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MSM Lobbies Instagram to Ban Alex Jones Over Fake “Anti-Semitism” Controversy

The mainstream media is now lobbying Instagram to ban Alex Jones by creating a contrived hoax surrounding a post deemed to be “anti-Semitic”.

Despite being owned by Facebook, Instagram is the only major social media platform not to ban Jones following a coordinated effort by the rest to silence him last year.

The image, created by artist Mear One, portrays a group of men sat around a Monopoly board stacked with gold, dollar bills and a skull.

Despite the artist himself asserting that the image is about class and has nothing to do with race or Jewish people, Facebook executives from the UK asserted that the image “is widely acknowledged to be anti-Semitic”.

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Leaked emails from Facebook executives clearly show that Jones is also being made responsible for the comments of OTHER people which he had nothing to do with.

“Facebook executives then investigate the comments whipped up by Jones’ Instagram post,” states the Business Insider piece which whipped up the fake controversy, adding that “it is not clear how many comments” which Facebook deems as being in violation of its policies are needed to initiate a takedown order.

This is patently ludicrous in that it would grease the skids for trolls to deliberately brigade posts with offensive comments in order to set people they don’t like to be removed from platforms.

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Other media coverage of the issue also suggests that Jones should be banned for some of the comments that appeared below the post, a new ludicrous standard of thought policing that would make anyone subject to deletion based on something that they never said.

“Numerous derogatory comments accompanying the Instagram post made reference to Jewish people and Jewish heritage,” wrote the Huff Post’s Ryan Grenoble, absurdly suggesting that Jones was also responsible for remarks made by random people on the Internet.

Clearly eager to discover any excuse to ban Jones, and having failed to do so in response to the post itself (which was removed) or the comments, Instagram now appears to have just decided to classify Jones as a “hate figure” in order to remove him from the platform.

The precedent being set here is yet another lurch towards the complete censorship of all dissident content online.

Big Tech can label anyone a “hate figure” if they don’t like their politics. There is no objective standard of what makes someone a “hate figure,” with the benchmark now appearing to be anyone prominent who successfully challenges the left.

Despite the fact that “hate speech” is part of the First Amendment anyway, the new definition of hate speech for the left is anything that contravenes their ever changing dogma.

Social media is the new public commons. By depriving Jones of his platform, Big Tech is actively violating his First Amendment rights. Instagram would also be in violation of Section 230 of the Communications Act, which makes it clear that to avoid liability for content, social media platforms cannot act as publishers and curate or remove content that is not illegal.

Until conservatives realize that Silicon Valley has amassed far too much power and needs regulating, and that the free market is not the catch all solution to everything, more anti-establishment voices will continue to be silenced.

Given how social media algorithms can shift millions of votes, this censorship will lead to elections being lost and the left permanently entrenching its power.

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Source: InfoWars

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Scotland avalanche victims were 2 Frenchmen, 1 Swiss

Police in Scotland say the three people who died in an avalanche on Britain's highest peak were two Frenchman and a Swiss national.

The three perished Tuesday in an avalanche on Ben Nevis. Two died immediately while the third victim died before rescuers could get him to the hospital.

Police said Wednesday that a fourth person who was injured was also a Swiss national. He is in stable condition at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow. The men ranged in age from 30 to 43.

Ben Nevis, located in the Scottish highlands, stands nearly 1,344 meters (4,409 feet) above sea level.

Source: Fox News World

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Greece's central banker protests, says minister is meddling

Greece's central bank chief has asked Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to intervene after a cabinet minister phoned him to tell him how to do his job and then allegedly leaked the conversation to the press.

In a statement Tuesday, bank chief Yiannis Stournaras deplored the deputy minister's "unheard-of" attempt to influence the central bank, and urged Tsipras to protect the central bank's independence.

The Bank of Greece governor — a finance minister in Greece's former conservative government — has a testy relationship with Tsipras' left-wing administration, and is frequently targeted by pro-government media.

On Monday, Deputy Health Minister Pavlos Polakis announced on social media that he phoned Stournaras over an investigation into a bank loan that Polakis had received. He said he urged Stournaras to also investigate loans allegedly taken out by opposition politicians.

