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Doug Schoen: Trump Foreign Policy Lacks Discipline

Doug Schoen, pollster and Democratic strategist, blasted President Donald Trump's approach to foreign policy and said it projects an image of the U.S. abdicating its role as "democracy's standard-bearer."

Schoen made his comments in a column posted by Fox News website Tuesday.

Schoen referred to former Vice President Dick Cheney recently pressing Vice President Mike Pence about Trump's foreign policy during a closed-door event.

"Despite often opposing Vice President Cheney, I largely agree with him that the Trump administration's foreign policy lacks direction and discipline," he said.

"I remain concerned that President Trump's nationalistic, isolationist 'America First' approach to foreign policy projects an image of the United States as abdicating our role on the world stage as democracy's standard-bearer."

Schoen claimed many of the "more reasoned voices" on Trump's national security team have left, notably former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.

"While I may not have wholeheartedly agreed with Secretary Mattis on everything, we share an understanding of the role that the United States should play on the world stage: the role of a global leader who champions democracy and stands up for our allies," he said.

And Schoen said Trump's lack of foreign policy direction has been particularly troubling.

"For America to truly succeed, we must renew our commitment to global leadership in a way that is informed by an idealistic, moral, yet also practical outlook toward the international community," he said.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Ukraine denies entry to Italian journalist, says he's biased

Ukrainian authorities have denied entry to an Italian journalist, accusing him of an "anti-Ukrainian" bias.

Marc Innaro, a correspondent for the Italian RAI state television, has been barred from entering Ukraine when he arrived in the country to cover Sunday's presidential vote.

Oleh Slobodyan, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Border Guards, said Monday that Innaro was refused entry because he "frequently engaged in anti-Ukrainian rhetoric in his reports." Slobodyan also charged that Innaro had failed to get accredited with election authorities in advance.

The move follows Ukraine's denial of entry to a journalist from Austria's national broadcaster ORF who was declared a "threat to national security." Austria criticized the ban as an "unacceptable act of censorship."

Source: Fox News World

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Asian shares supported by global growth hopes, eyes on earnings

FILE PHOTO: A woman walks past a markets index board in Tokyo
FILE PHOTO: A woman walks past a markets index board in Tokyo June 12, 2013. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/File Photo

April 15, 2019

By Swati Pandey

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Asian shares started on a firm footing on Monday and the dollar eased as risk appetite was whetted by better-than-expected data from China that helped boost confidence about the health of the world economy.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed 0.1 percent with South Korea’s KOSPI up 0.5 percent. Australian shares slightly weaker.

Japan’s Nikkei jumped 1.3 percent to the highest since early December.

Investors have been fretting about a global growth slowdown this year as trade disputes and tighter financial conditions hit demand. Last week, the International Monetary Fund cut its outlook for the world economy for the third time in six months.

There have also been worries that weakness in key economies, including China, could spread to other countries, especially if elevated trade tensions between Beijing and Washington escalated further.

That explains why investors cheered Chinese data showing exports rebounded in March to a five-month high while new bank loans jumped by far more than expected. Total bank lending in the first three months of 2019 hit a record quarterly tally of 5.81 trillion yuan ($866.7 billion). [nL3N21S1F8][nL3N21Q1YT]

“Markets were buoyed by an improvement in China’s data which saw risk appetite improve,” ANZ said in a note to clients.

“A sustained improvement in the data will be important before confidence is restored. In the meantime, policymakers remain committed to setting ‘growth friendly’ monetary and fiscal policies.”

(Graphic: Asian stock markets – https://tmsnrt.rs/2zpUAr4)

News over the weekend added to the upbeat mood. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday a U.S.-China trade agreement would go “way beyond” previous efforts to open China’s markets to U.S. companies and hoped that the two sides were “close to the final round” of negotiations.

Also helping sentiment, the Group of 20 industrialized nations have called for a trade truce in a sign world leaders are prepared to take action to curtail risks of a global economic slowdown.

