(L-R) Pro-democracy activist Tanya Chan, and Occupy Central pro-democracy movement founders Chu Yiu-ming, Chan Kin-man and Benny Tai, chant slogans outside the court before hearing a verdict on their involvement in the Occupy Central, also known as "Umbrella Movement", in Hong Kong, China April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
April 9, 2019
HONG KONG (Reuters) – A Hong Kong court on Tuesday found three leaders of the 2014 pro-democracy “Occupy” civil disobedience movement guilty of conspiracy to commit public nuisance for their role in mass protests that brought parts of the Chinese-ruled city to a standstill.
Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man and retired pastor Chu Yiu-ming were all found guilty following a trial that comes as the financial centre’s civil liberties come under mounting pressure.
(Reporting By James Pomfret and Jessie Pang; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
Louisiana State Fire Marshal H. "Butch" Browning speaks during a press conference addressing three recent church fires in the parish Thursday, April 4, 2019, at the St. Landry Parish Training Center in Opelousas, La. Authorities in southern Louisiana are investigating a string of "suspicious" fires at three African American churches in recent days. Fire Marshal H. "Butch" Browning said it wasn't clear whether the fires in St. Landry Parish are connected and he declined to get into specifics of what the investigation had yielded so far but described the blazes as "suspicious." (Leslie Westbrook/The Advocate via AP)
OPELOUSAS, La. – The Latest on fires at black churches in Louisiana. (all times local):
10:30 a.m.
St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz says the father of the suspect arrested in the fires at three black Louisiana churches is a sheriff's deputy in his department.
Matthew Holden, a 21-year-old white man, has been arrested in the fires and faces three counts of simple arson of a religious building.
At a news conference, Sheriff Guidroz disputed reports that Matthews' father turned his son in. Guidroz also said the suspect's father knew nothing of his son's involvement in the fires.
The first fire torched the St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre last month. Days later, the Greater Union Baptist Church and Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas were burned. Each was more than 100 years old, with mostly black congregations.
The churches were empty at the time of the fires, and no one was injured.
___
10:15 a.m.
Authorities say they're investigating hate as a motive in the fires at three black churches in southern Louisiana.
The suspect has been identified as Holden Matthews, a 21-year-old white man.
At a Thursday news conference, State Fire Marshal Butch Browning said the threat to the community "is gone now." He also called the fires "an attack on our God and our religion."
The first fire torched the St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre last month. Days later, the Greater Union Baptist Church and Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas were burned. Each was more than 100 years old, with mostly black congregations.
The churches were empty at the time of the fires, and no one was injured.
___
10:05 a.m.
The suspect arrested in a string of fires at historically black churches in southern Louisiana has been identified as a 21-year-old white man.
According to a news release, Holden Matthews faces three counts of simple arson of a religious building.
At a news conference, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said "these were evil acts."
The first fire torched the St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre last month. Days later, the Greater Union Baptist Church and Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas were burned. Each was more than 100 years old, with mostly black congregations.
The churches were empty at the time of the fires, and no one was injured.
___
5:25 a.m.
U.S. Attorney David C. Joseph says authorities have arrested a person in connection with suspicious fires at three historic black churches in Louisiana.
Joseph announced late Wednesday that the suspect is in state custody, and said federal agents stand shoulder to shoulder with the victims of "these despicable acts." A Thursday press conference at the St. Landry Parish Sheriff's Office is planned.
The first fire torched the St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre last month. Days later, the Greater Union Baptist Church and Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas were burned. Each was more than 100 years old, with mostly black congregations.
The churches were empty at the time of the fires, and no one was injured. Fire Marshal H. "Butch" Browning said all three were suspicious.
In an interview in a book published by French politician and essayist Philippe de Villiers, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán says there is no place for multiculturalism in Hungary.
“What outrages our opponents the most is the fact that in our Constitution we have written that Hungary has Christian roots, that here there is no place for multiculturalism, that a child has the right to a mother and a father, and that our nation has the right to defend its borders.”
Orbán stated that the Hungarian people have long-standing traditions of resistance to “limited sovereignty”: “First there were the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, then the khans of the vast Mongol Empire, followed by the sultans of the Ottoman Empire; and then the Soviet comrades and their tanks. All of them wanted to put an end to Hungary”, he said, “but mysteriously the Hungarian people have survived in a boundless sea of Germans and Slavs.”multimulti
Asked if he is concerned today about the danger of national dissolution, Orbán said that he sees disintegration of the EU as a greater danger, with a line dividing Europe into two parts – one which is becoming Islamised, and one which does not want to become Islamised.
He outlined the choices thus: “If they leave us alone and do not force Islamisation upon us, Europe can live on as a club of free nations. If, however, they force us to accept the UN’s migration compact or the decisions of the European Commission, thereby aligning us with their permissive Western policy, disintegration cannot be ruled out.”
FILE PHOTO: The financial district with the headquarters of Germany's largest business bank, Deutsche Bank , is photographed on early evening in Frankfurt, Germany, January 29, 2019. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo
April 4, 2019
(Reuters) – The Australian arm of Deutsche Bank AG on Thursday named Jennifer Scott-Gray as head of its global transaction banking segment.
