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Beto doubles down on call to abolish Electoral College

Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke reiterated his call on Monday to abolish the Electoral College.

Answering a question from the audience at the We The People summit in Washington, the former Texas congressman argued that doing away with the Electoral College would restore the trust of voters, impinge on the practice of gerrymandering and allow for fairer elections.

“Let’s abolish the electoral college,” O’Rourke said. “If we get rid of the Electoral College, we’d get a little closer to one person, one vote.”

He added: “Our democracy…it is warped, it is corrupted right now. It we don’t fix it, it’s never going to get better.”

BETO O'ROURKE PICKING UP SUPPORT FROM PRIMARY RIVALS OUT OF THE GATE

O’Rourke, who rose to national prominence during his failed campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas last fall, has spoken before about moving to abolish the Electoral College.

During an event at Penn State University last month, O’Rourke questioned how former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election despite receiving more votes overall than President Trump.

“I think there’s a lot to that. Because you had an election in 2016 where the loser got 3 million more votes than the victor,” O’Rourke said in a video posted online.

He added: “It puts some states out of play altogether, they don’t feel like their votes really count.

“If we really want everyone to vote, to give them every reason to vote, we have to make sure their votes count and go to the candidate of their choosing,” O’Rourke said. “So I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that.”

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O’Rourke’s call echoes that of his fellow Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who also has advocated abolishing the Electoral College.

“Every vote matters and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting, and that means get rid of the Electoral College,” Warren said.

If the move is ever brought to fruition, it would almost certainly face a court challenge.

It has gained renewed attention amid Democrats grumbling about the Electoral College in the wake of President Trump's 2016 win. While he defeated Hillary Clinton in the electoral vote, he lost the popular vote by 2.9 million ballots.

Fox News’ Liam Quinn contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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The Latest: Tornado confirmed in Alabama

The Latest on severe weather in the Southeast (all times local):

12:55 p.m.

The National Weather Service says a small tornado is responsible for destroying farm buildings and causing other damage in northeast Alabama.

The weather service says a team found damage from an EF-1 tornado with winds estimated at 90 mph (145 kph) after storms moved through Blount County early Monday.

A barn and other rural buildings were damaged or destroyed, and one person was reported hurt.

The weather service team is checking other damage that occurred elsewhere, and storms are still moving across the region.

___

11 a.m.

A strong storm moving across northeast Alabama knocked down power lines and caused scattered damage in a retail district and forecasters said more bad weather was on the way.

Photos shared on social media showed plants and other items thrown around the parking lot of a Walmart store in Guntersville, Alabama, during Monday's storm. Nearby stores had to close because of power outages.

High winds left trees tilted sideways and utility lines drooped toward the ground. Farm buildings were damaged in rural Blount County, Alabama, where one person was reported injured.

The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings after radar indicated a possible twister. The weather service office in Huntsville said it was sending a team to determine whether a tornado caused damage.

The Storm Prediction Center says 26 million people were at a slight risk of severe storms in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas.

Source: Fox News National

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Former Obama lawyer Craig charged in Mueller spin-off probe

FILE PHOTO: Attorney Greg Craig speaks to reporters on the outcome of the courts' decision regarding Elian Gonzalez, in Washington
FILE PHOTO: Attorney Greg Craig speaks to reporters on the outcome of the courts' decision regarding Elian Gonzalez, in Washington, U.S., June 1, 2000. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 11, 2019

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Greg Craig, a former White House counsel in the Obama administration, was charged on Thursday with lying about work he performed in 2012 for Ukraine in a case that grew out of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Craig, 74, faces up to 10 years in prison for charges of making false statements and violating a lobbying law.

He is accused of lying to the Justice Department about his work on a 2012 report aimed at justifying the prosecution of a political enemy of Viktor Yanukovych, the Russian-aligned president of Ukraine at the time.

