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Man sets himself ablaze on Pennsylvania Avenue, and North Lawn is cleared

A man lit himself on fire while just outside the White House on Friday, officials said.

Secret Service agents responded to reports just after 3 p.m. that a man had set himself ablaze while positioned along the White House’s North Fence Line, according to a tweet.

The suspect was “operating an electric wheelchair-type scooter” when officials say he set his outer jacket ablaze. He was immediately met with Uniformed Division Officers who put out the fire and administered first aid, the Secret Service said in a separate tweet.

The man was taken to an area hospital, where he was being treated for non-life-threatening injuries. CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller tweeted an image of the suspect being carried away from the scene.

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Secret Service agents reportedly cleared the North Lawn, and were canvassing the area for any additional devices that might have been brought to the area. Officials also shut down Pennsylvania Avenue to pedestrian traffic, while additional nearby streets were closed to vehicles.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Source: Fox News National

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Indonesians choose president, parliament in world’s biggest one-day vote

A supporter covers his head with a T-shirt with the image of Indonesia's incumbent presidential candidate Joko Widodo during a campaign rally at Gelora Bung Karno stadium in Jakarta
A supporter covers his head with a T-shirt with the image of Indonesia's incumbent presidential candidate Joko Widodo during a campaign rally at Gelora Bung Karno stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia, April 13, 2019. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan

April 16, 2019

By Kanupriya Kapoor and Tabita Diela

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesians vote in the world’s biggest single-day election on Wednesday, with polling stations opening first in the east of the sprawling equatorial archipelago after a six-month campaign to choose a new president and parliament.

President Joko Widodo, a furniture businessman who entered politics 14 years ago as a small-city mayor, is seeking re-election against former general Prabowo Subianto, whom he narrowly defeated in the last election, in 2014.

The economy has dominated a hard-fought campaign, though the rise of political Islam has loomed over the vote in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.

Most opinion polls give Widodo a double-digit lead but the opposition says the race is much closer. It alleges data irregularities that could affect millions of voters and has vowed legal or “people power” action if its concerns are ignored.

“The system is not foolproof, but there are enough checks and balances in place,” Kevin O’Rourke, a political analyst and author of the newsletter Reformasi Weekly, said this week.

He said problems with voter lists “are not so bad that it can affect the outcome of the election”.

An unexpected win for the challenger could trigger a brief selloff in financial markets that have priced in a Widodo victory, analysts say.

“Should Prabowo win, this would literally be the end of opinion polling in Indonesia … and a major, major upset,” said Marcus Mietzner, associate professor at Australian National University.

“The question is what the margin of victory will be,” he said, predicting Widodo’s re-election.

Graphic: Presidenti Joko Widodo’s achievements – https://tmsnrt.rs/2CRgHYC

‘GAME OF THRONES’

Poll-related hashtags were trending on Twitter in Indonesia during a three-day quiet period in the run-up to voting day.

Social media users compared the presidential race to the HBO series “Game of Thrones” – with one online meme showing Widodo sitting on its coveted Iron Throne.

Widodo has touted his record on deregulation and improving infrastructure, calling it a first step to tackling inequality and poverty in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.

A moderate Muslim from central Java, Widodo has had to burnish his Islamic credentials after smear campaigns and hoax stories accused him of being anti-Islam, a communist or too close to China, all politically damaging in Indonesia.

He has picked Islamic cleric Ma’ruf Amin, 76, as his running mate.

Prabowo, a former special forces commander who has links to some hardline Islamist groups, and his running mate, business entrepreneur Sandiaga Uno, say they will boost the economy by slashing taxes and focusing on infrastructure.

QUICK COUNTS

Nearly 350,000 police and soldiers will join 1.6 million paramilitary officers stationed across the country of 17,000 islands to safeguard the vote.

More than 192 million people are eligible to cast ballots in national and regional legislative elections being contested by more than 245,000 candidates.

Polling stations will open at 7 a.m. (2200 GMT on Tuesday) in the east and close at 1 p.m. (0600 GMT) in the west.

Voters will have five paper ballots for president, vice president, and national and regional legislative candidates.

