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MSNBC Anchor Advised Under Armour CEO on Dealing With Trump

MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle advised Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank on how he should engage with President Donald Trump at the start of his tenure, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Ruhle's involvement – she also gave Plank business and marketing advice and often flew on his private jet – was described as "unusual and problematic," according to several people who spoke with the Journal.

Executives told the news outlet Plank took Ruhle's advice on curbing backlash to one of the brand's flagship 2016 basketball shoes, which were slammed for their ugly design.

Employees were told to stop responding to social media criticism until Ruhle talked about the shoe controversy during a segment.

Under Armour denies the claim.

"To suggest that we waited to respond for a particular reporter is ridiculous," Under Armour's senior vice president of communications Kelley McCormick told the Journal. "We wasted no time in defending our brand."

Last year, the company uncovered emails that showed Ruhle and Plank were intimately involved, and the board probed whether Plank misused company funds on the affair. The pair have denied any romantic involvement.

Plank in 2017 ultimately voiced support for Trump but was criticized for doing so following the rollout of Trump's travel ban policy. Later that year, Plank dropped out of a White House business coalition.

"The idea that Mr. Plank uniquely listens to any one individual is absurd," McCormick said.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Netanyahu passes threshold for nomination as Israel’s premier

FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures during a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem
FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures during a weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, April 14, 2019. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/File Photo

April 16, 2019

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s president said on Tuesday a majority of parliament members had advised him to have Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu form a government after the April 9 election, effectively ensuring his nomination.

In office for the past decade, Netanyahu won a fifth term despite an announcement by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s in February that he intends to charge the prime minister in three corruption cases. Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing.

Under law, President Reuven Rivlin chooses a party leader whom he judges has the best prospect of putting together a ruling coalition. He will announce his candidate on Wednesday.

In broadcast remarks on Tuesday, the second day of Rivlin’s public consultations with political parties on their preferences for prime minister, he said Netanyahu “now has a majority of Knesset members” behind him.

“Any room I had for maneuver has effectively been removed at this moment,” the president said.

Netanyahu’s nomination had been a foregone conclusion after his right-wing Likud party captured the largest number of seats in the Knesset in last week’s ballot and his closest rival, centrist Benny Gantz, conceded defeat.

Netanyahu has said he intends to build a coalition with five far-right, right-wing and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties that would give the Likud-led government 65 seats, four more than the outgoing administration he heads.

Representatives of all of those parties told Rivlin at the meetings, broadcast live on the Internet, that they recommended Netanyahu get the nod.

Gantz, a former military chief of staff whose Blue and White party won 35 parliamentary seats, would likely be next in line to try to assemble a government if Netanyahu fails to do so within 42 days of being chosen by Rivlin.

Netanyahu is under no legal obligation to resign if indicted. He can still argue, at a pre-trial hearing with Mandelblit whose date has not been set, against the formal filing of bribery and fraud charges against him.

The Israeli leader, whose supporters hail his tough security policies and international outreach, is set to become the country’s longest-serving prime minister in July.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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Mystery of plastic Garfield novelty phones washing up along French coast solved after 30 years

Plastic Garfield phones have been washing up along the French coast for over 3 decades with no explanation, until now.

The mysterious cat headsets have perplexed the local communities and environmentalists since the 1980s.

“Our association has existed for 18 years and in that time we have found pieces of Garfield telephones almost every time we clean,” Claire Simonin, the head of beach cleaning group Ar Viltansou, told the AFP news agency.

But after a French paper wrote about the strange feline phenomenon, a local resident came forward to reveal a 20-year old secret.

STONEHENGE MYSTERY SOLVED? PREHISTORIC SAILORS MAY HAVE BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR LEGENDARY STRUCTURE

“Our association has existed for 18 years and in that time we have found pieces of Garfield telephones almost every time we clean,”

— Claire Simonin, head of beach cleaning group Ar Viltansou

Rene Morvan and his brother went to the beach during a large storm two decades ago and found the phones blanketing the coast, according to franceinfo. They returned to the beach when it was low tide to enter into surrounding cliffs and find out where the cat trinkets were coming from.

There still remains a bit of mystery because no one has been able to determine how the shipping container ended up along the coast of France.

