouz, Deir Al Zor province, in Syria March 9, 2019. Picture taken March 9, 2019. REUTERS/Rodi Said

March 10, 2019

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Sunday the deadline for Islamic State to surrender from its final enclave in eastern Syria was over, and that its frontline troops had received orders to attack.

“Frontline forces have received orders to move, and the military decision. This evening we expect movement at any moment,” Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, told Reuters.

(Writing by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Source: OANN

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Ukraine passes language law championed by outgoing president

Activists attend a rally to demand lawmakers vote for a law that grants special status to the Ukrainian language in front of the parliament building in Kiev
Activists attend a rally to demand lawmakers vote for a law that grants special status to the Ukrainian language and introduces mandatory language requirements for public sector workers, in front of the parliament building in Kiev, Ukraine April 25, 2019. Banners reads (L-R) "Vote for the language law", "Protect language, vote for the language law", "Language is a weapon", "Language is our security". REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

April 25, 2019

By Pavel Polityuk

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s parliament approved a law on Thursday that grants special status to the Ukrainian language and makes it mandatory for public sector workers, despite opposition from the country’s large Russian-speaking minority who feel it is discriminatory.

The move, which obliges all citizens to know the Ukrainian language and makes it a mandatory requirement for civil servants, soldiers, doctors, and teachers, was championed by outgoing President Petro Poroshenko who needs to sign it into law before it takes effect, something he is expected to do.

Language became a much more sensitive issue in Ukraine, where many people speak both Ukrainian and Russian fluently, after Russia annexed Crimea and backed a pro-Russian separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Poroshenko, who is due to step down soon after actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy trounced him at the ballot box on Sunday, put promotion of the Ukrainian language at the heart of his unsuccessful re-election campaign.

But Zelenskiy, who himself speaks Russian more frequently than Ukrainian, has said he wants to unite rather than divide the country and has said he has questions about the new law.

The new legislation requires TV and film distribution firms to ensure 90 percent of their content is in Ukrainian and for the proportion of Ukrainian-language printed media and books to be at least 50 percent.

Computer software must also have a Ukrainian-language interface although the law also allows the use of English or any other official language of the European Union.

Lawmakers cheered and rose to a standing ovation after the law was passed and sang the national anthem. Hundreds of people waving Ukrainian flags had gathered outside parliament to support the law.

“This is a historic moment, which Ukrainians have been waiting for centuries, because for centuries Ukrainians have tried to achieve the right to their own language,” one of the authors of the bill, Mykola Knyazhytsky, said before the vote.

The make-up of the parliament has not changed since Zelenskiy’s election win and remains dominated by a coalition supportive of Poroshenko.

Poroshenko had originally thought the language law would be approved before the election and would help boost his support, particularly in western regions where the Ukrainian language is predominantly used.

Its approval is potentially awkward for incoming president Zelenskiy, a comedian with no political experience.

Zelenskiy’s stance on the new law is unclear. He said during the campaign he’d do everything to protect and develop the Ukrainian language, but also that he had questions about the new legislation.

In 2012, clashes between riot police and protesters erupted in Kiev after Ukraine’s parliament approved a law that made Russian an official language.

Ukraine also has Romanian, Polish and Hungarian minorities that speak these languages. Last year, its relations with neighboring Hungary soured after parliament passed a law that banned teaching in minority languages beyond primary school level.

A survey conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology showed that the Ukrainian language is used by 32.4 percent of Ukrainian families, while Russian is used by 15.8 percent. About a quarter of Ukrainians use both languages.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Andrew Osborn, Matthias Williams and Raissa Kasolowsky)

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War Room – 2019-Feb-19, Tuesday – Bernie Announces 2020 Run Despite Being Ineligible

Jesse Lee Peterson, Tony Arterburn, and Kaitlin Bennett join Harrison Smith on the War Room to discuss Bernie Sanders’ Presidential announcement, the Jussie Smollett hoax, Lara Logan’s revelations about the mainstream media, and much more!

GUEST // (OTP/Skype) // TOPICS:
Jesse Lee Peterson//Skype
Tony Arterburn//Skype
Kaitlin Bennett//Skype

Source: The War Room

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U.S. vice president to tour Nebraska flood zone

FILE PHOTO: An aerial photo of Offutt Air Force Base and the surrounding areas affected by flood waters in Nebraska
FILE PHOTO: Offutt Air Force Base and the surrounding areas affected by flood waters are seen in this aerial photo taken in Nebraska, U.S., March 16, 2019. Courtesy Rachelle Blake/U.S. Air Force/Handout via REUTERS

March 19, 2019

(Reuters) – Vice President Mike Pence is due to travel to Nebraska on Tuesday to tour the devastation left by floods in the Midwest which have killed at least three people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

Media reports including CNN say that 74 of Nebraska’s 93 counties had declared states of emergency by early Tuesday.

“This is clearly the most widespread disaster we have had in our state’s history,” in terms of sheer size, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts told reporters on Monday afternoon.

Ricketts will join Pence as he surveys the damage, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said on Twitter late on Monday. Pence is traveling at U.S. President Donald Trump’s request, she said.

The flood water have been driven by snow melt from heavy rains last week and warm temperatures said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center.