Unofficial “quick counts”, based on samples from polling stations, will be released hours after voting ends. The winning presidential candidate could be known by late Wednesday.

Official results will be announced in May. Any disputes can be taken to the Constitutional Court where a nine-judge panel will have 14 days to rule on them.

(Reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Ed Davies and Darren Schuettler)

Source: OANN

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Infowars Revealed the 25th Amendment/Deep State Coup Against Trump – in 2017!

Just as Infowars predicted in early 2017, the Deep State is working with political elements of the FBI, the intelligence community and Democrats to overthrow President Trump.

Over the past two weeks, multiple media outlets and political commentators reported on the McCabe/Rosenstein silent coup, which revolved around the attempted use of the 25th Amendment to oust the president, that Infowars reported was the plan nearly two years ago.

Radio host Rush Limbaugh encapsulated the situation on his show last Thursday:

So this is kind of classic. We have Andrew McCabe and his new book. Now, this guy was one of the ringleaders of this coup to get rid of Donald Trump, and he’s got a new book out, and 60 Minutes is helping him push and promote the book, and he is bragging about this. He is bragging about his efforts to undermine and overthrow Trump. He’s admitting, essentially, that he and his buddies put in motion a silent coup to get rid of Donald Trump. He admits that the talk of wiring Rosenstein to entrap Trump in an Oval Office conversation was real.

None of the ringleaders were elected by the American people, as Limbaugh pointed out on Friday:

I want to go back to McCabe and his book. Here is a guy who is writing a book and profiting — earning money — on his admission, essentially, that he was running a silent coup to overturn a presidential election.

And every one of the people he was working with… McCabe working with Comey and Bruce Ohr and James Baker/Jim Baker in the FBI, and Clapper and Brennan and all the others. Rosenstein. Not one of them has ever been elected to anything. Not one of them has any kind of a mandate from anybody in the American people to do what they were doing, and they were running an effort to undermine a duly elected president. It was a coup, and the media was in on it, and they continue.

The 25th Amendment, ratified after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, provides the procedure for replacing the president in the event of “death, removal, resignation, or incapacitation” – and these ringleaders were hoping to overthrow the president through the “incapacitation” clause, talks of which began in 2017 as part of the Deep State’s “Continuity of Government” (COG) program to remove the president, as Infowars pointed out in early 2017.

As reported at the time, the COG procedures, which were first drafted during the Cold War to ensure the government’s survival during a nuclear war, could be exploited to ensure the Deep State’s survival when it doesn’t control the White House.

Furthermore, in May 2017 Infowars highlighted an article from the New Yorker magazine that reported on how members of Congress – and other creatures of DC – were holding “secret conversation” on removing the president.

The article’s author, Evan Osnos, claimed to have “interviewed several dozen people about the prospects of cutting short Trump’s Presidency,” including “his friends and advisers; to lawmakers and attorneys who have conducted impeachments; to physicians and historians; and to current members of the Senate, the House, and the intelligence services.”

The atmosphere of intrigue is why some analysts were skeptical when Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein claims to have been “joking” about wearing a wire into the Oval Office.

Last week, McCabe said the offer wasn’t a joke and that the idea was actually discussed with the FBI’s general counsel.



Democrats will do anything to remove President Trump from office and have now admitted there was a coup to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Source: InfoWars

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Tennis: Mertens, Ostapenko bow out of Stuttgart Open in first round

FILE PHOTO: WTA Premier 5 - Qatar Open
FILE PHOTO: Tennis - WTA Premier 5 - Qatar Open - Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex, Doha, Qatar - February 16, 2019 Belgium's Elise Mertens in action during the Final against Romania's Simona Halep REUTERS/Ibraheem Al Omari/File Photo

April 23, 2019

(Reuters) – Belgium’s Elise Mertens and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko were among Tuesday’s first round exits at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart on a day where other high-profile players withdrew without playing a single match.

The tournament draw had to be restructured after world number two Simona Halep pulled out with a hip injury, while two-times Grand Slam champion Garbine Muguruza also withdrew due to illness.

Mertens, who stunned Halep to win the Qatar Open title in February, went out in straight sets to Russia’s Daria Kasatkina. The 21-year-old beat her higher-ranked opponent 7-6(8) 7-5 in a little under two hours.