There still remains a bit of mystery because no one has been able to determine how the shipping container ended up along the coast of France. (AFP/Getty)

“We found a container that was stranded in a fault, it was open, a lot of things were gone but there was a stock of phones,” Morvan said.

He justified not sharing his knowledge with the community by only saying: “At the time, there was a lot of things that came to us from the sea.”

Once learning of their whereabouts, Simonin ventured out and recovered an additional 23 Garfield headsets, on top of collecting over 200 plastic pieces and wires over the last few decades.

MYSTERIOUS UNDERGROUND CHAMBER DISCOVERED AT CANADIAN PROVINCIAL ASSEMBLY

For the Ar Viltansou cleaning group, the discovery is bittersweet. The brightly orange colored cats have proven to be an environmental nightmare and they see the local ecosystem has been affected, thanks to the pollution the spillage has created.

Fabien Boileau, the director of the Ironise Marine Nature Park, said: “We will still go there to recover the remains of phones. It will always be less plastic and electronics in the sea. But I have little hope that we will be very effective."

There still remains a bit of mystery because no one has been able to determine how the shipping container ended up along the coast of France.

“We have no idea what happened at the time: we do not know where it came from, what boat,” Fabien Boileau, the director of the Ironise Marine Nature Park, told AFP.

The phones are still popular among collectors and are being sold for around $40.00 each on eBay.

Source: Fox News World

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Boost for Paris’s Champs Elysees as Galeries Lafayette opens ‘concept’ store

A view shows the new Galeries Lafayette flaghip store on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris
A view shows the new Galeries Lafayette flaghip store on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, France, March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

March 26, 2019

By Dominique Vidalon

PARIS (Reuters) – High-end French department store Galeries Lafayette will open a new outlet on Paris’s Champs Elysees this week, aiming to lure big-spending tourists and trendy Parisians back to the tree-lined avenue that was once a byword for style.

The opening comes as top-tier department stores are increasingly trying to pitch themselves as day-trip destinations to counter competition from online rivals such as Amazon and Net-a-Porter.com.

“The store is a retail laboratory where we will test new practices,” said Nicolas Houze, head of the family-owned Galeries Lafayette group, which also owns retailer BHV Marais.

“It is a symbol of our ongoing transformation into an omni-channel retail leader,” he said of the March 28 opening.

The four-story, 6,500-square-metre (70,000 square feet) store, in an Art Deco building once home to a Virgin megastore, will sell edgy fashion brands such as RouJe, Walk of Shame and Mira Mikati, as well as top-end labels from Gucci to Chanel.

The store, at 60 Champs Elysees, has recruited and trained 300 tech-savvy personal stylists to advise shoppers on the range of fashion, accessory, beauty and lifestyle brands on offer.

The opening comes at a difficult time, however, with the Champs Elysees repeatedly targeted by the “yellow vest” protest movement that has rocked France, with windows smashed, stores looted and buildings set on fire this month.

The historic avenue has also been battling for years to put itself back at the heart of the Paris fashion map – many locals avoid the Champs Elysees, seeing it as a tourist trap for its 300,000 daily visitors.

As well as the shopping, the new Galeries Lafayette will offer an upmarket food court, a coffee lounge, a restaurant and “smart hanger” technology, giving shoppers information about product availability and fitting rooms with natural light.

Both Galeries Lafayette and rival Printemps are trying to capitalise on a rebound in Paris’ tourism industry, which was hit hard by a wave of militant attacks in 2015. Both cater heavily to shoppers and tourists from Asia.

YELLOW VEST VIOLENCE

Galeries Lafayette’s move has been welcomed by France’s finance minister, who sees it as a vote of confidence in central Paris at a challenging time.

“The Champs Elysees are standing up again,” said Bruno Le Maire. “They are stronger than all of this violence, which is unacceptable and must stop as it hurts the attractiveness of our country.”

The store, designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, is a tenth of the size of the group’s flagship one on Boulevard Haussmann, which draws 60,000 to 80,000 visitors a day, half of them foreign tourists, notably Chinese.

Houze sees the Champs Elysees store as a complement to the headquarters, whose revenue rose 2 percent to 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) last year. The new store hopes to draw 10,000-15,000 visitors per day.

