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John James leading candidate for UN envoy, source says

Former U.S. Senate candidate John James is seen as one of President Trump's top candidates to become ambassador to the United Nations, a source familiar with discussions about the matter told Fox News on Tuesday.

The source said James is the leading candidate and has expressed interest in the position to the White House. The belief among Trump's inner circle is that James is a rising political superstar, and the U.N. post could provide him with a pathway into elected office. White House officials also confirmed to Fox News that James is under consideration.

The 37-year-old James, a West Point graduate and veteran of the Iraq War, won the Republican primary for the Senate in Michigan last year but was defeated in November by three-term incumbent Democrat Debbie Stabenow. However, the race was unexpectedly close, and GOP officials in Michigan have expressed hope that James will challenge the state's other Democratic senator, Gary Peters, in 2020.

Michigan has not elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since Spencer Abraham in 1994.

HEATHER NAUERT WITHDRAWS FROM CONSIDERATION FOR UN AMBASSADOR, STATE DEPARTMENT SAYS

Trump originally nominated State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert in December to replace Nikki Haley as U.N. ambassador. Nauert, a former Fox News anchor and correspondent, withdrew her name from consideration last week, citing "the best interest of her family."

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A State Department source told Fox News that the nomination process, on top of the demands of traveling around the world and between Washington and New York to see family, grew to be too much for her.

Since Haley's departure at the end of last year, career diplomat Jonathan Cohen has served as acting U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

Fox News' John Roberts contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Pope celebrates Easter Sunday amid bloodshed in Sri Lanka

Pope Francis is celebrating Easter Mass this year facing a fresh round of bloodshed targeting Christians in Sri Lanka.

Hours after celebrating a late-night vigil, Francis processed into a flower-decked St. Peter's Square for the liturgy Sunday commemorating the resurrection of Christ after his crucifixion.

This year the Easter season has been marred both by the destruction of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral by fire last week and the massacre on Sunday in Sri Lanka. More than 130 people were killed and hundreds wounded following near-simultaneous blasts at three Sri Lankan churches during Easter Sunday services and three hotels frequented by foreigners.

After Mass, Francis delivers his annual Easter "Urbi et Orbi" speech about conflicts and other difficulties around the world.

Source: Fox News World

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Kenya High Court delays ruling on law banning gay sex to May 24: judge

Tattoo of an LGBT activist is seen during a court hearing in the Milimani high Court in Nairobi in Nairobi
A tattoo of an LGBT activist is seen during a court hearing in the Milimani high Court in Nairobi in Nairobi, Kenya. February 22, 2019. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

February 22, 2019

By John Ndiso and Baz Ratner

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya’s High Court has postponed until May 24 a ruling on whether to strike out or uphold a colonial-era law banning gay sex, a judge said on Friday.

Judge Chacha Mwita told a packed court in the capital, Nairobi, that the bench constituted to hear the case needed more time to prepare for the ruling, which had been due on Friday.

“The judges on the bench also sit in other courts … we need more time,” Mwita said.

Same-sex relationships are illegal in more than 70 countries, almost half of them in Africa, where homosexuality is broadly taboo and persecution is rife.

In Kenya, where same-sex relationships can lead to a 14-year jail sentence, campaigners for lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender (LGBT) rights have become increasingly vocal in recent years.

Kenya arrested 534 people for same-sex relationships between 2013 and 2017, the government said. Kenya’s high court began hearings on the law last year.

Campaigners say the colonial-era law violates Kenya’s progressive 2010 constitution, which guarantees equality, dignity and privacy for all citizens.

They also submitted arguments based on India’s rejection of a similar law in August.

(Reporting by Baz Ratner and John Ndiso; Editing by Paul Tait and Darren Schuettler)

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Driver in hit-run crash that killed 2, injured 5 sought

Police are seeking a driver in a hit-and-run crash that killed two people and injured five others in northeast Philadelphia.

Police say the Chevy Camaro was heading south on Bustleton Avenue at high speed when it struck a car stopped at a red light shortly before midnight Saturday.

