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Voting underway in Indonesia presidential elections

Voting is underway in Indonesia's presidential and legislative elections after a campaign that that pitted the moderate incumbent against an ultra-nationalist former general.

Polling booths opened at 7 a.m. Wednesday in easternmost provinces and voting begins in the capital Jakarta two hours later. Indonesia has three time zones.

About 193 million people are eligible to vote in polls that will decide who leads the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation.

Voting ends at 1 p.m. and so called "quick count" results are expected after about two hours.

The presidential race is a choice between five more years of the steady progress achieved under Indonesia's first president from outside the Jakarta elite, Joko Widodo, or electing Prabowo Subianto, a former general from the era of the Suharto military dictatorship.

Source: Fox News World

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5-year-old child hurt in Mall of America incident

Police in Minnesota say they're investigating an incident at the Mall of America in which a child was reportedly thrown from a third-floor balcony.

Police in Bloomington tweeted that a 5-year-old child suffered injuries and was being treated at a hospital Friday. Police didn't immediately respond to a message seeking details about the incident.

The Star Tribune reports that the child was being treated at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis.

Source: Fox News National

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Patriots owner Kraft pleads not guilty, requests jury trial

FILE PHOTO: New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft attends a conference at the Cannes Lions Festival in Cannes
FILE PHOTO: New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft attends a conference at the Cannes Lions Festival in Cannes, France, June 23, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

March 26, 2019

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft on Tuesday entered a not guilty plea to two counts of solicitation of prostitution and requested a jury trial.

His attorneys submitted the paperwork in Palm Beach County, Fla., and the filing cancels Kraft’s arraignment, which was scheduled for Thursday.

Kraft is in Phoenix, attending the NFL’s annual meetings.

The 77-year-old billionaire was charged last month for allegedly receiving sex acts at a day spa in Jupiter, Fla. He has pleaded not guilty, and on Friday, his attorney said they intended to vehemently fight the charges as well as the release of two tapes that purportedly show Kraft receiving services at the spa.

In his first words since the charges were filed, Kraft issued a statement of apology on Saturday.

“In deference to the judicial process, I have remained silent these past several weeks,” Kraft’s statement read. “To correct some of the misinformation surrounding this matter, my attorney made his first public comments on Friday night. I would like to use this opportunity to say something that I have wanted to say for four weeks.

“I am truly sorry. I know I have hurt and disappointed my family, my close friends, my co-workers, our fans and many others who rightfully hold me to a higher standard.”

If convicted at trial on the misdemeanor charges, he could receive one year in jail, a $5,000 fine and 100 hours of community service.

CNN reported earlier Tuesday that NFL owners said they would not make a decision on whether to punish Kraft until the legal case is over.

–Field Level Media

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Democratic National Committee chooses host city for 2020 national convention

The Democratic National Committee on Monday chose Milwaukee to host their 2020 national convention.

DNC Chairman Tom Perez chose Milwaukee over Miami and Houston. It will be the first time in more than 100 years Democrats will gather in a Midwest city other than Chicago to nominate their presidential candidate.

This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.

Source: Fox News Politics

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FIA says F1 director Charlie Whiting has died in Australia

The governing body for international auto racing says its Formula One director Charlie Whiting has died from a pulmonary embolism. He was 66.

The FIA issued a statement Thursday saying Whiting died in Melbourne, where the season-opening Australian Grand Prix will be raced on Sunday.

A pulmonary embolism is caused by a blockage in the lung.

FIA President Jean Todt says Whiting had been "a great Race Director, a central and inimitable figure in Formula One who embodied the ethics and spirit of this fantastic sport."

Whiting began his F1 career in 1977 working at the Hesketh team. He joined the FIA in 1988 and became a race director in 1997.

Todt says "Formula 1 has lost a faithful friend and a charismatic ambassador in Charlie. All my thoughts, those of the FIA and entire motor sport community go out to his family, friends, and all Formula One lovers."

___

More AP F1 coverage: https://apnews.com/FormulaOne and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Source: Fox News World

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Corporate jetmakers court Chinese elite for sales despite slowing economy

FILE PHOTO: Bombardier's Global 7500, the first business jet to have a queen-sized bed and hot shower, is shown during a media tour in Montreal
FILE PHOTO: Bombardier's Global 7500, the first business jet to have a queen-sized bed and hot shower, is shown during a media tour in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, December 19, 2018. REUTERS/Christinne Muschi/File Photo

April 14, 2019

By Allison Lampert, Jamie Freed and Brenda Goh

MONTREAL/SINGAPORE/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Gulfstream Aerospace and Bombardier are trotting out their longest-range business jets at an Asian air show this week, as they compete for orders from China’s growing elite, despite the country’s slowing economy.

The Asian Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition, (ABACE) opens Tuesday in Shanghai under a cloud of economic uncertainty, amid slowing Chinese growth, the U.S.-China trade dispute, and Beijing’s crackdown on debt risks that has led funding to dry up in certain industries, brokers said.