Founded in the late 1800s, Galeries Lafayette has 61 stores in France and abroad. It opened a second store in Shanghai last weekend and has plans to open 10 more across China in the coming three to four years, Houze said.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Luke Baker and Mark Potter)

Source: OANN

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Obama Aides Hold Secret Meeting, 2020 Auditions

Former President Barack Obama’s financial backers earlier this month secretly interviewed numerous 2020 presidential candidates to determine which one or two of them they should support monetarily, The New York Times reported on Monday.

Obama’s former chief strategist David Axelrod confirmed that he briefed the group, but not as an official Obama emissary. He said he did not think the former president would endorse anyone, even if his Vice President Joe Biden entered the race, and that Obama did not believe it was up to him to determine the 2020 nomination, preferring instead that the primaries serve as a contest of ideas.

But Obama has advised more than a dozen declared or likely candidates on what he thinks is needed to beat President Donald Trump.

According to sources briefed on these informal discussions, Obama has encouraged candidates to push back on Trump’s bleak and divisive rhetoric about economic change and stress an alternative message that also can attract rural voters and others that are likely to distrust Democrats.

He also has urged candidates to avoid attacking each other in bitterly personal terms during the primaries that could later help Trump in the general election.

Obama has, however, spoken admiringly about a few potential presidential candidates, encouraged about the rise of a newer generation of leaders in the party.

He also campaigned for the midterms, focusing many of his endorsements on promoting women and candidates of color. Obama also has taken a leading role in the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group established to battle against congressional gerrymandering.

Some Democrats hold out hope that Obama might eventually help resolve the primary, perhaps if the race narrows to just two candidates and the former president is convinced one of them cannot defeat Trump.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Tennessee man who intervened in shooting honored again

A Tennessee man who has been called a hero for his intervention in a Waffle House shooting has been honored again.

The U.S. Justice Department says in a news release that James Shaw Jr. received the Special Courage Award at the National Crime Victims' Service Awards in Washington on Friday.

Shaw was dining at a Waffle House in Nashville on April 22, 2018, when a gunman wearing only a jacket opened fire outside with an AR-15 rifle before storming the restaurant. Four people were killed. Shaw and three others were injured.

Shaw has been hailed as a hero for wrestling the rifle away and throwing it over a counter.

He was honored at a Nashville Predators game, spoke with President Donald Trump, and was praised by Vice President Mike Pence.

Source: Fox News National

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Another Texas Chemical Fire Kills 1 Worker, Injures 2

A tank holding a flammable chemical caught on fire at a Texas plant Tuesday, killing one worker, critically injuring two others and sending other panicked employees fleeing over a fence to safety.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez confirmed the fatality in a tweet and said the two injured had been taken by helicopter to a hospital. The two injured were in critical condition, said Rachel Moreno, spokeswoman for the Harris County Fire Marshal's Office.

Authorities shut down a roadway near Tuesday's fire at a KMCO chemical plant in Crosby, about 25 miles northeast of Houston, Gonzalez said.

All residents within a one-mile radius of the plant were ordered to stay indoors or shelter in place.

Harris said a transfer line ignited in the area of a tank of isobutylene — a flammable colorless gas used in the production of high octane gasoline — which then caught on fire. First Responders were trying to contain the fire, Gonzalez said.

Worker Justin Trahan told Houston television station KPRC that he heard "some panic on the radio" but no alarms sounding before the plant caught fire.

"We didn't think anything of it — we didn't think it was anything severe," he said.

Trahan said employees began running after "the tank ignited."

He said that he and other colleagues had to jump over a fence to escape because all the gates were locked.

John C. Foley, chief executive of KMCO, said in a statement that the company had activated its emergency response team and set up a command center.

"We are working with local first responders to extinguish the fire," he said.

KMCO is a chemical company that offers coolant and brake fluid products and chemicals for the oilfield industry.

The Crosby, Sheldon and Channelview school districts asked students and staff to shelter in place at all their campuses.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said that it has dispatched emergency response personnel to conduct an initial assessment of the fire.

The fire comes about two weeks after a March 17 blaze at a petrochemical storage facility in Deer Park , located about 20 miles south of Crosby. That earlier fire burned for days and triggered air quality warnings.

Source: NewsMax America

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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)

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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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