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Hispanic Poll: Julian Castro One of Top 5 Dems Running for WH

Former San Antonio, Texas Mayor Julian Castro is among the top five Democratic presidential contenders favored by Hispanic voters, a new poll reveals.

The survey was conducted by the polling firm Latino Decision and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. The results were detailed in a story by The Hill.

Here are the top five Democrats favored by Hispanic voters, according to the poll:

  • 59% favor former Vice President Joe Biden
  • 58% favor Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
  • 48% favor former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke
  • 45% favor Castro
  • 43% favor Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.

The Hill noted Castro is the only Hispanic currently running for president.

The poll, conducted April 9-15, surveyed 606 Latino registered voters. The margin of error is 3.9 percentage points.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Johnny Manziel Says He’s Focused On His ‘Job’ And ‘Not Letting Anything Get’ To Him Amid Rumored Marriage Issues

David Hookstead | Reporter

Memphis Express quarterback Johnny Manziel appeared to subtly address rumored problems with his marriage after a Friday practice.

Johnny Football is married to Bre Tiesi, who recently scrubbed any reference of him from her Instagram, and he deleted his entire account. She also appeared to pretty much confirm speculation that she left him during exchanges in the Instagram comment section. You can see screenshots of her going off here, thanks to Busted Coverage. At one point she even claimed that she is the reason Manziel is even alive. It’s a wild exchange. (RELATED: Johnny Manziel Signs With The Memphis Express In The AAF)

With all that happening, Manziel is set to play his first AAF game this Sunday night against the Birmingham Iron. With all this going on speculation running wild, the Texas A&M legend doesn’t seem too concerned.

Manziel told the media the following Friday about a conversation with assistant coach David Lee, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal’s Jason Munz:

Everybody goes through stuff. It was just a personal conversation about not letting anything get to me. Continuing to come out here, focus on my job and try to be a great teammate. Continuing dropping hints and notes of how I can continue to be a better person and eliminate some of the mistakes I made in my life in the past — and actually learn from them … A lot of times in the past, I’m not able to block out certain things in my life. It all affects me and gets to me and from there, it’s a trickle-down effect. I have a good coaching staff here that supports me and cares about me as a person. I want to be a good person with morals and values, and I feel like I’m in a situation here where I can learn from people with those things.

Well, I think it’s safe to say there’s some apparent issues in his personal life, but he really can’t focus on that right now.

Manziel has been gifted with another opportunity in football. Right now, that has to be what he’s locked in on, and it sounds like that’s the case.

I’m also sure it’s not easy to have your wife publicly going off on social media. That’s a massive distraction if I’ve ever seen one. Luckily, it sounds like he’s got some good coaches around him ready to assist in anyway they can.

Now, we’ll have to see how many snaps he takes Sunday when the Express take on the Iron. We already know he’s not starting, but it does sound like he’ll get some reps.

Check it out on the NFL Network Sunday night if you’re looking for a little break from March Madness.

Follow David Hookstead on Twitter

Source: The Daily Caller

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Saudi Arabia to meet banks on export-credit finance plans, sources say

FILE PHOTO: View shows the construction of the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh
FILE PHOTO: construction of the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia May 12, 2016. REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser -/File Photo

February 20, 2019

By Davide Barbuscia

DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia will soon discuss with international banks its plans to use export-credit agencies in other countries to help it finance infrastructure projects, sources familiar with the matter said.

Saudi Arabia has embarked on an ambitious economic transformation plan involving infrastructure projects worth billions of dollars, in areas ranging from housing to transport.

But it has accumulated almost $60 billion of debt in just over two years, and that has not included financing linked to the infrastructure projects.

In January last year, the country’s debt-management office said it had asked banks to submit proposals for potential financing backed by export-credit agencies (ECAs). Those agencies offer loan guarantees and sometimes financing to encourage trade and lower the costs of international business.

Some Saudi entities have already used such financing. Aramco, the state-owned oil company, last year signed a $2 billion line of credit with UK Export Finance, the British ECA.

But more than a year after requesting proposals, the government has not appointed a financial adviser, the sources said. Nor has it said what specific projects the financing would support.