“We expect a relatively market-friendly U.S.-China deal,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch global economist Ethan Harris said in a note. “In our view, market and political concerns will constrain future fights. Think ‘skirmishes’ rather than ‘major battles.'”

The risk sensitive Australian dollar, which is also used as a proxy for China plays, hovered near a seven-week top at $0.7173.

Investors are next looking to China’s March-quarter gross domestic product data due Wednesday. All eyes are also on corporate earnings from major U.S. companies after quarterly results from JPMorgan handily beat analyst estimates last week.

All that positive news boosted Wall Street on Friday with the Dow jumping 1 percent, the S&P500 climbing 0.7 percent and the Nasdaq adding 0.5 percent.

In currencies, the dollar index was a shade weaker at 96.909 against a basket of major currencies as demand for safe haven assets eased. It had slipped to a near three-week trough of 96.745 on Friday.

The euro held at $1.1302 as dealers were gearing up for demand from Japan as Mitsubishi UFJ Financial closed in on its multi-billion-euro acquisition of DZ Bank’s aviation-finance business. [FRX/]

The common currency was also supported by encouraging data from the euro zone where industrial output in February declined by less than expected.

In commodities, oil provided big milestones, with Brent breaking through the $70 threshold last week and the U.S. benchmark posting six straight weeks of gains for the first time since early 2016. [O/R]

Commodities have had the best first-quarter start ever, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts said, calling the annualized returns they are tracking the strongest in the past 100 years.

Brent crude oil futures was last off 31 cents at $71.24 while crude futures, the U.S. benchmark, eased 45 cents to $63.44.

(Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Source: OANN

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Exclusive: Go ‘extra step’ to get Brexit deal, UK Labour lawmakers urge Corbyn

British opposition Labour Party leader Corbyn looks at Brexit document in London
British opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn holds the Political Declaration, setting out the framework for the future UK-EU relations, at his office in the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain April 2, 2019. Stefan Rousseau/Pool via REUTERS

April 4, 2019

By Elizabeth Piper

LONDON (Reuters) – Twenty-five lawmakers in Britain’s opposition Labour Party have urged their leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to go the “extra step” if there is a chance of agreeing a Brexit deal in talks with Prime Minister Theresa May.

May, whose deal to leave the European Union has been rejected in parliament three times, has turned to Corbyn in a last-ditch bid to get the support of his Labour Party for an agreement she signed with the bloc’s leaders in November.

Corbyn has welcomed the talks, but the invitation poses a threat for his divided Labour Party – some members and lawmakers are demanding a second referendum on any deal while others fear being blamed for helping pass May’s much-criticized agreement.

The 25 lawmakers, almost all from areas which voted to leave the EU in a 2016 referendum, said the talks “represent a real opportunity” for Corbyn, a way to get a deal which would meet Labour’s demands for a Brexit that protected workers’ rights.

They reminded him in the letter that he had told May Labour would support a “sensible deal” that included “a customs union and no hard border in Ireland”, protected jobs and workers, environmental and consumer standards.

“We believe you are close to achieving that in the coming days,” said the letter whose signatories include Labour’s schools spokesman Mike Kane and three lawmakers who last week voted in favor of May’s deal: Rosie Cooper, Caroline Flint and Kevin Barron.

“At the general election, we were clear about respecting the 2016 vote, and about securing those Labour goals. Therefore, we feel if compromise is necessary to achieve this deal and avoid fighting the European elections, we should go the extra step to secure this.”

Corbyn, a long-standing critic of the EU, has long said he wants Britain to leave the bloc with a deal, respecting the 2016 referendum when 52 percent of voters backed leaving the bloc in Britain’s biggest shift in policy since World War Two.

But the opposition leader has been content to watch the governing Conservative Party take on Brexit, a move that has not only divided the country, but has all but redrawn the political landscape by widening rifts in the main parties.