The first car then hit a sport utility vehicle, which flipped over and struck a minivan. Two other cars were struck.

The 50-year-old male driver of the SUV and his 48-year-old female passenger were pronounced dead at the scene.

Five people in the minivan were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Other drivers and passengers were uninjured or didn't seek medical treatment.

Police say the Camaro driver, described as in his 20s, was picked up by another car which fled.

Source: Fox News National

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Philippines: US DNA tests confirm death of IS-linked leader

Philippine officials say U.S. DNA tests have confirmed the death of a Muslim militant leader who helped lead the 2017 siege of southern Marawi city and was regarded as crucial to helping the Islamic State group gain a foothold in the region.

Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano said Sunday that the tests confirmed that Owaida Marohombsar, who was also known by his nom de guerre Abu Dar, was one of four militants killed in a March 14 gunbattle that also left four soldiers dead near southern Tubaran town in Lanao del Sur province. The Philippine military asked U.S. authorities to confirm Marohombsar's death through DNA tests.

Marohombsar helped lead the May 23, 2017, siege, which troops quelled after five months. Most leaders of the attack were killed, but Marohombsar survived.

Source: Fox News World

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Italy's Premier Conte rules out another term in government

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte says that he does not plan to serve in any future governments.

Conte oversees a coalition government of two populist parties, the 5-Star Movement and the right-wing League. He has been premier since June 2018.

He's not a member of 5 Star Movement, but sympathizes with the party and was its pick for the top job. In recent months, the party has done poorly in local elections as the anti-immigrant League gains in popularity.

Conte, who is a law professor, said Sunday during a visit to the southern city of Lecce that he doesn't plan another term in government after this. He said, "my experience in government ends with this one."

The next general election in Italy must be held no later than May 2023.

Source: Fox News World

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Cremation mystery besets family: 2 sets of ashes for 1 man

For six years, the family of Robert Nero Sr. thought his ashes sat in an urn on his widow's mantle. But the family recently learned that ashes and a metal disk identifying them as his were found dumped in bushes at a West Palm Beach YWCA and now they don't know what to believe.

Sitting beside the bronze urn in their lawyer's office Tuesday, Nero's widow, Corene, and his daughter, Gloria Nero Rolle, demanded to know if the ashes inside are Nero's or someone else's. They say they haven't gotten answers from Stevens Brothers Funeral Home, which handled the cremation.

"I am sitting here with someone else's ashes and my father's were in the bushes," Rolle said crying, her mother sitting quietly but stoically next to her. "All I want is my father's ashes back and (make it so) whoever these belong to can get their remains."

A man who answered the phone at Stevens Brothers told The Associated Press the Neroes have the proper ashes. He declined to give his name or make further comment.

The state's Division of Funeral, Cemetery and Consumer Services said in a statement Tuesday that it has just learned of the allegations, but added "they are horrifying and we take this very seriously."

Rolle and the family's attorney, Greg Francis, said after Nero, a farmworker, died at 73 in 2013, his son, Robert Nero Jr., hired Stevens Brothers to arrange his cremation. Rolle said her brother then spent weeks getting the ashes back from the mortuary, going there almost daily before he finally received them. They were placed in Corene Nero's home. The son died the following year and was buried by Stevens Brothers, his sister said.

The mystery began March 25 when a West Palm Beach YWCA worker, Scott Manochi, found piles of ashes and two metal identification discs from a crematorium as he cleared brush along a fence. He called police.

According to a police report, officers contacted the crematorium, which said its records showed one set of ashes belonged to Nero and the other to Mary Brown, who died in 2009. Her family has not been located. The crematorium told officers it had handled their bodies for Stevens Brothers, which had picked up the ashes shortly after the deaths.

Officers called Stevens Brothers, which sent employee Willie Watts to collect the ashes from the bushes. Police learned Watts also does grounds work for the YWCA.

When an AP reporter asked Watts by phone Tuesday about the ashes, he replied, "I don't know nothing about it." When read the police report, Watts laughed and declined to comment.

Miami Dade College mortuary science professor Joseph Finocchiaro said it's unlikely the ashes could have been outdoors for long — rain and wind would have scattered them.