“The biggest factor that impacted the business jet market was pessimism and uncertainty which stalled purchase intentions or forced those marginal owners to reconsider keeping their business jets,” said Jeffrey Lowe, managing director of Hong Kong-based Asian Sky Group.

Still, Canada’s Bombardier sees its new $73 million Global 7500 business jet making inroads in Greater China against market leader Gulfstream’s $65 million-plus G650 family.

The plane and train maker said on Sunday it secured firm orders for four Global 7500 planes that were converted from options taken by Hong Kong-based business jet management company HK Bellawings in 2018.

Greater China’s number of billionaires has been growing yearly by 10 percent over the past three years, and the Global 7500’s long range will help to “seize market share and to withstand any economic uncertainty in the region,” said Bombardier Business Aircraft President David Coleal by email.

Both Gulfstream’s 650ER and the Global 7500 connect far-flung cities like New York and Tokyo, an allure for elite Asian buyers who want to fly non-stop to Western hubs.

“You don’t need a G7500 to fly three or four hours. But when you do need (longer) range you can use this jet,” said Thomas Flohr, founder and chairman of Vista Global and a Global 7500 customer.

Gulfstream, a division of General Dynamics, which brought its large-cabin G500 jet into service last year, delivered 68 new corporate aircraft between 2015 and 2018 in the region, more than double the 32 planes delivered by its Canadian competitor, according to Asian Sky.

Gulfstream President Mark Burns said by email the U.S. company is seeing more optimism in the region and is “starting to see more activity as trade talks appear to be progressing and becoming more specific.”

The Asia Pacific region, nevertheless, accounted for only about 8 percent of the 3,478 business jets delivered globally over the last five years, compared with 2,122 jets delivered to North America, according to Cirium Fleets Analyzer data.

And the number of Chinese-owned second-hand business jets sold outside the country rose to 20 in 2018, compared with an annual average of 10 from 2014 to 2017, according to the Cirium data.

Jackie Wu, president of JetSolution Aviation Group, said weaker business jet sales have prompted her Hong Kong company to launch its first charter service using the supermidsized Embraer Legacy 600.

“We are an industry that very much reflects the health of an economy, or the world economy,” said Jetcraft Asia president David Dixon, adding he nevertheless sees greater demand from smaller Asian countries like Indonesia and Malaysia.

(Reporting By Allison Lampert in Montreal, Brenda Goh in Shanghai and Jamie Freed in Singapore; Additional reporting by Stella Qiu in Beijing; Editing by Chris Reese)

Source: OANN

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Black hole politics: Why no progress escapes DC’s gravity

There is breaking news on the black hole front.

For the first time, scientists have done what once seemed unthinkable for a phenomenon whose presence was theoretical: captured a photographic image of a massive black hole.

The Event Horizon Telescope shows a ring of orange light with a pitch-black center, where the laws of physics are obliterated. Inside, gravity is so extreme that nothing which enters can escape.

Sounds kind of like Washington.

A whole lot of sound and fury that dissipates inside the nation's capital, leaving no discernable movement on virtually anything.

The media, myself included, tend to get caught up in each dazzling light show. But it's hard to find an issue these days where a solution escaped from the political darkness.

Since Donald Trump is the brightest star in the political firmament, he tends to dim many other sources of light. The press grades him each day from sunrise to sunset (as well as on his pre-dawn and late-night tweets).

There's so much pontification and posturing on all sides, but what emerges in the end? Immigration is only the latest example of a battle royale where nothing ends up happening. The firings at Homeland Security won't change the border crisis over migrant families. Congress remains paralyzed on the issue, just as it was during the Obama administration and the Bush administration. The president, backing off a threat to close the border, declared a national emergency that will remain tied up in the courts, and a judge has blocked his policy of making asylum seekers wait in Mexico.

In short, it's a black hole.

The same applies to all the back-and-forth on health care. Trump announced he'd come up with a better replacement for ObamaCare, Republicans freaked out, and Trump said never mind, that will come after the election. Bernie Sanders yesterday introduced a Medicare for All bill that makes ObamaCare look like tinkering. The measure would wipe out all private insurance and force everyone onto a government-run plan. It has absolutely no chance of passing.

Fade to black.

Run through the issues and the dark picture is the same.

The president talked about a major push on infrastructure in his State of the Union. Neither side has put a plan on the table.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is promoting a Green New Deal that gave Republicans a juicy target but that Nancy Pelosi has no plans to bring to a vote.

Remember when Trump spent the last couple of weeks during the midterms touting a second tax cut aimed at the middle class? That's vanished.

The House passed tougher background checks for gun purchases, but the Senate isn't touching it.

And the soaring budget deficit? Don't even ask.

Even the endlessly covered Mueller investigation wound up hitting a wall, with no further criminal charges.

In this galaxy, cooperation is weakness and compromise is alien. No one wants to give the other side a win.

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With the one-time exception of criminal justice reform, bipartisanship has vanished. Everything's already about positioning for 2020, whether it's slavery reparations or abolishing the Electoral College.

It's sunny in Washington during cherry blossom season, but from the outside, it sure looks like a black hole.

Source: Fox News Politics

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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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