Source: Fox News World

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FBI, police conduct frantic search for missing boy, 5, in suburban Chicago

The FBI and local detectives are frantically searching for a suburban Chicago 5-year-old boy who was last seen Wednesday when his parents put him to bed.

The parents of A.J. Freund, a blond-haired, 70-pound boy, reported him missing the next day when they woke up and couldn’t find him, but police in Crystal Lake don’t believe he was kidnapped by an intruder or anyone else.

“In reviewing all investigative information thus far, there is no indication that would lead police to believe that an abduction had taken place,” Deputy Police Chief Tom Kotlowski said Friday.

BODY OF MISSING OHIO TEEN FOUND IN SHALLOW GRAVE NEAR FARM

A search by police bloodhounds has also led detectives to believe the boy didn’t wander away from the house, he said.

After being questioned by police, A.J.’s mom Joann Cunningham clammed up on the advice of an attorney, Fox 32 Chicago reported.

“Ms. Cunningham cooperated with police extensively yesterday until at some point we got the impression that she may be considered a suspect,” lawyer George Killis said Friday outside the home, according to the station.

Killis spoke after Andrew Freund emerged from the house and made a public appeal for his son to return home, the station reported.

“A.J. please come home,” he said. “We love you very much. You’re not in any trouble. We’re just worried to death.”

Kotlowski said the search for A.J. has covered a very wide area. The massive search has included police dogs, drones and a sonar team that searched a lake.

MORE CHARGES FOR MAN ACCUSED OF CLAIMING TO BE MISSING CHILD

A.J. was last seen wearing a blue Mario sweatshirt and black sweatpants, police said.

Police were seen entering the boy's home Friday, possibly armed with a search warrant, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Child welfare workers placed A.J. in a foster home for nearly two years after he was born in 2013 with opiates in his body, the paper reported.

The placement came after the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services substantiated an allegation of neglect against Cunningham, according to the paper.

Agency officials said Friday that the agency’s off-and-on contact with family lasted until late 2018.

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They said A.J. has a younger brother who has been placed with a foster family.

Source: Fox News National

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Vermont bill to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day advances

Vermont appears poised to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day, as more cities, states and universities opt to stop honoring the famed explorer and recognize Native Americans instead.

A bill to replace the federal holiday cleared the state Legislature on Wednesday. Republican Gov. Phil Scott said he will likely sign it into law.

"I see no reason that I would not sign it," Scott told the Burlington Free Press on Thursday, "but we're reviewing the bill as we speak."

THE QUESTION OF COLUMBUS DAY: WAS IT WORTH IT?

Vermont began recognizing Indigenous Peoples' Day in 2016. If the bill becomes law, the state would join New Mexico and South Dakota in recognizing Native Americans. A similar bill in Maine awaits its governor’s signature.

Columbus Day is celebrated on the second Monday of October. The movement to abolish the holiday stems from Columbus’ legacy of violence, enslavement and brutality of indigenous people, opponents argue.

"Things that are symbolic can carry very far," Rich Holschuh, of Brattleboro, a member of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs, told the Free Press. "The degree of disinformation and lack of understanding around the situation of native people in Vermont, as a microcosm of the national situation, is totally exemplified in the way that Columbus has been celebrated and the native people ignored."

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The bill cruised through the Vermont state Senate but faced some opposition in the state House of Representatives. A Republican-led amendment to create a separate day in February to recognize indigenous people failed 42-95.

Dozens of cities have chosen to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day in recent years, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Nashville, Tenn.; Tusla, Okla.; and Salt Lake City. Columbus, Ohio, the largest city named after Christopher Columbus, instead chose to honor the U.S. military and veterans last year.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Woman indicted in 1975 cold case dies before trial

The suspect in the 1975 death of a teenager in Georgia has died before she could be put on trial.

Georgia news outlets report that 16-year-old Cheryl White and then 18-year-old Mary Jane Stewart were roommates living in an apartment complex in the city of Warner Robins when White was found stabbed to death on the morning of Nov. 12, 1975.