Craig’s lawyers declined immediate comment.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, the New York law firm that produced the report, agreed in January to turn over the $4.6 million it was paid and retroactively register as a foreign agent, as part of a settlement with the Justice Department.

Skadden produced the 187-page report at the behest of Paul Manafort, the former chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign who is currently serving a 7 1/2-year prison sentence for lobbying violations and financial crimes.

Manafort was apparently happy with Craig’s work.

“You are ‘THE MAN,'” he wrote Craig in an email after the report received favorable media coverage, according to the indictment.

The report was meant to be an objective review of the Ukrainian government’s prosecution of Yulia Tymoshenko, the country’s former prime minister who was convicted in 2011 on corruption charges and sentenced to seven years in prison.

It was used by Yanukovych’s government to justify Tymoshenko’s pretrial detention to the European Court of Human Rights and influence U.S. lawmakers.

Yanukovich was one of Manafort’s main lobbying clients.

According to the indictment, Craig covered up aspects of his work in order to avoid registering as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a rarely enforced law that was enacted in 1938 to counter Nazi propaganda.

Had Craig complied with the law, he would have been forced to reveal that the report was funded by a private Ukranian citizen, not the government, and disclose that Skadden was simultaneously helping out with Tymoshenko’s prosecution on other charges.

“That would do enormous damage to the credibility” of the report, Craig wrote in an email to other Skadden attorneys, according to the indictment.

Craig privately had reservations about Tymoshenko’s treatment but left them out of the report, the indictment said.

“Evidence of criminal intent – i.e., that she intended to commit a crime – is virtually non-existent,” he wrote in a memorandum that was not included in the report, according to the charges.

The case stems from Mueller’s 22-month investigation into whether Trump’s presidential campaign worked with Russia to influence 2016 election.

That probe led to charges against 34 people, including Russian agents and former key Trump allies, but Attorney General William Barr said last month that Mueller did not find enough evidence to charge Trump or others with criminal conspiracy.

Barr also said that he decided there was not enough evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of justice. He is expected to release a redacted version of Mueller’s final report to Congress next week.

(Additional reporting by Tim Ahmann and Nathan Layne; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Lisa Shumaker and Bill Berkrot)

Source: OANN

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Trump's wall prototypes to come down along US-Mexico border

The eight border-wall prototypes President Donald Trump inspected during a visit to California in March are going to be torn down to make way for a second barrier separating California and Mexico, the U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection said Friday.

Construction crews have replaced one layer of fencing along a 14-mile stretch of the border separating Mexico and California. Crews recently started work on replacing and extending secondary fence as well.

Border Patrol Agent Theron Francisco said Friday it isn't clear when the prototypes will come down. But he added money has already been set aside for their removal.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported Friday they cost between $300,000 and $500,000 apiece to build.

"There is money already allocated to either take them down or build infrastructure around them. But the decision has been made at the national level to take them down, and the secondary replacement project will take their place," Francisco said.

Trump declared an emergency last week to shift billions of dollars to fund border wall construction.

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives is set to vote next week on whether to block that declaration. Some members of the Republican-controlled Senate have indicated it could pass that body as well.

If it does, Trump has promised to veto the measure.

Source: Fox News National

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Trump Transition Staffer: Time for Impeachment Proceedings

J.W. Verret, who served as deputy director of economic policy for the Donald Trump pre-transition team, said it is time to start impeachment proceedings.

Verret, a professor of law at George Mason University, made his comments in a column posted by The Atlantic. He worked on the Trump team from Aug.-Oct. 2016.

“I wanted to share my experience transitioning from Trump team member to pragmatist about Trump to advocate for his impeachment, because I think many other Republicans are starting a similar transition,” he said. “Politics is a team sport, and if you actively work within a political party, there is some expectation that you will follow orders and rally behind the leader, even when you disagree.

“There is a point, though, at which that expectation turns from a mix of loyalty and pragmatism into something more sinister, a blind devotion that serves to enable criminal conduct.”

He said the report by special counsel Robert Mueller was the tipping point for him.