Although Kasatkina had nine double faults to Mertens’ four, she won more points on her first and second serve. She also defended set points in both sets to clinch her first top 10 victory since beating Angelique Kerber at Wimbledon last year.

Meanwhile, 2017 French Open champion Ostapenko went down 6-2 4-6 6-0 to compatriot Anastasija Sevastova. Ostapenko was broken seven times in a match where neither player served particularly well.

Former Stuttgart champion Laura Siegemund saw off the challenge of Lesia Tsurenko with a straightforward 6-2 6-2 victory, while Andrea Petkovic beat qualifier Sara Sorribes Tormo 6-3 6-4 to move into the next round.

World number one Naomi Osaka starts her clay court season with a bye in the first round in Stuttgart, and the reigning U.S. and Australian Open champion said her main objective was to avoid injury in the run up to the French Open next month.

“Every other court or (surface), I have more experience than I have on clay because honestly, every time I come here I get injured,” Osaka told reporters. “I’m hoping that won’t happen this year.

“Every clay season I missed out on at least one tournament. So honestly, my main goal is to not get injured and just ride it up until French Open.”

With Halep out of the picture, Osaka only needs to win her opening match to retain her number one ranking. However, if she were to lose her first game and Petra Kvitova were to win the title, the Czech player would be crowned the new world number one.

(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Source: OANN

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Watch: Jihad in America & the History of Islam

Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Keith Ellison, all identify themselves with Islam. And because they were sworn into congress using the Quran, which teaches lying as a virtue, they can legally lie to the American people so long as it benefits Islam.

Ever since Muhammad died fourteen-hundred years ago, so-called “radical” Muslims have dedicated their lives to an endless war against Christians and Jews. And moderate Muslims claim that the Quran is misunderstood, and that violent jihad is not true Islam.

But the difference between a religion that accidentally inspires mass murder, and one that deliberately inspires mass murder, is meaningless. When you see the true history of Islam, there is no rational excuse for any righteous person to defend it.


Source: InfoWars

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US consumer prices rose 0.2 percent in February

U.S. consumer prices rose 0.2 percent in February, pushed up slightly by higher gasoline and housing costs even as the prices for autos and clothing slumped.

The Labor Department says the consumer price index rose a modest 1.5 percent last month from a year ago. Inflation has been muted despite the solid job market, causing average hourly earnings — after being adjusted for consumer prices — to climb 1.9 percent in the past year. This marks the strongest inflation-adjusted wage growth since November 2015, an increase that would likely help consumer spending and economic growth.

Housing costs continue to outpace overall inflation, rising 3.4 percent from a year ago.

Excluding the volatile energy and food categories, core prices increased 0.1 percent in February and 2.1 percent from a year ago.

Source: Fox News National

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Scaramucci: Trump Enjoys Telling Lies and ‘Fables’

Anthony Scaramucci, who served as White House communications director for six days in the first year of the Trump administration, said in a new interview that President Donald Trump tells lies because he "thinks it's fun."

Scaramucci was on CNN's "New Day" Friday morning and was asked about Trump's tendency to stretch the truth.

"He's very consistent, he's probably consistent over the last 40 years in terms of the ways he frames a narrative in a story," Scaramucci said. "He does it because he thinks it's fun, and he also does it because he likes the fact that you guys are talking about it.

"At the end of the day, for him, he's figured out that there's a very large group of people inside of our population that when he does it, and the media talks about it, they laugh."

He later admitted that he doesn't see a need for Trump to tell anything but the truth, which he has made clear to the president himself.

"You don't have to accept that, other people don't like it, I don't like it," he said. "I tell the president, 'Hey, you don't need to do that. There's no reason for you to tell these fables or these stories. You're doing a very good job on the economy, you're doing a great job, the whole NATO discussion I think is going in the right direction.'"

Scaramucci's tenure running the White House communications shop was the shortest in the history of that position. He wrote a book about Trump, called "Trump, the Blue-Collar President," which was released last October.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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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)

Source: OANN

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

April 26, 2019

By Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reuters was not immediately able to contact Zhevago.

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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

April 26, 2019

By Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FLOOD WARNINGS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: OANN

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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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