The debt management office did not respond to a request for comment.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars on mega-projects over the past decades, but a slump in construction and delays in payments to contractors have stalled existing developments. At the same time, lower oil prices have squeezed the state budget.

Work on King Abdullah Financial District, for example, a $10 billion project in Riyadh, began in 2006. But it has run into construction delays, cost overruns and doubts about an initial economic feasibility study.

The kingdom said last month it planned to start developing the first area of NEOM, a high-tech $500 billion business zone, in the first quarter of 2019.

ECA-backed financing could be useful for similar large projects requiring foreign equipment and contractors, as well as cheap debt financing over long periods, the sources said. But, they added, the government has not started talks yet on ECA-backed financing for NEOM.

The government has taken some steps toward project funding. Last November, the debt management office appointed as a temporary adviser MUFG banker Hirofumi Sakioka, who is the deputy head of ECA Finance EMEA at MUFG Bank.

The sources said his appointment was aimed at coordinating ECA financing requirements from various Saudi ministries.

About two years ago, the government asked ministries to review billions of dollars’ worth of unfinished projects with a view to shelving or restructuring them.

Many of the projects are relics of an era of high oil prices and lavish state spending, which ended when oil prices began to fall in mid-2014, making it increasingly difficult for Riyadh to find the money needed to complete them.

Source: OANN

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Swiss man sentenced for links to Moroccan tourist slayings

A Swiss man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Moroccan terrorism court for links to Islamic extremists who allegedly killed two Nordic tourists last year.

The man, 33, was convicted of charges including "deliberately helping perpetrators of terrorist acts" and training terrorists, according to state news agency MAP. The verdict was Thursday but reported Friday.

The online advertising technician, who was arrested in December, has a Moroccan wife, according to a lawyer representing another Swiss suspect in the case.

Moroccan prosecutors have filed terrorism charges against 25 individuals suspected of links to the killings.

The women tourists, one from Denmark and one from Norway, were found dead in their tent in the Atlas Mountains Dec. 17. Authorities blamed followers of the Islamic State group.

Source: Fox News World

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Biden’s ‘expressions of affection’ may take him out of 2020 race, Mark Steyn tells Tucker Carlson

Is former Vice President Joe Biden just being “touchy, feely” or is something more sinister afoot?

Conservative commentator Mark Steyn appeared on Fox News' “Tucker Carlson Tonight” to discuss the latest accusations of improper physical contact by the former VP and said other Democratic presidential candidates are trying to do what Trump did in 2016 with former Florida Gov.Jeb Bush: take out the competition.

“And the Democrats are completely morally indifferent on this unless it serves their ends," Steyn told Carlson. "And what they want to do is take this guy out. The other candidates want to take him out the way Jeb Bush was taken out by Trump two to four years ago."

OTHER 2020 DEMS SAY THEY BELIEVE BIDEN ACCUSER LUCY FLORES

“But they haven't got a Trump to take out Jeb Bush with a single well-placed adjectival insult, ‘low energy Jeb.’ So you use what you have -- and that's why all these Democratic candidates have basically decided this … is the bullet that takes out Joe Biden.”

BIDEN ACCUSED BY SECOND WOMAN OF IMPROPER PHYSICAL CONTACT

Biden responded Sunday to the allegations made against him.

"In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort," Biden's statement said. He added it “was never my intention” to act inappropriately but did not apologize.

WIFE OF FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY DEFENDS BIDEN, SAYS PHOTO CIRCULATING ONLINE IS HIGHLY MISLEADING

Steyn compared Biden’s "presumptuous" conduct to that of former CBS and PBS newsman Charlie Rose, who was fired by both networks in November 2017.

Steyn also said he believes Biden will ultimately decide not to seek the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

“I don't think he's going to run because I don't think he wants to be defending a lot of this stuff between now and November next year,” Steyn said.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Canada cracks down on asylum seekers crossing U.S.-Canadian border

FILE PHOTO: A group of asylum seekers pass a Canadian army vehicle as they walk down the street while escorted from their tent encampment to be processed at Canada Border Services in Lacolle
FILE PHOTO: A group of asylum seekers pass a Canadian army vehicle as they walk down the street while escorted from their tent encampment to be processed at Canada Border Services in Lacolle, Quebec, Canada August 11, 2017. REUTERS/Christinne Muschi/File Photo

March 19, 2019

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada said on Tuesday it planned to spend an additional C$1.2 billion ($902 million) over five years to stem the flow of irregular migrants from the United States, which has become a political threat to the Liberal government ahead of an October election.

