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Belarus officials demolish crosses placed in memory of Stalin’s Soviet terror victims

Belarus police arrested 15 protesters Thursday who interfered with the demolition of 70 crosses at an unofficial memorial site where tens of thousands of victims were murdered during Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s communist rule.

Forest workers used bulldozers to remove 70 crosses in the Kurapaty woods, not far from the Belarussian capital of Minsk, at the site where Soviet secret police carried out mass executions during Stalin’s reign of terror.

BELARUS TO MOVE FORWARD WITH CONSTRUCTION OF APARTMENTS AT SITE OF NAZI-ERA MASS GRAVE

Though officials claim 30,000 victims are buried in these woods, historians estimate as many as 200,000 people were shot there by the secret police during the 1930s and 1940s, BBC News reported.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in charge of the eastern European nation since 1994, criticized political opponents who placed crosses on the site. Lukashenko, dubbed “Europe’s last dictator” by some Western officials, maintained symbols and structures of Stalinist Soviet rule in the country.

Wooden crosses dismantled at the Kuropaty mass grave site of a Soviet-era mass execution, lie in the back of a truck in the Belarus capital Minsk, Thursday, April 4, 2019.

Wooden crosses dismantled at the Kuropaty mass grave site of a Soviet-era mass execution, lie in the back of a truck in the Belarus capital Minsk, Thursday, April 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

"We're going to restore order at Kuropaty, so that there are no demonstrations with crosses around the perimeter," Lukashenko said in a public meeting last month, according to BBC News. Not all the crosses that were part of the unofficial memorial were demolished.

Fifteen activists were taken into custody by Belarusian police for interfering with the removal of some crosses, prompting an outcry from the president’s political rivals. Western leaders and human rights organizations have condemned Lukashenko before for suppressing his opposition.

"It's as if Satan came to Kuropaty. No Christian in the world raises a hand against a holy cross!” MP Anna Kanopatskaya wrote in Russian on Facebook after witnessing the demolition. “All, ALL those who committed this blasphemy today will bring misfortune on themselves."

The Belarussian government has not erected an official memorial in the Kurapaty woods even though the bodies of those shot by the Soviet secret police began to be exhumed after the site’s discovery in 1988, BBC News reported.

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"At the same time we are removing the illegally erected crosses,” a forestry manager, Alexander Mironovich, told the state news agency Belta of the “renovation work” on the property. “They are disappearing in the place where fencing is going up."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

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Mali’s Keita names finance minister as new PM

Malian Minister of Economy and Finance Boubou Cisse speaks at panel on the security-development nexus during IMF spring meetings in Washington
FILE PHOTO: Malian Minister of Economy and Finance Boubou Cisse speaks at panel on the security-development nexus during IMF spring meetings in Washington, U.S., April 20, 2018. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

April 22, 2019

BAMAKO (Reuters) – Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita appointed finance minister Boubou Cisse as prime minister on Monday, days after the government resigned following pressure to respond to the vigilante massacre of about 160 Fulani herders which shocked the nation.

Mali’s former prime minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga and his government resigned last week after they came under fire for failing to disarm militias and beat back Islamist militants stoking the violence that led to the Fulani massacre.

“The President of the Republic has decided to name Doctor Boubou Cisse to the function of prime minister,” Keita’s office said in a statement on Monday.

Both Mali and neighboring Burkina Faso have been hit by the spike in hostilities fueled by Islamist militants seeking to extend their influence over the Sahel, an arid region between Africa’s northern Sahara desert and its southern savannas.

The militants have built on long-standing rivalries between communities to side with Fulani herders and boost their ranks, spurring a wave of inter-ethnic clashes that culminated with the killing of 157 Fulani villagers in March – bloody even by the recent standards of Mali’s ever-worsening violence.

The authorities have detained five people suspected of taking part in the massacre. But they have not yet succeeded in disarming the militia that many believe organized it, despite pledges by Maiga and Keita to do so.

Mali has been in turmoil since a rebellion by Tuaregs and allied jihadists took over half the country in 2012, prompting the French to intervene to push them back the following year.

The latest violence took place on Sunday, when unidentified gunmen raided an army base at dawn, killing 11 soldiers and burning the camp.

(Reporting by Fadima Kontao, Cheick Diouara and Tiemoko Diallo,; Writing by Sofia Christensen, editing by Ed Osmond)

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Report: Great Lakes feeling effects of rapid climate warming

A scientific report says the Great Lakes region is warming faster than the rest of the U.S., which likely will bring more flooding and other extreme weather such as heat waves and drought.

The warming climate also could mean less overall snowfall even as lake-effect snowstorms get bigger, according to the report released Thursday by a team of researchers from universities primarily from the Midwest.

The report also predicts more severe algae blooms in the Great Lakes, which make it unsafe for swimming and increase the costs of treating the water.

Farming could be hit especially hard, with heavy rains delaying spring planting and dry spells requiring more irrigation during summer.

Beaches, dunes and shorelines will be more vulnerable to erosion.

The Chicago-based Environmental Law & Policy Center commissioned the report.

Source: Fox News National

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Trump to visit UK, France in June for D-Day anniversary

President Trump will travel to the U.K. and France in June to mark the anniversary of the D-Day landings, the White House announced Tuesday.

“President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump accepted the invitation of Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to visit the United Kingdom from June 3 to 5, 2019,” a statement said. “This state visit will reaffirm the steadfast and special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.