West Palm Beach Sgt. David Lefont said investigators don't believe a crime was committed — Florida law doesn't prohibit the dumping of ashes on private property.

The Neros learned about the ashes' discovery when contacted by local television stations. Rolle said she at first refused to believe that the YWCA ashes could be her father's. But as the likely reality set in, she broke down.

"I went and sat down for a couple hours until I could get myself together," Rolle said.

Finocchiaro said when a funeral home picks up a body, a wristband is attached and every time the body changes hands the accompanying paperwork is supposed to be checked to make sure the identification matches. Redundant identification is often also attached to the coffin or other container.

At the crematorium, a metal disk like the one found with the ashes is created, he said. That disk accompanies the ashes through every step from the crematorium to the mortuary to the family, he said.

"From start to finish, you should be able to draw a line all the way back," he said.

He said the cremation process almost always destroys the body's DNA, so attempting to identify the cremains in the Nero family's urn is an extreme longshot.

Rolle said she understands she'll probably never know for sure what happened to her father, but she needs to try.

"We all love him and we are doing everything we can to get him back," Rolle said.

__

This version corrects the spelling of Lefont.

Source: Fox News National

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Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London
Members of The Cranberries, bassist Mike Hogan, drummer Fergal Lawler and guitarist Noel Hogan speak to Reuters during an interview in London, Britain, April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Gerhard Mey

April 26, 2019

By Hanna Rantala

LONDON (Reuters) – Irish rockers The Cranberries are saying goodbye with their final album released on Friday, a poignant tribute to lead singer Dolores O’Riordan who died last year.

“In the End” is the eighth studio album from the band that rose to fame in the early 1990s with hits likes “Zombie” and “Linger”, and includes the final recordings by O’Riordan, who drowned in a London hotel bath in January 2018 due to alcohol intoxication.

Work on the album began during a 2017 tour and by that winter, O’Riordan and guitarist Neil Hogan had penned and demoed 11 tracks.

With O’Riordan’s vocals recorded, Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan and drummer Fergal Lawler completed the album in tribute to her.

“When we realized how strong the songs were, that was the deciding factor really… There was no point… trying to ruin the legacy of the band,” Noel Hogan said in an interview.

“It was obvious that Dolores wanted this album done because when you hear the album, you hear the songs and how strong they are, and she was very, very excited to get in and record this.”

The Cranberries formed in Limerick in 1989 with another singer. O’Riordan replaced him a year later and the group went on to become Ireland’s best-selling rock band after U2, selling more than 40 million records.

O’Riordan, known for her strong distinctive voice singing about relationships or political violence, was 46 when she died.

“She was actually in quite a good place mentally. She was feeling quite content and strong and looking forward to a new phase of her life,” Lawler said.

“A lot of the lyrics in this album are about things ending… people might read into it differently but it was a phase of her personal life that she was talking about.”

The group previously announced their intention to split after the release of “In The End”.

“We are absolutely gutted we can’t play (the songs) live because that’s something that’s been a massive part of this band from day one,” Noel Hogan said.

“A few people have said to us about maybe even doing a one off where you have different vocalists… as kind of guests of ours. A year ago that’s definitely something we weren’t going to entertain but I don’t know, I think it’s something we need to go away and take time off for the summer and have a think about.”

Critics have generally given positive reviews of the album; NME described it as “(seeing) the band’s career go full-circle” while the Irish Times called it “an unexpected late career high and a remarkable swan song for O’Riordan”.

Their early songs still play on the radio. This week, “Dreams” was performed at the funeral of journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot dead in Londonderry last week as she watched Irish nationalist youths attack police following a raid.

“We wrote them as kids, as a hobby and 30 years later they are on radio and on TV, like all the time… That’s far more than any of us ever thought we would have,” Noel Hogan said.

“That would make Dolores really happy because she was very precious about those songs. Her babies, she called them and to have that hopefully long after we’re gone… that’s all any band can wish for.”

