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Desperate Venezuelans swarm sewage drains in search of water

People collect water released through sewage drain that feeds into the Guaire River in Caracas
People collect water released through a sewage drain that feeds into the Guaire River, which carries most of the city's wastewater, in Caracas, Venezuela March 11, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

March 11, 2019

By Brian Ellsworth and Vivian Sequera

CARACAS (Reuters) – As Venezuela’s five-day power blackout left homes without water, Lilibeth Tejedor found herself looking for it on Monday in the last place she would have imagined – a drain pipe feeding into a river carrying sewage through the capital, Caracas.

Tejedor, 28, joined dozens of people who had flocked to the Guaire river, which snakes along the bottom of a sharp ravine alongside Caracas’ main highway, to fill up a four-gallon (15 liter) plastic container.

Unlike the fetid liquid flowing through the Guaire river, the water emerging from the pipe was at least clear. Those who gathered to collect it said the water had been released by local authorities from reservoirs.

They added, however, that it was being carried through unsanitary pipes and should only be used to flush toilets or scrub floors.

“I’ve never even seen this before. It’s horrible, horrible,” said Tejedor, preparing to carry the container on a small hand cart back to her home in the neighborhood of San Agustin.

Tejedor, who works at a computer technology store, has a two-year-old daughter and takes care of two nieces.

“The ones that are most affected are the children, because how do you tell a child that there’s no water?” she said.

The lack of water has become one of the most excruciating side effects of the nationwide blackout that the government of President Nicolas Maduro has blamed on U.S.-backed sabotage but his critics call the product of corruption and incompetence.

The blackout has worsened the situation of a country already facing a hyperinflationary economic collapse that has spurred a mass migration and turned once-basic items like corn flour and toilet paper into unaffordable luxuries for most people.

After five days without electricity to pump water, Venezuelans from working-class neighborhoods to upscale apartment towers are complaining of increasingly infrequent showers, unwashed dishes, and stinking toilets.

Caracas needs 20,000 liters of water per second from nearby watersheds to maintain service, said Jose de Viana, an engineer who ran Caracas’ municipal water authority in the 1990s.

Last week that had fallen to around 13,000 and since Thursday’s blackout it has halted completely, he said.

‘KILLING US’

Many worry about the spread of disease. The lack of water compounds the inability to buy soap due to soaring prices or chronic shortages.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido, who in January invoked the constitution to assume the interim presidency after declaring Maduro’s re-election a fraud, led the country’s legislature on Monday in declaring a “state of alarm” over power problems.

Maduro is facing an unprecedented political crisis and the United States, which backs Guaido, has levied crippling oil industry sanctions meant to starve the government of its sources of foreign revenue.

Up the road from where Tejedor stood, hundreds of angry residents blocked the highway on Monday to demand that local authorities deliver a 20,000-liter cistern to supply water to the neighborhood of La Charneca.

“They’re killing us with hunger and thirst,” said Gladys Martinez, 52, a homemaker, who joined the demonstration that blocked two lanes of the highway, snarling traffic and drawing dozens of police and National Guard troops to the scene.

Along the riverbed, teenagers and children accompanied their parents to help carry water. As two children began stomping in the sewage, a woman warned them: “That water’s dirty! Don’t start playing around because remember there’s no medicine.”

Water trucks, a common sight in Caracas, are increasingly struggling to fill up because state-run reservoirs are running low.

On the northern edge of Caracas, where the city meets the El Avila national park, hundreds of people lined up to collect water from mountain streams.

Lack of water, along with the power outage, has become a major concern for hospitals – which have for years suffered from lack of equipment and supplies.

Jose Velez, 58, a security guard who also arrived at the Guaire to collect water, said the blackout had made life unbearable and wished the country’s politicians would agree on how to resolve the situation.

“I’m not interested in these politicians, they never agree on anything,” said Velez. “I want my life to go back to normal.”

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth and Vivian Sequera; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Rosalba O’Brien)

Source: OANN

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APNewsBreak: FIFA study backs 48-team World Cup in 2022

A FIFA feasibility study has concluded that the 2022 World Cup can expand to 48 teams by using at least one of Qatar's neighbors as an additional host, and says there is a low legal risk to changing the format and an additional $400 million in revenue could be generated.

The Associated Press has obtained a copy of the 83-page report which assesses the political, logistical and legal issues surrounding adding 16 teams — a significant change to the format more than eight years after Qatar won the hosting rights. The report was prepared by the governing body so its FIFA Council can agree in principle on expanding the tournament at a meeting in Miami on Friday. A final decision would come in June.

