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Iran warns of firm response if Israel acts against its oil shipments

FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: Iran's national flags are seen on a square in Tehran
FILE PHOTO: Iran's national flags are seen on a square in Tehran February 10, 2012, a day before the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubaz/File Photo

March 13, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Iran will respond firmly to any Israeli naval action against its oil shipments, Iran’s defense minister said on Wednesday, in comments that came a week after Israel’s prime minister said its navy could act against Iranian oil “smuggling” to evade U.S. sanctions.

U.S. President Donald Trump last year quit a nuclear deal with Iran and reimposed some sanctions, aiming to cut Tehran’s oil exports to zero. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told naval officers last week that Iran was still resorting to clandestine measures to ship fuel.

Iran’s Minister of Defense Amir Hatami was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA that Tehran had the military capabilities to confront any Israeli intervention, and said the international community would also not accept such action.

Hatami said such confrontation would be considered as “piracy” and warned that “if it happens, we will firmly respond.”

“The Iranian armed forces have certainly the capabilities to protect the country’s shipping lines in the best way against any possible threat,” Hatami said.

According to maritime experts, Iran has used a variety of measures to evade sanctions, including changing the names of ships or flag registries, switching off location transponders on ships and conducting ship-to-ship transfers offshore and away from large trade hubs.

Iran’s navy has extended its reach in recent years, dispatching vessels to the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. They intervened on Friday to repel pirates who attacked an Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden.

The Israeli navy, whose largest vessels are missile corvettes and a small submarine fleet, is mostly active in the Mediterranean and Red seas.

Iran has one of the world’s biggest tanker fleets in the world.

In November, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook called Iranian vessels a “floating liability”, saying the U.S. sanctions would bar them from international insurance markets, making them a risk for ports and canals which allow them access.

Iranian officials have threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route in the Gulf, if the United States attempts to stop the Islamic Republic’s oil exports.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Michael Perry and Simon Cameron-Moore)

Source: OANN

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From Syria, IS slips into Iraq to fight another day

Islamic State fighters facing defeat in Syria are slipping across the border into Iraq, where they are destabilizing the country's fragile security, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.

Hundreds — likely more than 1,000 — IS fighters have crossed the open, desert border in the past six months, defying a massive operation by U.S., Kurdish, and allied forces to stamp out the remnants of the jihadi group in eastern Syria, according to three Iraqi intelligence officials and a U.S. military official.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on intelligence matters. But indications of the extremist group's widening reach in Iraq are clear.

Cells operating in four northern provinces are carrying out kidnappings, assassinations, and roadside ambushes aimed at intimidating locals and restoring the extortion rackets that financed the group's rise to power six years ago.

"IS is trying to assert itself in Iraq, because of the pressure it is under in Syria," said Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasoul, the Iraqi army spokesman.

The militants can count between 5,000 and 7,000 among their ranks in Iraq, where they are hiding out in the rugged terrain of remote areas, according to one intelligence official.

In Syria, Kurdish-led forces backed by the U.S.-led coalition have cornered the militants in a pocket less than one square kilometer in Baghouz, a Euphrates River village near the 600-kilometer (370-mile) border.

The Iraqi army has deployed more than 20,000 troops to guard the frontier, but militants are slipping across, mostly to the north of the conflict zone, in tunnels or under the cover of night. Others are entering Iraq disguised as cattle herders.

They are bringing with them currency and light weapons, according to intelligence reports, and digging up money and arms from caches they stashed away when they controlled a vast swath of northern Iraq.

"If we deployed the greatest militaries in the world, they would not be able to control this territory," Rasoul said. "Our operations require intelligence gathering and airstrikes."

At its height in 2014 and 2015, the Islamic State group ruled over a self-proclaimed "caliphate" that spanned one-third of Iraqi and Syrian territory. The extremist offshoot of Al-Qaida in Iraq threatened to exterminate religious minorities.

Iraqi forces, with U.S., Iranian, and other international help, were able to turn the war around and Baghdad declared victory over the group in December 2017, after the last urban battle had been won.

But precursors to IS have recovered from major setbacks in the past, and many fear the militants could stage a comeback. The group is already waging a low-level insurgency in rural areas.

The Associated Press verified nine IS attacks in Iraq in January alone, based on information gathered from intelligence officials, provincial leaders, and social media. IS often boasts of its activities through group messaging apps such as Telegram.

In one instance, a band of militants broke into the home of a man they accused of being an informant for the army, in the village of Tal al-Asfour in the northern Badush region. They shot him and his two brothers against the wall, and posted photos of the killing on social media.

Sheikh Mohamed Nouri, a local tribal leader, said it was meant to intimidate locals in order to keep them from sharing intelligence with security officials.