“Most of the snow pack in Nebraska is now gone, but up river in North and South Dakota, there’s significant snow pack of up to 20 plus inches and it’s melting,” he said.

The Missouri River, the longest in North America, has flooded much of Nebraska between Omaha and Kansas City at the Missouri state line.

The river was expected to crest at more than 47 feet (14.5 meters) on Tuesday, breaking the previous record, set in 2011, by more than a foot, the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency said in the latest bulletin on its web page.

At least one person was missing on Monday in addition to the three reported deaths.

State officials said Monday that 290 people had been rescued by the Nebraska State Patrol, National Guard troops, and urban search and rescue teams.

Damage to the state’s livestock sector was estimated at about $400 million, while the full impact on the spring planting season was not yet clear, said Steve Wellman, director of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture.

The state’s highway system suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, said Kyle Schneweis, director of the state Department of Transportation.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta, Gina Cherelus in New York, and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Alison Williams)

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ECB should have picked some women to run Banca Carige: Enria

Andrea Enria, chairperson of the European Banking Authority, speaks at Reuters Summit interview in London
FILE PHOTO - Andrea Enria, chairperson of the European Banking Authority, speaks at Reuters Summit interview in London, Britain, September 25, 2017. Picture taken September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

February 18, 2019

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank should have picked “a more gender-balanced team” than the six men it appointed to run struggling Italian lender Banca Carige earlier this year but it was also facing time constraints, the ECB’s new top bank supervisor Andrea Enria said on Monday.

The ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism put Carige into “temporary administration” on Jan. 2, just as Enria was taking office, after the bank had failed to raise capital and most of its board had stepped down.

In some of his first public remarks, Enria said he shared the spirit of a complaint over Carige’s all-men line-up by a member of the European Parliament, but added gender considerations cannot always prevail when time is tight.

“It was important that the temporary administrators appointed were able to promptly and effectively perform

the requisite tasks,” Enria said in a letter to Sven Giegold.

“While these requirements were indeed met in the case in question, I share your view that it would have been

preferable to appoint a more gender-balanced team of temporary administrators,” he added.

The SSM retained then Chairman Pietro Modiano and Chief Executive Fabio Innocenzi as Carige’s administrators along with Raffaele Lener, an outside legal expert, while nominating three more men to the bank’s surveillance committee.

The appointment of Enria to replace Daniele Nouy as the head of the SSM has itself been criticized for allowing one of the few top ECB posts held by a woman to go to a man despite there being a strong female candidate.

Giegold was one of three parliamentarians who wrote to ECB President Mario Draghi just before Enria’s appointment to “clarify (their) positive view” of his main rival for the role, Ireland’s deputy central bank governor Sharon Donnery.

The ECB has fallen behind self-imposed targets for women in management positions.

Carige has since received state support and denied last week a report in La Stampa newspaper saying that customers had withdrawn around 3 billion euros worth of deposits.

(Reporting by Francesco Canepa; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Source: OANN

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Education minister leaves post amid tensions

Brazil's education minister is leaving his post after weeks of uncertainty and rumors around his possible firing.

President Jair Bolsonaro announced on Twitter Monday that Ricardo Velez Rodriguez will be replaced by Abraham Weintraub.

The announcement comes a few days after Velez Rodriguez said that school textbooks would be adjusted to describe the country's 1964-1985 dictatorship as a "democratic regime of force."

His brief time in the government was marked by setbacks and controversy, with multiple firings and resignations inside the ministry.

The tensions were generated by a fight for influence between the military and political conservatives.

New Education Minister Weintraub was deputy chief of staff (to Bolsonaro?)

An economist, he was previously a professor at the federal university of Sao Paulo.

Source: Fox News World

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Florida man left paralyzed after being shot when he asked teen party-crashers to leave: police

A Florida man was left paralyzed after he was shot three times by at least two teenagers who crashed a party he was hosting for his children and they refused to leave, officials said.

Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said 47-year-old Joel Tatro was throwing a party in his Oak Hill home on Sunday for his high school-aged children when four juveniles showed up uninvited.

When they were told to leave, one of the juveniles refused and an altercation ensued. During the confrontation a gun was pulled out, shots were fired and Tatro was shot in the neck.

Family members told Fox 35 that the gunshot went into the left side of Tatro’s neck, through his spinal column in the vertebrae and out his right shoulder. Doctors said the shooting left him paralyzed.

FLORIDA MAN WHO FILMED INSTAGRAM LIVE SHOOTING FIRED AT DEPUTIES FIRST, POLICE SAY

One of the suspected juveniles – identified Sylvano Leslie II, 17, – turned himself in to police on Monday night, the sheriff’s office reported.

A second teenager – 15-year-old James Powell – is on the run and the sheriff’s office is offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to his arrest.

Sheriff Mike Chitwood told Fox 35 that Tatro had allowed his high school sons to have friends over for a party and had stepped in when the party-crashers refused to leave.

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"Here's an incident where parents are doing the right thing. They're having a party for about 10 of their kids; high school friends. They're monitoring it. It's invitation only. They were sitting out there at the fire pit, listening to music, doing what 15-year-old kids do, and it almost cost this man his life," Chitwood said.

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)

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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)

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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)

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