It took decades to build the case but Stewart was arrested in White's death in 2017 in Texas and released on bond. Trial had been set for May.

But, authorities only recently learned that the 61-year-old Stewart died in hospice care in October.

Houston County assistant district attorney Eric Edwards says he hopes Stewart's arrest and indictment can help bring Cheryl White's family some form of closure.

Stewart's death certificate said she died Oct. 23, 2018, of acute chronic respiratory failure, Edwards said. Stewart had been ill earlier in the summer of last year but the prosecution had understood that she had recovered, Edwards said.

Edwards said he received the death certificate last week and wanted to first break the news to White's father. He took it well, Edwards said.

"He's had 43 years to make peace with it," Edwards told The Telegraph in Macon. "He was thankful we were going to give it a shot."

Edwards said he expects to file the formal paperwork in Houston County Superior Court this week to dismiss the case.

Stewart was accused of stabbing her former roommate in the chest and cutting her throat with a knife, according to the indictment. White was stabbed 15 times in her throat, arms and side, according to Telegraph archives.

Source: Fox News National

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Manson follower Van Houten gets another shot at release

Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten is getting another chance at getting out of prison following a years-long saga that has seen a board recommend her parole three separate times.

Van Houten's case is being heard before California's 2nd District Court of Appeal, which will consider whether to overturn a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge's ruling denying parole for Van Houten last year.

Van Houten's attorney, Rich Pfeiffer, will argue that his 69-year-old client deserves to be released because she's a changed woman, takes responsibility for her actions and has been a model inmate for more than four decades. Prosecutors will continue to vigorously fight Van Houten's release because of the seriousness of the crimes.

Van Houten was 19 when she and fellow cult members stabbed Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary to death in 1969. The killings took place a day after other so-called Manson family members murdered actress Sharon Tate and four others in crimes that shocked the world.

Van Houten, who is serving life in prison, was only involved in the LaBianca killings. She is not expected to be at Wednesday's hearing.

Every year since 2016, a parole board has recommended that Van Houten deserves to be released, finding that she's no longer a threat to society. Former Gov. Jerry Brown twice blocked Van Houten's release, saying she had failed to explain how she transformed from an upstanding teen to a killer and that she laid too much of the blame on Manson.

The parole board's most recent decision on Jan. 30 is undergoing a five-month review process before heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal's three-judge panel could decide the case following Wednesday's arguments, potentially rendering any decision by Newsom unnecessary, or the judges could decide that the case belongs in the governor's hands.

Pfeiffer said he has never been so optimistic that Van Houten will win.

"This has been the best anything has ever looked since I've been on the case," he said. "This is probably the best way out."

But courts can be reluctant to interfere in matters of parole, said Samuel Pillsbury, a criminal law professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

"It is highly emotional," Pillsbury said. "The voters have decided the governor should have a veto on this so the courts would prefer to let this process play out."

If the decision comes down to the governor, Pillsbury said Van Houten has an uphill battle because of the infamy of the Manson murders.

"The Manson case is one of a kind," he said. "There's no other case like it in terms of the number of people in California who feel strongly about it, who've lived through it. The entire state and much of the nation still feel some degree of trauma from that, and it makes it a very different kind of case from an elected official's point of view."

In denying Van Houten parole last year, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Ryan found that she would "pose an unreasonable risk of danger to society," citing the brutal nature of the crimes.

During one of her parole hearings, Van Houten said the murders were the start of what Manson believed was a coming race war that he dubbed "Helter Skelter," after a Beatles song, and that he had the group prepare to fight and learn to can food so they could go underground and live in a hole in the desert.

Van Houten said she was traveling up and down the California coast when acquaintances led her to Manson. She candidly described how she joined several other members of the group in killing the LaBiancas, carving up Leno LaBianca's body and smearing the couple's blood on the walls.

Manson died of natural causes in 2017 at a California hospital while serving a life sentence.

___

Follow Amanda Lee Myers on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AmandaLeeAP

Source: Fox News National

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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)

Source: OANN

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