The study identified stadiums in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that could be used but said Qatar would have to approve who it partnered with.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE severed economic, diplomatic and travel ties with Qatar in 2017, which prevents flights between the countries. The study says FIFA accepts that the ongoing political spat prevents their involvement in the tournament.

___

More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/apf-Soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

___

Rob Harris is at www.twitter.com/RobHarris and www.facebook.com/RobHarrisReports

Source: Fox News World

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Exclusive: New York Fed cracks down on Puerto Rico banks following Venezuela sanctions

The corner stone on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the financial district in New York
The corner stone on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the financial district in New York City, U.S., March 4, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

April 18, 2019

By Luc Cohen and Corina Pons

CARACAS (Reuters) – U.S. sanctions on Venezuela have led the New York Federal Reserve to crack down on Puerto Rico’s $50 billion offshore banking industry, according to four sources and a document seen by Reuters.

The development will prevent the island’s offshore banks, several of which are owned by citizens of crisis-stricken Venezuela, from opening accounts with the Fed that give them direct access to the U.S. financial system.

Offshore banks in Puerto Rico are able to open accounts with the Fed since the island is a U.S. territory. That gives them a competitive advantage over other offshore banking jurisdictions like the British Virgin Islands, which have to access the U.S. financial system through expensive third-party correspondent banks.

But in a previously unreported Feb. 27 letter, the New York Fed said it had halted approval of new accounts for Puerto Rican offshore banks and other financial institutions “in light of recent events, including the expansion of U.S. economic sanctions relating to Venezuela.”  

It plans stricter requirements for the opening of such accounts in the future, it said.

It did not give further details on why it was taking that step. But the move follows two Puerto Rican offshore banks that have accounts open with the New York Fed being mentioned in federal investigations into money laundering and sanctions evasion related to Venezuela.

“The Fed worries about its reputational exposure, just like anybody else does,” said David Murray, a vice president at the Washington-based Financial Integrity Network and a former Treasury Department official.

A spokeswoman for the New York Fed did not respond to requests for comment.

The decision will only affect Puerto Rican banks that had pending applications with the Fed and will not affect the 17 of Puerto Rico’s 80 offshore banks that the Fed’s website shows already have Fedwire accounts. Reuters was unable to determine how many banks were awaiting responses on their applications to open accounts.

The move to suspend account approvals shows how U.S. sanctions on Venezuela, which are meant to force socialist President Nicolas Maduro from office amid a political crisis and an economic meltdown, are having a ripple effect in other parts of the global financial system.

It could deal a blow to Puerto Rico, which has been using the offshore sector as an economic development strategy as it struggles with a crushing debt load and the impact of natural disasters such as 2017’s Hurricane Maria.

The island has for years nurtured its offshore banking sector by offering tax incentives to bank owners and promoting direct access to the U.S. financial system through the Fed rather than correspondent banks, which charge for their services and can end the relationship at a moment’s notice.

Offshore banking lets individuals and companies deposit money outside their countries of residence in order to legally lower tax bills, but criminal investigations and multilateral organizations have alleged it is also used for tax evasion and money laundering.

The notice also applies to U.S. Virgin Islands offshore banks. Both territories fall under the jurisdiction of the Fed’s New York branch.

‘WE SHARE IT ALL’

George Joyner, the commissioner of Puerto Rico’s banking regulator, declined to say how many of the territory’s offshore banks had applications pending with the Fed. He said the island regulator used the same standards as federal authorities including the Fed to supervise financial institutions, and that anti-money laundering was a “high focus.”

“Our office fully shares everything that we find in our examinations, and we share it with all the federal agencies,” Joyner said in a telephone interview.

He said “a number” of Puerto Rican offshore banks had been created with Venezuelan capital, without elaborating.

The Virgin Islands’ director of banking and insurance did not respond to requests for comment.

Sixteen of Puerto Rico’s 80 offshore banking and financial services firms are owned by Venezuelan individuals or companies, according to a Reuters review of their websites, corporate registry records, and directors’ LinkedIn pages and personal websites.

Several marketed directly to Venezuelan clients, or had past deals with the Venezuelan government, while twelve of the sixteen had Fedwire accounts, according to the Federal Reserve’s website.

Fedwire, a funds transfer system controlled by the Fed, allows banks, businesses and government agencies to send and receive payments in real time.

VENEZUELA CONNECTIONS

In recent years, U.S. prosecutors have examined the role Puerto Rico’s offshore banks have played in efforts to launder Venezuelan funds through the United States. It was not clear if the two cases in question contributed to the New York Fed’s decision to halt the opening of new accounts, but one source at a Puerto Rican bank and industry consultant David Nissman said they were likely an important factor. Joyner said they “certainly didn’t help.”