DESPITE ANGER IN LONDON, TRUMP FINDS SUPPORT IN ENGLAND'S PRO-BREXIT WORKING-CLASS TOWNS

Trump will also participate in a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May and attend a ceremony in Portsmouth to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, before traveling to France on June 6, to participate in a ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery and meet with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Trump has visited both countries before, but Trump’s visit to the U.K. will be part of a state visit -- an aspect that was absent when he visited the country last year on a working visit and where he sparked a significant anti-Trump protest in London, as well as a number of smaller pro-Trump rallies.

FRENCH AMBASSADOR BLASTS 'BIG MOUTH' TRUMP, SAYS HE READS 'BASICALLY NOTHING'

Trump has had a somewhat rocky relationship with both May and Macron. While his relationship with May has largely been positive, he has also publicly criticized her handling of Britain’s departure from the European Union.

The relationship with Macron, on the other hand, hit a high last year when the Frenchman visited the White House and was warmly embraced by the president (“He is perfect,” Trump told the press.) But it later soured over issues such as Trump’s criticism of French defense spending, tariffs and Trump’s move to begin withdrawing troops from Syria.

After Macron said in November that Europe may have to build its own army to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America,” Trump called the remarks “very insulting” and pointed to the French surrender to Germany in World War II -- before hitting Macron’s approval ratings.

“He was just trying to get onto another subject,” he said.

Fox News' Kristin Brown contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Georgia man set foreclosed mansion on fire, cops say

A Georgia man allegedly set his former mansion on fire months after the residence went into foreclosure, authorities said Thursday.

Stanley Stephens, with help from Donald Luallen, set fire to the 5,900-square-foot home in the northern town of Rome on Feb. 10, police said. No one was hurt in the fire. Both are charged with first-degree arson.

Investigators from local, state and federal agencies spent more than 300 hours looking into the blaze, Fox News affiliate WAGA-TV reported.

"We guesstimate approximately $2.5 million are involved in this case," Floyd County Fire Marshal Mary Catherine Chewning said during a Thursday news conference. "This is one of the largest arson cases I am aware of in Floyd County at this time."

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Stephens was arrested Monday in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Luallen was taken into custody Thursday in Oxford, Alabama. Both are expected to be extradited to Georgia. More charges against the pair are pending, Chewning said.

Source: Fox News National

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Japan’s Zozo sees profit recovering this year after bodysuit blunder

FILE PHOTO: A woman is seen in front of the logo of Zozo, which operates Japan's popular fashion shopping site Zozotown and is officially called Start Today Co, at an event launching the debut of its formal apparel items, in Tokyo
FILE PHOTO: A woman is seen in front of the logo of Zozo, which operates Japan's popular fashion shopping site Zozotown and is officially called Start Today Co, at an event launching the debut of its formal apparel items, in Tokyo, Japan, July 3, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

April 25, 2019

By Ritsuko Ando

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese online fashion retailer Zozo Inc said it expects its profit to recover in the current fiscal year, after booking its first-ever annual drop in earnings on a failed experiment with bespoke tailoring and clashes with fashion brands.

But Zozo’s results also show its liabilities mounting and cash position dwindling, underscoring worries about the finances of the company that runs the popular Zozotown online mall.

Zozo has captured nearly half of Japan’s online sales of mid- to high-end clothes by setting up a website catering to fashion-forward, higher-income customers.

It has sought to transform itself in recent years from an e-commerce site into a tech-retail hybrid by starting a private brand and launching a made-to-measure service using a bodysuit that allowed users to upload measurements online.

The bodysuit, along with billionaire CEO Yusaku Maezawa’s plans for a lunar flyby as the first private passenger on Elon Musk’s SpaceX mission, had helped spread Zozo’s name globally. The end of the Zozosuit has cast a shadow on its strategy.

Many people who ordered the bodysuit did not use it to buy clothes, leaving Zozo saddled with the huge cost of distributing the suits without seeing returns. It also struggled to cope with orders that did come in, forcing some customers to wait several months for delivery.

Zozo’s operating profit for the year ended March fell 21.5 percent to 25.7 billion yen ($229 million). That was worse than its most recent forecast of 26.5 billion, which had been marked down from an initial projection of 40 billion yen.

Adding to its woes, some fashion brands that helped Zozo build its reputation have left the site. Some of them launched their own e-commerce sites, while others grew unhappy with what they saw as excessive discounting at the Zozotown online mall.

Apparel company Onward Holdings Co, fashion retailer United Arrows and childrens’ brand Miki House have left the site.

Zozo has been trying to regain momentum by adding more mass-market retailers such as Shimamura, but some analysts say this has hurt its initial, fashion-focused image.

Shares of Zozo have nearly halved in the past year on fears that its popularity may be waning, and that its cash position looked weak. The company secured a 15 billion yen commitment line from banks in late March.

Thursday’s results show Zozo’s cash and cash equivalents fell to 21.6 billion yen by end-March, versus 24.6 billion a year earlier, while total liabilities jumped to 56.3 billion from 29.9 billion.

But the company said it expects business to pick up as Japanese consumers were just beginning to buy clothes online.

It forecast a 24.7 percent rise in operating profit to 32 billion yen for the current financial year.

($1 = 111.9300 yen)

(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

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Philippine forces kill several militants in new offensive

Officials say Philippine troops, backed by airstrikes and artillery fire, have killed several militants aligned with the Islamic State group in a new offensive in the marshy heartland of the country's south.

Army Maj. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana says several key militant commanders, including a long-wanted Singaporean, were among the more than 100 militants who came under attack Monday near Shariff Saydona Mustapha town in Maguindanao province. One soldier was killed and seven others were wounded in the firefight.

Sobejana said Tuesday that troops were checking if Singaporean militant Muhamad Ali Abdul Rahiman, who is also known as Muawiya, along with local commander Esmael Abdulmalik and bomb-maker Salahudin Hassan were among the wounded or slain militants.

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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