(Reporting by Hanna Rantala; additoinal reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Susan Fenton)

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2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren participates in the She the People Presidential Forum in Houston, Texas, U.S. April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott

April 26, 2019

By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Senator Elizabeth Warren will introduce a bill Friday that offers new protections for U.S. military families facing unsafe housing, following a series of Reuters reports revealing squalid conditions in privately managed base homes.

The Reuters reports and later Congressional hearings detailed widespread hazards including lead paint exposure, vermin infestations, collapsing ceilings, mold and maintenance lapses in privatized base housing communities that serve some 700,000 U.S. military family members.

(View Warren’s military housing bill here. https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dy5aht)

(Read Reuters’ Ambushed at Home series on military housing here. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/usa-military)

The Massachusetts Democrat’s bill would mandate both regular and unannounced spot inspections of base homes by certified, independent inspectors, holding landlords accountable for quickly fixing hazards. The military’s privatization program for years allowed real estate firms to operate base housing with scant oversight, Reuters found, leaving some tenants in unsafe homes with little recourse against landlords.

The bill would also require the Department of Defense and its private housing operators to publish reports annually detailing housing conditions, tenant complaints, maintenance response times and the financial incentives companies receive at each base. The provisions aim to enhance transparency of housing deals whose finances and operations the military had allowed to remain largely confidential under a privatization program since the late 1990s.

The measure would also require private landlords to cover moving costs for at-risk families, and healthcare costs for people with medical conditions resulting from unsafe base housing, ensuring they receive continuing coverage even after they leave the homes or the military.

“This bill will eliminate the kind of corner-cutting and neglect the Defense Department should never have let these private housing partners get away with in the first place,” Warren said in a statement Friday.

The proposed legislation comes after February Senate hearings where Warren, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 U.S. presidential election, slammed private real estate firms for endangering service families, and sought answers about why military branches weren’t providing more oversight.

Her legislation would direct the Defense Department to allow local housing code enforcers onto federal bases, following concerns they were sometimes denied access. Warren’s office said a companion bill in the House of Representatives would be introduced by Rep. Deb Haaland, Democrat of New Mexico.

In response to the housing crisis, military branches are developing a tenant bill of rights and hiring hundreds of new housing staff. The branches recently dispatched commanders to survey base housing worldwide for safety hazards, resulting in thousands of work orders and hundreds of tenants being moved. The Defense Department has pledged to renegotiate its 50-year contracts with private real estate firms.

Congress has been quick to take its own measures. Earlier legislation proposed by senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris of California, along with Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, would compel base commanders to withhold rent payments and incentive fees from the private ventures if they allow home hazards to persist.

(Editing by Ronnie Greene)

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FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London
FILE PHOTO: Offices of Deloitte are seen in London, Britain, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar

(Reuters) – Deloitte quit as Ferrexpo’s auditor on Friday, knocking its shares by more than 20 percent, days after saying it was unable to conclude whether the iron ore miner’s CEO controlled a charity being investigated over its use of company donations.

Blooming Land, which coordinates Ferrexpo’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, came under scrutiny after auditors found holes in the charity’s statements.

Ferrexpo on Tuesday said findings of an ongoing independent investigation launched in February indicated some Blooming Land funds could have been “misappropriated”. It did not provide any details or publish its findings.

Shares in Ferrexpo, the third largest exporter of pellets to the global steel industry, were 23.4 percent lower at 206.1 pence at 1022 GMT following news of Deloitte’s resignation.

“Ferrexpo’s shares are deeply discounted vs peers … following the resignation of Deloitte, we expect downside risks to dominate Ferrexpo’s shares near term.” JP Morgan analyst Dominic O’Kane said in a note on Friday.

Swiss-headquartered Ferrexpo did not provide a reason for the resignation of Deloitte, which declined to comment, while Blooming Land did not respond to a request for comment.

Funding for Blooming Land’s CSR activities is provided by one of Ferrexpo’s units in Ukraine and Khimreaktiv LLC, an entity ultimately controlled by Ferrexpo’s CEO and majority owner Kostyantin Zhevago, Ferrexpo said on Tuesday.

Ferrexpo’s board has found that Zhevago did not have significant influence or control over the charity, but Deloitte said it was unable reach a conclusion on this.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact Zhevago.