Federal prosecutors in a sprawling corruption probe unsealed in July of 2018 charged Uruguayan national Marcelo Gutierrez with allegedly conspiring to launder funds embezzled from Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA through a “bank in Puerto Rico” that he owned, according to criminal investigation filings in Florida federal court.

The prosecutors’ complaint does not identify the bank and says the transaction never took place.

Gutierrez’s LinkedIn profile lists him as a director at Vestin Bank International, which Puerto Rico banking regulator records show received a license to operate as an offshore operation on the island in 2015.

Vestin has since been acquired by Asia-focused Standard International Bank and Gutierrez has not been a shareholder since August of 2018, Standard said in a statement, adding that it had no links to Vestin’s prior business, no ties to Venezuela and no plans to enter the Venezuelan market.

Bruce Udolf, a Florida-based defense attorney for Gutierrez, said, “We expect to respond with a vigorous defense to those charges. We are hopeful that he will be vindicated at trial.”

In February, the FBI raided Puerto Rican offshore bank Banco San Juan International (BSJI) as part of a probe of money laundering and evasion of Venezuela-related sanctions, special agent Douglas Leff told reporters at the time. A spokesman for the FBI San Juan field office declined to provide further details.

In 2016, BSJI reached a $300 million credit agreement with PDVSA, according to PDVSA’s financial statements from that year.

BSJI also has an account with the Fed, according to Fed records.

In a statement, BSJI said it had complied with all U.S. sanctions and was cooperating with the FBI investigation.

The source at the bank in Puerto Rico, along with Joyner and Nissman, said most of the island’s offshore banks applied strict scrutiny on customers, and that the decision would punish an entire sector for the actions of a few bad actors.

“It just shuts your businesses down, and what did they do?” said Nissman, a former U.S. attorney for the U.S. Virgin Islands who drafted the territory’s offshore banking law, and now a Puerto Rico-based consultant. He said the Fed should evaluate applications on a “case-by-case basis.”

(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Corina Pons, Editing by Brian Ellsworth and Rosalba O’Brien)

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House panel says Commerce Secretary Ross refusing to testify on 2020 budget

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross testifies before a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross testifies before a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on oversight of the Commerce Department, in Washington, U.S., March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Mary F. Calvert/File Photo

April 3, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was refusing to testify on Wednesday before a House Appropriations subcommittee about his department’s 2020 budget request, saying his appearance would be a distraction, the legislative panel said.

Ross, who was scheduled to testify on Wednesday afternoon, has drawn criticism in the Democratic-controlled House over his efforts to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census, an issue now before the U.S. Supreme Court.

President Donald Trump said on Monday the census would be “meaningless” without adding the citizenship question to the questionnaire.

Although it is routine for department heads to field questions from lawmakers each year about their budget requests, Ross sent a letter to the panel on Tuesday saying he had offered to send his deputy secretary and other senior Commerce officials in his place but that had been rejected.

“Instead, the subcommittee apparently intends to recognize an ’empty chair,’ thereby forgoing the opportunity to ask meaningful questions about the Department’s budget and operations priorities,” Ross said in the letter.

“This development affirms that my appearance at this time would unfortunately distract from the Department’s important business before the subcommittee,” he said in the letter.

The House Appropriations Committee posted a copy of the letter on Twitter on Wednesday and added, “Mr. Secretary, government funding IS the business of the Appropriations Committee.”

The Commerce Department said on Wednesday it had offered 10 experts to testify on its budget but the House subcommittee’s Democratic chairman “refuses” to hear testimony from them. The department did not respond to questions about whether Ross would appear if the panel did not accept his proposed alternates.

Lawmakers have ramped up pressure on Ross over the ongoing issue of a citizenship question for the census.

A different House panel – the Committee on Oversight and Reform – voted on Tuesday to authorize a subpoena seeking documents from the secretary about his efforts to include the question.

Ross has said he sought the question to bolster the Voting Rights Act, but critics of the move believe it could prompt immigrants and Latinos to avoid the decennial survey, which could lead to an undercount in Democratic-leaning states.

The U.S. Constitution requires a census counting the number of residents every 10 years. Results are used to draw political boundaries, allocate seats in Congress and at the state and local levels, and distribute roughly $800 billion of federal funds.

Many states, cities and civil rights groups have gone to court over the citizenship question.

(Reporting by David Alexander; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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Asian shares edge up to nine month high, European, Japan PMIs awaited

FILE PHOTO: A man looks at an electronic board showing the Nikkei stock index outside a brokerage in Tokyo
FILE PHOTO: A man looks at an electronic board showing the Nikkei stock index outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, January 7, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo

April 18, 2019

By Daniel Leussink

TOKYO (Reuters) – Asian shares were subdued on Thursday after a negative performance on Wall Street, with caution ahead of business surveys in Europe and Japan, and the Good Friday and Easter holidays keeping investors on the sidelines.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan inched up 0.08 percent, trading just below its highest since late July 2018 brushed on Wednesday.