In a last gamble, May announced she would bring Corbyn into talks to try to find a way to break the deadlock in parliament, which has voted against leaving the bloc without an agreement.

Corbyn is pressing his desire for a “permanent customs union” and alignment with the EU’s single market in the talks – red lines for a prime minister who had made controlling immigration one of the key stones of her Brexit policy.

But the Labour leader is under growing pressure to make any agreement with May conditional on holding a confirmatory referendum on the deal, or asking the public to back it in another vote.

The 25 lawmakers said such a vote was not part of Labour policy.

“Our policy, agreed by members, accepts that the public voted to leave the EU and seeks a deal that secure jobs and rights at work. It does not require a confirmatory ballot on any deal that meets those conditions,” the letter said.

“Delaying for many months in the hope of a second referendum will simply divide the country further and add uncertainty for business. A second referendum would be exploited by the far right, damage the trust of many core Labour voters and reduce our chances of winning a general election.”

(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

Source: OANN

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Stranded man who feared arrest found dead after 5-day search

A man who likely died from exposure while stranded in Arizona might have survived if he had not rejected rescue efforts because he was afraid of being arrested, authorities said Tuesday.

Ryan Long, 38, died several days after authorities found his friend, Reelaiah Ahasteen, 35, in another location in snowy and muddy conditions, Coconino County sheriff's officials said.

The two had left Meteor Crater, a popular tourist site east of Flagstaff, on March 7 when their vehicle got stuck, authorities said, citing information from Ahasteen's mother.

She tried to locate them and then notified authorities when she couldn't.

A deputy was able to contact Long on his cellphone, but he refused to give any details about his location.

"There were some general statements that he did not want or need our help and then he hung up," sheriff's spokesman Rex Gilliland said.

Deputies said they later learned that Long believed he might have an arrest warrant and wanted to avoid law enforcement.

"Clearly had he not made the decisions to avoid us, we would have found him Friday afternoon with her," Gilliland said.

Long was found with two substances that are believed to be marijuana and methamphetamine, Gilliland said.

The sheriff's office said Long of Leupp has had run-ins with authorities in the past, but it could not find any active warrants for him.

Searchers found Ahasteen suffering from hypothermia on a forest road the day after she and Long got stranded. She was treated and released.

Air and ground search teams spent the next three days looking for signs of Long or his car.

On March 11, search and rescue volunteers found his body off a forest road just 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the spot where his friend had been rescued. His footprints indicated he had been avoiding any roads, deputies said.

His cause of death is pending, but deputies believe he died from exposure to cold temperatures.

Family members told deputies that Long had suffered a traumatic brain injury in the past.

Source: Fox News National

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U.S. Senate hopes confirmation vote this week on Trump’s EPA pick: aide

FILE PHOTO: U.S. EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler addresses staff at EPA Headquarters in Washington
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler addresses staff at EPA headquarters in Washington, U.S., July 11, 2018. REUTERS/Ting Shen/File Photo

February 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate hopes to vote this week to confirm Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist and President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, an aide to Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday.

A source familiar with the matter said the vote was likely to take place on Thursday on acting administrator Wheeler who was nominated by Trump in January to replace Scott Pruitt, the administrator who resigned in July after criticism over allegations of ethical missteps.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Humeyra Pamuk; editing by Grant McCool)

Source: OANN

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French court rejects call to return its Syria-based citizens

France's most powerful administrative court has refused the demands of Syria-based French women to be repatriated back to French soil with their families.

The Council of State rejected the calls on Tuesday in a short statement explaining that a French judge couldn't make a binding decision on the issue as it involves "negotiations with foreign authorities or intervention on a foreign territory."

The court said it "rejects the demands for repatriation made by French nationals and for their children, currently in Syria."

At this month's G-7 ministers' meeting in Paris the issue of how to deal with suspected extremists and their families from Western countries who go to Syria was a bone of contention. The U.S. has called for countries to take back their citizens and put them on trial, if necessary, but European allies have largely refused.

Source: Fox News World

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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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