In a qualified opinion, a statement addressing an incomplete audit, Deloitte said it had been unable to conclude whether $33.5 million of CSR donations to Blooming Land between 2017 and 2018 was used for “legitimate business payments for charitable purposes”.

Deloitte said on Tuesday that total CSR payments made to Blooming Land by Ferrexpo since 2013 total about $110 million.

Ferrexpo, whose major mines are in Ukraine, has said that the investigation was ongoing and new evidence pointed to potential discrepancies.

Zhevago, 45, who ranked 1,511 on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires for 2019 with a net worth of $1.4 billion, owns the FC Vorskla soccer club and has been a member of Ukraine’s parliament since 1998.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar in Bengaluru and additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; editing by Gopakumar Warrier, Bernard Orr)

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Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba
Children walk past a damaged building in the aftermath of the Cyclone Kenneth in Pemba, Mozambique April 26, 2019 in this still image obtained from social media. SolidarMed via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

April 26, 2019

By Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer

JOHANNESBURG/LUANDA (Reuters) – Cyclone Kenneth killed at least one person and left a trail of destruction in northern Mozambique, destroying houses, ripping up trees and knocking out power, authorities said on Friday.

The cyclone brought storm surges and wind gusts of up to 280 km per hour (174 mph) when it made landfall on Thursday evening, after killing three people in the island nation of Comoros.

It was the most powerful storm on record to hit Mozambique’s northern coast and came just six weeks after Cyclone Idai battered the impoverished nation, causing devastating floods and killing more than 1,000 people across a swathe of southern Africa.

The World Food Programme warned that Kenneth could dump as much as 600 millimeters of rain on the region over the next 10 days – twice that brought by Cyclone Idai.

One woman in the port town of Pemba died after being hit by a falling tree, the Emergency Operations Committee for Cabo Delgado (COE) said in a statement, while another person was injured.

In rural areas outside Pemba, many homes are made of mud. In the main town on the island of Ibo, 90 percent of the houses were destroyed, officials said. Around 15,000 people were out in the open or in “overcrowded” shelters and there was a need for tents, food and water, they said.

There were also reports of a large number of homes and some infrastructure destroyed in Macomia district, a mainland district adjacent to Ibo.

A local group, the Friends of Pemba Association, had earlier reported that they could not reach people in Muidumbe, a district further inland.

Mark Lowcock, United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, warned the storm could require another major humanitarian operation in Mozambique.

“Cyclone Kenneth marks the first time two cyclones have made landfall in Mozambique during the same season, further stressing the government’s limited resources,” he said in a statement.

FLOOD WARNINGS

Shaquila Alberto, owner of the beach-front Messano Flower Lodge in Macomia, said there were many fallen trees there, and in rural areas people’s homes had been damaged. Some areas of nearby Pemba had no power.

“Even my workers, they said the roof and all the things fell down,” she said by phone.

Further south, in Pemba, Elton Ernesto, a receptionist at Raphael’s Hotel, said there were fallen trees but not too much damage. The hotel had power and water, he said, while phones rang in the background. “The rain has stopped,” he added.

However Michael Charles, an official for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said heavy rains over the next few days were likely to bring a “second wave of destruction” in the form of flooding.

“The houses are not all solid, and the topography is very sandy,” Charles said.

In the days after Cyclone Idai, heavy inland rains prompted rivers to burst their banks, submerging entire villages, cutting areas off from aid and ruining crops. There were concerns the same could happen again in northern Mozambique.

Before Kenneth hit, the government and aid workers moved around 30,000 people to safer buildings such as schools, however authorities said that around 680,000 people were in the path of the storm.

(Reporting by Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer; Writing by Emma Rumney; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Alexandra Zavis)

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A worker holds a nozzle to pump petrol into a vehicle at a fuel station in Mumbai
FILE PHOTO: A worker holds a nozzle to pump petrol into a vehicle at a fuel station in Mumbai, India, May 21, 2018. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

April 26, 2019

By Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Surging global oil prices will pose a first big challenge to India’s new government, whoever wins an election now under way, especially as domestic prices have been allowed to lag, meaning consumers are in for a painful surge as they catch up.