Australian shares advanced a quarter of a percent while Japan’s Nikkei was a shade lower.

“We’re in this kind of hiatus in the global economy,” said Chris Weston, head of research at foreign exchange brokerage Pepperstone in Melbourne.

“People are starting to believe that we’re going to see better times in the second quarter and probably into the third quarter as well, and that perhaps the first quarter has been that trough.”

Wall Street shares ended in the red on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 falling 0.2 percent as a drop in healthcare equities outweighed upbeat economic data from the United States and China.

The U.S. trade deficit fell to an eight-month low in February as imports from China plunged, data on Wednesday showed.

Separate figures from China earlier in the day showed the world’s second-largest economy grew at a steady 6.4 percent pace in the first quarter, defying forecasts for a slowdown. Attention is now turning to how much more stimulus Beijing will apply without triggering more financial risks.

Investors’ immediate focus turned to the release of Purchasing Managers Indexes (PMIs) for the manufacturing and service sectors in Europe later on Thursday to provide more clues on the strength of the euro zone economy.

“It’s going to be interesting to see if we see some stabilization there in line with what we’ve been seeing in the stabilization in the Chinese data flow,” said Pepperstone’s Weston.

A flash manufacturing reading will also be released for Japan.

YEN NEAR 2019 LOW

Market participants are also eyeing signs of progress in U.S.-China trade negotiations.

Washington and Beijing set a tentative timeline for a fresh round of face-to-face meetings ahead of a possible signing ceremony in late May or early June, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Attorney General William Barr is set to hold a news conference at 1330 GMT to discuss the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential race.

“The lack of love for the yen, I suppose, is just telling us that people aren’t seeing this as a general risk event,” said Pepperstone’s Weston.

“It’s probably worth keeping a beady eye in case something really does come out that shocks market into life.”

In the currency market, the safe-haven yen was slightly up at 112.00 yen per dollar, sitting just above a near four-month low of 112.17 brushed overnight.

The euro ticked up to $1.1297, while the Australian dollar was 0.1 percent lower at $0.7173 ahead of job data (0130 GMT).

The dollar index held steady at 97.019 after ending the previous session basically unchanged.

In commodity markets, oil prices were slightly lower as U.S. government data overnight showed inventories drew down less than an industry report had suggested on Tuesday.

U.S. crude was last down 8 cents at $63.68 a barrel, while global benchmark Brent crude futures dipped 7 cents to $71.55.

Spot gold held steady at $1,274.60 per ounce, hovering near its lowest for the year.

(Editing by Kim Coghill)

Source: OANN

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Proxy advisor ISS backs Bristol takeover of Celgene

FILE PHOTO: Logo of global biopharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb is pictured on the blouse of an employee in Le Passage
FILE PHOTO: Logo of global biopharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb is pictured on the blouse of an employee in Le Passage, near Agen, France March 29, 2018. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau/File Photo

March 29, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services on Friday recommended shareholders of drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb Co shareholders vote in favor of its proposed $74 billion takeover of rival Celgene Corp.

“The proposed transaction has sound strategic rationale and the valuation appears reasonable,” ISS said in its report.

Bristol-Myers’ second largest shareholder, Wellington Management, and activist investor Starboard Value LP have opposed the deal, calling it “poorly conceived and ill-advised.”

(Reporting by Svea Herbst, writing by Michael Erman; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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Avalanche kills 2 climbers on Britain's highest mountain

Police in Scotland say an avalanche has killed two people on Britain's highest mountain.

Britain's Press Association reported that a group of climbers were on Ben Nevis mountain when the avalanche came down shortly before noon on Tuesday.

Police Scotland told the news outlet that besides the climbers who died, two more were injured. The police agency says an air ambulance, a coast guard helicopter and mountain rescue volunteers are continuing a search and rescue operation.

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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FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier is taken to North Korea's top court in Pyongyang North Korea
FILE PHOTO – Otto Frederick Warmbier (C), a University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea since early January, is taken to North Korea’s top court in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo March 16, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo/File Photo

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said the United States did not pay any money to North Korea as it sought the release of comatose American student Otto Warmbier.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Trump had approved payment of a $2 million bill from North Korea to cover its care of the college student, who died shortly after he was returned to the United States after 17 months in a North Korean prison.

(Reporting by Makini Brice and Susan Heavey)

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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)

Source: OANN

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