"I have members of our tribal militia receiving threatening messages warning them to abandon their work," said Nouri.

In other instances, IS cells have killed mukhtars — village leaders and municipal officials. They have attacked rural checkpoints with car bombs and mortar fire, and burned down militia members' homes. In the Shurgat area in central Iraq, militants stopped a police vehicle last month and killed all four officers inside.

Other activities have aimed at restoring the group's financial footing.

On Sunday, militants kidnapped a group of 12 truffle hunters in the western Anbar province, marking a return to a strategy of intimidating and extorting farmers and traders for financial gain.

Naim Kaoud, the head of provincial security, urged locals to suspend truffle gathering, which has just one season a year and is an important source of income for rural families.

Other truffle hunters have disappeared in the countryside, according to former lawmaker and Anbar tribal figure Jaber al-Jaberi. He said the militants are taking cuts from truffle hunters in exchange for access to the land, and kidnapping or killing those who refuse to cooperate.

"This is one of the sources of their funding," said al-Jaberi.

Al-Jaberi cautioned against exaggerating the IS threat, saying the militants have been less successful at infiltrating communities than they were earlier this decade.

"These are different times," he said.

Others are not so sure. Hans-Jakob Schindler, a former adviser to the U.N. Security Council on IS and other extremist groups, said the same grievances that gave rise to IS in 2013 remain today, including a large Sunni minority that feels politically and economically marginalized by the Shiite-led central government.

"I'm very worried that we are just repeating history," said Schindler, who is now at the Counter Extremism Project.

He said he has seen IS "revert to the old type" of "classical terror attacks" and kidnapping for ransom, tactics that were once widely employed by al-Qaida in Iraq.

The militants staged a dramatic resurgence after 2011, when U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq and civil war broke out in neighboring Syria. Today some 5,200 American forces are based in Iraq, after they were invited back to help stem the IS rampage in 2014.

After President Donald Trump promised in December to pull American forces out of Syria, Iraqi lawmakers began clamoring for the U.S. to leave, arguing that the mission against IS was approaching its end.

But with no letdown to IS militancy, those calls have petered out.

Source: Fox News World

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Taiwan protests China jets crossing center of Taiwan Strait

Taiwan says its planes warned off Chinese military aircraft that crossed the center line in the Taiwan Strait, calling China's move a provocation seeking to alter the status quo in the waterway dividing the island from mainland China.

Taiwan's defense ministry said a pair of Chinese J-11 jet fighters crossed the line around 11 a.m. Sunday and entered the island's southwestern airspace. It said Taiwan scrambled jets to warn off the Chinese planes, which came within about 185 kilometers (115 miles) of the island itself.

The ministry said in a tweet that the Chinese planes "violated the long-held tacit agreement by crossing the median line" of the strait.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen told reporters that such acts sought to alter the status quo and threatened regional security and stability.

Source: Fox News World

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Trump says he sees ‘collusion’ against Republicans on social media platforms

U.S. President Donald Trump and Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro hold a joint news conference at the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a joint news conference with Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, U.S., March 19, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

March 19, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that social media platforms discriminated against members of his party, and accused the companies of collusion.

“It seems to be if they’re conservative, if they’re Republicans, if they’re in a certain group, there’s discrimination, and big discrimination, and I see it absolutely on Twitter and Facebook … and others,” Trump said at a joint White House news conference with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

“We use the word ‘collusion’ very loosely all the time, and I will tell you there is collusion with respect to that because something has to be going on,” Trump said.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; writing by Mohammad Zargham; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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China thanks Kazakhstan for support on Xinjiang de-radicalization scheme

Kazakh Foreign Minister Beibut Atamkulov visits China
Kazakh Foreign Minister Beibut Atamkulov (L) and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) pose for photos after signing documents at the end of a meeting at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China March 28, 2019. Andrea Verdelli/Pool via REUTERS

March 29, 2019

BEIJING (Reuters) – The Chinese government’s top diplomat has thanked Kazakhstan for its support for a controversial de-radicalization program in China’s far western region of Xinjiang, and said others should follow China’s example.

Critics say China is operating internment camps for Uighurs and other Muslim peoples who live in Xinjiang, although the government calls them vocational training centers and says it has a genuine need to prevent extremist thinking and violence.

Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi said after meeting Kazakh Foreign Minister Beibut Atamkulov in Beijing that China’s de-radicalization measures in Xinjiang had been very effective, China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement late on Thursday.

The steps had “vigorously protected local security and stability and made an important contribution to promoting regional peace and stability”, Wang said.

They also gave a “useful reference for the international community in cracking down on violent terror forces and banishing extremist thought”, he said.

“We appreciated the Kazakh government’s understanding and support for China’s position, and we will never let any person or any force damage the friendship and mutual trust between China and Kazakhstan,” Wang said.