For oil-import dependent India, higher global prices could lead to a weaker rupee, higher inflation, the ruling out of interest rate cuts and could further weigh on twin current account and budget deficits, economists warned.

But compounding the future pain, state-run fuel suppliers and retailers have held off passing on to consumers the higher prices during a staggered general election, which began on April 11 and ends on May 23, according to sources familiar with the situation.

That delay is expected to be unwound once the election is over. And there could be additional price increases to make up for losses or profits missed during the period of delayed increases, the sources said.

In some major Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, pump prices are adjusted periodically so they move largely in tandem with international crude prices.

That was what was supposed to happen in India but the election means there have been many days when pump prices have been unchanged.

In New Delhi, for example, while crude oil prices have gone up by nearly $9 a barrel, or about 12 percent, in the past six weeks, gasoline prices have only risen by 0.47 rupees a liter, or 0.6 percent.

State-controlled fuel suppliers and retailers declined to say why they had delayed price increases, or discuss whether there has been any pressure from the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A government spokesman declined to comment.

The opposition Congress party said Modi’s government was violating its own policy of daily price revision by advising the state oil companies to hold prices steady.

“The government should cut fuel taxes otherwise consumers will have to pay much higher oil prices once the elections are over,” said Akhilesh Pratap Singh, a senior leader of the Congress party.

(GRAPHIC: India Polls: Fuel price hike lags crude surge – https://tmsnrt.rs/2XLlxik)

Nitin Goyal, treasurer at the All India Petroleum Dealers Association, representing fuel stations in 25 states, said prices were similarly held down for 19 days in the southern state of Karnataka last year, when it held state assembly elections.

Only for them to surge after the vote.

“Consumers should be ready for a rude shock of a massive jump in retail prices, similar to the level we have seen in the Karnataka state election,” Goyal said.

‘CREDIT NEGATIVE’

Sri Paravaikkarasu, director for Asia oil at Singapore-based consultancy FGE, said retail prices of gasoline and gasoil prices would have been up to 6 percent, or about 4 rupee, higher if they had been allowed to rise in line with global prices.

“Indian pump prices have failed to keep up with the recent uptrend in crude prices,” Paravaikkarasu said.

“With the country’s general elections underway, the incumbent government has been keeping pump prices relatively unchanged.”

India had switched to a daily price revision in June 2017 from a revision every two weeks, as the government allowed retailers to set prices.

But the government faced protests last October when retailers raised prices by up to 10 rupees a liter after the crude oil price went above $80 a barrel, forcing it to cut fuel taxes.

Global prices rose to their highest level in 2019 on Thursday, days after the United States announced all Iran sanction waivers would end by May, pressuring importers including India to stop buying Tehran’s oil. [O/R]

Higher oil prices will mean Asia’s third largest economy is likely to see growth of less than 7 percent rate this fiscal year, economists said. Growth slowed to 6.6 percent in the October-December quarter, the slowest in five quarters.

Rating agency CARE has warned that a 10 percent rise in global oil prices could increase demand for dollars, putting pressure on the rupee and widening the current account deficit.

India’s oil import bill rose by nearly one-third in the fiscal year ending March 31 to $140.5 billion, against $108 billion the previous year.

“The increase in international oil prices is a credit negative for the Indian economy,” ICRA, the Indian arm of the Fitch rating agency, said in a note.

“Every $10/ bbl increase in crude oil prices increases the fiscal deficit by about 0.1 percent of GDP.”

Any big price rise would also build a case for the central bank to keep rates steady, or even raise them.

The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee, which cut the benchmark policy repo rate by 25 basis points this month, warned that rising oil and food prices could push up inflation.

Policymakers are worried that a sustained increase in the oil price in the range of $70-75/barrel or higher can move the rupee down by 3-4 percent on an annual basis.

The rupee has depreciated by 1.24 percent against the dollar since a year high in mid-March.

($1 = 70.1800 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma; Editing by Martin Howell and Rob Birsel)

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