Scott-Gray, who will be based in Sydney, is the former global head of trade finance sales at Westpac Institutional Bank, and has worked in treasury and trade services with Citibank.
She will join the German lender in May, and report to the CEO of Deutsche Bank Australia Anthony Miller and Singapore-based David Lynne, who is the chief of fixed income and currencies, APAC.
Credit reporting company Equifax Inc. corporate offices are pictured in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., September 8, 2017. REUTERS/Tami Chappell/File Photo
February 22, 2019
(Reuters) – Credit reporting company Equifax Inc said it was informed by several U.S. regulators that they intend to seek damages from the company related to the cybersecurity breach of 2017 that exposed personal information of nearly 145 million people.
The company has received legal notices from the Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the New York Department of Financial Services, it said in a filing http://bit.ly/2NjM1TS on Thursday.
The United States Securities and Exchange commission had also issued a subpoena on May 14, 2018, regarding disclosure issues relating to the data breach, while the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has informed Equifax it intends to “make certain findings and recommendation” related to the incident.
The company has been named in 19 class action lawsuits in courts across the country, it said, and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars since disclosing the breach.
Regulators in the UK and Australia have also fined the company for the breach that saw personal information such as Social Security numbers, birth dates and addresses of millions of people being stolen by hackers.
Equifax first disclosed in September 2017 that it had been the target of a massive data breach, mostly in the United States.
(Reporting By Aparajita Saxena in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
FILE PHOTO: Meals are prepared by employees of LSG Group, Lufthansa's airline catering division, at the LSG headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, November 11, 2016. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
March 27, 2019
By Arno Schuetze
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Lufthansa is looking to merge the European operations of its catering unit LSG with a peer as it struggles with low margins in a competitive market on the continent, people close to the matter said.
Lufthansa has provided information to potential bidders and has asked them to make offers for the business in early April, the people said, adding that Lufthansa was not interested in a deal with private equity.
Austria’s Do&Co and Switzerland’s Gategroup are expected to make offers for the European LSG operations, the people said, adding that given its low profitability and low expected value even medium-sized Do&Co could do a deal without a partner.
Lufthansa reiterated that it was considering options for LSG, while Gategroup declined to comment and Do&Co was not immediately available for comment.
While Lufthansa is currently focused on finding a solution for its European operations, a deal for its international business could follow at a later stage, the people said.
The catering business is challenged by a large number of locations it serves, high staff costs and exposure to currency exchange rates, Lufthansa’s Chief Executive Carsten Spohr said recently.
Lufthansa’s LSG group saw adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization rise 39 percent to 181 million euros last year on flat revenues of 3.2 billion euros. It employs 35,500 staff.
The bulk of profits came from the international business, the sources said. Lufthansa does not provide a regional split of the figures.
The figures were helped by lower restructuring costs.
Do&Co, backed by gastronomy entrepreneur Attila Dogudan, has a market capitalization of 735 million euros. It serves customers at 60 airlines including Lufthansa’s Austrian unit and its core catering business posted 61 million in 2018 EBITDA on sales of 574 million.
Gategroup is owned by Chinese conglomerate HNA, whose current financial strains may dissuade the company from doing a major cash deal, people familiar with the matter have said in the past.
After a failed 2018 listing of Gategroup, Temasek and RRJ Capital subscribed to a five-year mandatory exchangeable bond which upon conversion will account for up to 49 percent of its share capital.
Morgan Stanley is helping Lufthansa in finding a buyer for parts or all of LSG, sources told Reuters in 2018.
(Reporting by Arno Schuetze; Additional reporting by Ilona Wissenbach; Editing by Tassilo Hummel/Keith Weir)
Jack Shepherd, who went on the run last year after killing a woman in a speedboat crash on the River Thames, is escorted during his extradition in Tbilisi, Georgia April 10, 2019. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia/Handout via REUTERS
April 10, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) – A British man who went on the run last year after killing a woman in a speedboat crash on the River Thames has returned to Britain after being extradited from the former Soviet state of Georgia, UK prosecutors said on Wednesday.
Jack Shepherd, 31, was convicted in his absence last July of the manslaughter by gross negligence of Charlotte Brown, 24, and sentenced to six years in jail.
He will appear in court in London on Thursday to be sentenced in person for the death of Brown.
“Jack Shepherd has returned to the UK to face justice,” Angela Deal, head of extradition at the Crown Prosecution Service, said.
“He will first appear at the Old Bailey to be sentenced for the gross negligence manslaughter conviction in connection with the death of Charlotte Brown, and then at a later date in the south west over the grievous bodily harm charge.”
After months on the run, Shepherd turned himself in to police in Georgia earlier this year, telling a court he was agreeing to extradition so he could take part in an appeal process.
Shepherd took Brown for a ride on a speedboat in December, 2015 during a first date.
Shortly before midnight, the boat hit floating debris and both were thrown into the water. Shepherd was found clinging to the hull but Brown was pulled from the water unconscious and died from cold water immersion.
Prosecutors said Shepherd was drunk and that neither he nor Brown was wearing a life-jacket.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Alistair Bell)
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)
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.
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)
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)
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.
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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