The government of the Central Asian nation has avoided criticizing China’s Xinjiang policies but has negotiated the release of some two dozen people with dual Kazakh and Chinese citizenships detained in China.

Kazakh police this month detained a Chinese-born activist who has campaigned on behalf of ethnic Kazakhs in China.

Xinjiang is home to a sizeable Kazakh minority, some of whom have also ended up in the de-radicalization facilities, rights groups say.

China has been stepping up a push to counter growing criticism in the West and among rights groups about the program in Xinjiang, which borders Central Asia.

That has included inviting foreign diplomats and reporters to visit on well-chaperoned tours, including a Reuters reporter in January.

China has denied all accusations of rights abuses in Xinjiang and says it has a genuine need to ensure security there, where hundreds have been killed in unrest in recent years blamed by Beijing on Islamist militants and separatists.

Wang said China and Kazakhstan should strengthen their cooperation in the human rights field and ensure people do not try to “politicise” the issue, China’s Foreign Ministry said.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Paul Tait)

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White House cancels Major League Baseball’s Cuba deal

The Trump administration is moving to end an agreement allowing Cuban baseball players to sign contracts directly with Major League Baseball clubs, a change that appears to require Cuban players to once again defect from the Communist nation before signing a major league deal.

Last year, 25 Cuban-born players played in at least one major league baseball game.

The Treasury Department told MLB attorneys in a letter Friday that it was reversing an Obama administration rule allowing the major leagues to pay the Cuban Baseball Federation a release fee equal to a percentage of each Cuban player's signing bonus. In exchange, the Cuban federation had agreed to release all players aged 25 and older with at least six years of professional experience.

In the letter, which was made public Monday afternoon, the Treasury Department told MLB that the payments to the Cuban Baseball Federation constituted illegal business with the Cuban government. That reverses a ruling made by the Obama administration that said the federation was not part of the Cuban government.

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"The U.S. does not support actions that would institutionalize a system by which a Cuban government entity garnishes the wages of hard-working athletes who simply seek to live and compete in a free society," National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis said in a statement. "The Administration looks forward to working with MLB to identify ways for Cuban players to have the individual freedom to benefit from their talents, and not as property of the Cuban State."

Major League Baseball had no immediate comment on the letter, which came days after the Cuban federation released a list of 34 players authorized to sign with major league clubs.

Fox News' John Roberts and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Former UN ambassador backs smaller US-North Korea deals, says Trump should leave negotiations to State Department

Bill Richardson, former US ambassador to the United Nations, said Friday he does not support the idea of a third summit with North Korea but instead backs the idea of a series of smaller deals with Pyongyang over its nuclear intentions.

"I believe right now that a summit with Kim Jong Un would not be a good idea," Richardson told America's Newsroom.

President Trump on Thursday said he would be open to a third meeting with the North Korean leader despite their last summit abruptly ending six weeks ago in Vietnam, producing no breakthrough. Speaking before an Oval Office meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Thursday, Trump seemed to open the door to a series of smaller negotiations with North Korea.

“There are various smaller deals that maybe could happen,” Trump said. “Things could happen. You can work out step-by-step pieces, but at this moment we are talking about the big deal. The big deal is we have to get rid of the nuclear weapons.”

THE ART OF THE WALK? SUMMIT COLLAPSE AND TRUMP'S DIPLOMACY

KIM JONG UN FANCIES CAVIAR, FOIE GRAS, LOBSTER, HAD STAFF TASTE FOOD FOR SAFETY AT VIETNAM SUMMIT, CHEF SAYS

Trump stopped short of saying he'd ease sanctions on North Korea but also said he'd decided not to impose additional penalties on the Asian country, a testament he says to his relationship with the North Korean dictator.

But Richardson believes that smaller deals would show "flexibility on both sides."

"Maybe North Korea freezes its nuclear missile development or activity, shuts down that Yongbyon nuclear facility and in return the United States has some sanctions relief because both sides are really far apart," Richardson said. "North Korea wants all sanctions relief on everything - we can't do that. And we want North Korea to totally denuclearize... that's not going to happen, so something in between."

Richardson adds that Trump should leave the deal-making to professional negotiators or the State Department.

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South Korea has also come out in recent days and said that the breakdown in talks in Vietnam should not be seen as a failure but as the catalyst to a bigger and better deal between North Korea and the U.S.  South Korea, which is right in the line of fire of North Korea, has also been pushing for a third summit.

"(South Korean President Moon Jae-in)  wants a deal between the U.S. and North Korea because it's good politically for him... it's good for his country," Richardson said. "In some ways... he's pushed us a little too far to make deals when we have to coordinate better."

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)

Source: OANN

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