Some 57,000 asylum seekers from Nigeria, El Salvador, Honduras and other nations crossed the U.S. border into Canada last year, in some cases citing a fear of persecution by the government of U.S. Donald Trump.

They are allowed to stay until their cases have been heard. Given Canada’s clogged judicial system, that could take years.

Canada began prioritizing the deportation of asylum seekers who walked across the border last year, in a bid to tackle the politically sensitive issue.

In the annual budget, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said Ottawa would implement a comprehensive border enforcement strategy “to detect and intercept individuals who cross Canadian borders irregularly and who try to exploit Canada’s immigration system.”

Most arrive in the populous provinces of Ontario and Quebec, which have spent hundreds of millions of dollars taking care of the newcomers. Critics complain that Ottawa is not doing enough to deter the migrants and Liberals concede the issue is hitting the party’s popularity.

According to the budget, the government will start spending the C$1.2 billion in the 2019-20 fiscal year to strengthen the border and speed up the asylum process. Ottawa will also try to “better manage, discourage and prevent irregular migration,” the budget text said.

Canadian officials have over the past two years visited Nigeria, as well as various ethnic communities in the United States, to try to persuade would-be migrants to stay put.

The officials have said that although the people driving the migrant surge claim that everyone who crosses the border is allowed to stay, most are sent back once their cases have been handled.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa; editing by Denny Thomas and Tom Brown)

Source: OANN

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Donald Trump Jr. says family has no fears over Mueller investigation report

Donald Trump Jr. dismissed any notion that he, the President or his family have any fears relating to the Mueller investigation or a probe by the Southern District of New York.

“‘This is going to be it, we finally got him.’ I’ve been hearing this for two years,’” Trump Jr. told “Fox & Friends" on Monday morning.

“This is as political as it gets. Their dream in life is to try to find something to get Trump. I mean, it’s that old Stalinist tactic, you know? ‘Show me the men, and I’ll show you the crime.'

SCHIFF: DEMS 'ABSOLUTELY' WILL TAKE DOJ TO COURT OVER MUELLER REPORT IF NECESSARY

“So, you know, there’s no doubt that they’ll try. But again, I know how we functioned as a company. I know how we function as individuals, and that’s why despite all this – for two years – we don’t appear all that worried, because we know there’s nothing there.”

We know there’s nothing there

— Donald Trump Jr.

Sunday former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was on ABC’s “This Week” and highlighted the Southern District of New York’s investigation into the Trump Organization and the Trump Inaugural Committee, saying that it poses a bigger threat to Trump than the Mueller report does.

MUELLER PROBE 'NEAR THE END GAME' AMID SHAKEUP AT DOJ, SOURCES SAY

“The Southern District of New York investigation is monumentally more perilous to the president than Bob Mueller ever was or ever will be. They have two tour guides and no restriction on where they can go,” Christie told host George Stephanopoulos.

“What they did was – they put incredible pressure on regular guys that couldn’t afford millions of dollars in legal fees, and got them to slip up and say something incorrectly,” Trump Jr. said of the Southern District of New York’s investigation.

The Mueller report is expected this week according to reports.

MUELLER SENTENCING MEMO SAYS MANAFORT 'REPEATEDLY AND BRAZENLY' VIOLATED LAW

Trump Jr. also commented on President Trump’s former attorney testifying before Congress this week while his father is having a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Vietnam.

“You got a President trying to deal with a major world issue, and to try to distract – or whatever it is – by bringing in a convicted felon and known liar. I mean, it’s pretty pathetic, but it really shows you how much the Democrats hate Trump. They hate Trump more than they love America, by a long shot, and it’s pretty disgusting that they would do that,” Trump Jr. said.

Cohen has closed-door hearings set for Tuesday and Thursday with Senate and House Intelligence Committees.

Wednesday Cohen has a public Congressional hearing with the House Oversight Committee the same day President Trump will meet with Jon-un in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Source: Fox News 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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