“Depending on how you count, roughly a dozen separate instances of obstruction of justice are contained in the Mueller report,” he said.  “The president dangled pardons in front of witnesses to encourage them to lie to the special counsel, and directly ordered people to lie to throw the special counsel off the scent.

“This elaborate pattern of obstruction may have successfully impeded the Mueller investigation from uncovering a conspiracy to commit more serious crimes. At a minimum, there’s enough here to get the impeachment process started.”

Source: NewsMax Politics

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NBA roundup: Bucks obliterate short-handed Pistons

NBA: Playoffs-Detroit Pistons at Milwaukee Bucks
Apr 14, 2019; Milwaukee, WI, USA; Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (34) looks for a call from an official in the third quarter of game one of the first round of the 2019 NBA Playoffs against the Detroit Pistons at Fiserv Forum. The Bucks won 121-86. Mandatory Credit: Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports

April 15, 2019

Giannis Antetokounmpo racked up 24 points, 17 rebounds and four assists in only 23 minutes as the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks overwhelmed the visiting Detroit Pistons 121-86 in their Eastern Conference playoff opener on Sunday.

George Hill had 16 points off the bench for the Bucks, who led by 27 at halftime. Eric Bledsoe scored 15 points, Brook Lopez and Khris Middleton had 14 apiece, and Sterling Brown added 11 along with a team-high seven assists.

Pistons center Andre Drummond was ejected with 4:07 remaining in the third quarter for shoving Antetokounmpo to the floor. The two-handed push occurred after Antetokounmpo grabbed an offensive rebound. Drummond finished with 12 points and 12 rebounds.

Luke Kennard’s 21 points off the bench topped Detroit, which played without All-Star forward Blake Griffin. He was sidelined by a sore left knee, which also kept him out of four of the last seven regular-season games. The Bucks were without guards Malcolm Brogdon (foot) and Tony Snell (ankle).

Trail Blazers 104, Thunder 99

Damian Lillard scored 30 points as Portland held off visiting Oklahoma City to win the opener of their first-round playoff series.

CJ McCollum added 24 points, and Enes Kanter contributed 20 points and 18 rebounds for the Trail Blazers, who led by as many as 19 points in the first half. The lead shrunk to as few as three points in the fourth quarter, but Oklahoma City never had possession with a chance to tie.

Paul George collected 26 points and 10 rebounds, and Russell Westbrook compiled 24 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists for the Thunder, who made only 5 of 33 3-point attempts in the game.

Celtics 84, Pacers 74

Boston held visiting Indiana without a field goal for the first 8 1/2 minutes of the second half, rallying from a halftime deficit for a victory in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series.

After failing to make even one-third of their shots in the first half while falling behind 45-38, the fourth-seeded Celtics became a defensive force in the third quarter. The Pacers, seeded fifth in the East, missed their first seven shots of the second half and mixed in three turnovers as their seven-point lead turned into a 47-45 deficit.

Kyrie Irving and Marcus Morris scored 20 points apiece for Boston, which won handily despite shooting just 36.4 percent. Cory Joseph led Indiana with 14 points, and Bojan Bogdanovic had 12, as the Pacers shot 33.3 percent for the game overall.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Dalai Lama reiterates he wants mutual solution on Tibet

The Dalai Lama says he has been seeking a mutually acceptable solution to the Tibetan issue with China since 1974 but that Beijing considers him a "splittist."

The Tibetan spiritual leader says he developed a direct contact with the Chinese leadership in 1979 and reiterates he is not seeking Tibet's independence.

He said he is not a "splittist" but that China considers him one.

So, the Chinese government wants him to fight for Tibet's independence, he said amidst laughter by an audience of educationists in New Delhi.

He said the Chinese and Tibetans can live side by side with China helping the Tibetans economically and gaining from their knowledge.

The 83-year-old Dalai Lama has been living in exile in India since a failed 1959 uprising in Tibet.

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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