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Mississippi man pleads guilty in 2017 cross-burning

A Mississippi man has pleaded guilty to a charge involving the burning of a cross near the homes of African American residents.

The U.S. Department of Justice, in a news release Friday, said 37-year-old Louie Bernard Revette entered the plea to one count each of interference with housing rights, a federal civil rights violation, and using fire during the commission of a federal felony.

Revette acknowledged recruiting someone to help him build a cross to burn near the home of a juvenile victim in a predominantly black area of Seminary, Mississippi. He also admitted building the cross to threaten, frighten and intimidate the residents because of their race.

Revette faces up to 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine on the two charges. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 20.

Source: Fox News National

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Covington Catholic High student's lawyer says lawsuit is 'message' for 'weaponized' Washington Post

An attorney representing a Covington Catholic High School student suing The Washington Post for $250 million told Fox News on Wednesday that the pricey lawsuit “isn't about the money, it’s about the message.”

Todd McMurtie, the lawyer representing student Nicholas Sandmann, spoke to Todd Starnes about a lawsuit filed Tuesday that “seeks significant damages” from The Post for allegedly targeting his client “just so the media could make the point it wanted to make.”

The lawsuit accuses The Post of "using its vast financial resources to enter the bully pulpit by publishing a series of false and defamatory print and online articles ... to smear a young boy who was in its view an acceptable casualty in their war against the president."

“What we hope to accomplish with the lawsuit obviously is to obtain a large verdict,” McMurtie said on "The Todd Starnes Show." “And the reason we want to obtain a large verdict is so that things that things like the things that happened to Nick did not happen to others.”

Sandmann came under attack in January after a video surfaced of him standing face-to-face with a Native American man, Nathan Phillips, while wearing a “Make America Great Again.”

COVINGTON HIGH STUDENT’S LEGAL TEAM SUES WASHINGTON POST

Sandmann and other Covington Catholic students were accused of initiating the altercation and intimidating Phillips but other videos showed that the students were verbally accosted by a group of black street preachers who were shouting insults both at them and a group of Native Americans.

McMurtie said the only truth that was reported by The Post was the Make America Great Again hat that his client was wearing -- and he says that’s the reason they went after him.

CONSERVATIVE LEADERS DEMAND APOLOGY FOR MEDIA TREATMENT OF COVINGTON STUDENTS

“I mean Nick is 16 years old. He hasn't even told me what his political affiliation is and nobody knows really what their political affiliation is going to be when they're 16 but because he was wearing that hat, he was used as a  ... you know ... as a victim of scorn by the media, just so the media could make the point it wanted to make.”

Sandmann’s lawyers are seeking $50 million in compensatory damages, related to damages to emotional distress and his reputation, and $200 million in punitive damages.

McMurtie says the pricey lawsuit is the only way to send a message that'll help protect others from similar mistreatment in the future.

“Money is the way to inflict enough suffering on, you know, a weaponized publication like The Washington Post, so that that they won't do it again. And there's other people -- other organizations and media outlets -- that have become weaponized against our president.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

He said that while The Post is the first publication to be sued, there are plans for more litigation.

“We've identified a number of other individuals of news outlets that we think are also potentially liable for defamation. We've analyzed these matters and we think we have a good-faith basis to bring these claims and over the next 30 and 60 days, you will see more lawsuits.”

Source: Fox News National

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Argentina inflation rate will slow to about 34 percent this year: OECD

FILE PHOTO: Employee stands as he operates a machine at industrial manufacturing company Gottert in Garin
FILE PHOTO: An employee stands as he operates a machine at industrial manufacturing company Gottert in Garin, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci

March 27, 2019

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates that Argentina’s inflation rate will slow to about 34 percent in 2019, an agency official said in Buenos Aires on Wednesday.

The OECD’s prediction was higher than the most recent central bank poll of economists, who predicted 2019 inflation of 31.9 percent.

Argentina, the third-largest economy in the region, recorded inflation of nearly 48 percent in 2018 as a result of a sharp devaluation of its peso currency <ARS = RASL>.

The central bank imposed a restriction of zero growth in the monetary base last year. Alvaro Santos Pereira of the OECD told a news conference on Wednesday that the policy will result in the deceleration of inflation.

Argentina’s central bank has signaled a more hawkish stance over the last month, looking to tighten monetary policy in order to tame inflation and protect the peso, which analysts said should limit the recent weakness.

The OECD also estimated that Argentina’s economy will begin growing again in the second half of the year, following a 2.5 percent dip in gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018. It also predicted GDP growth of 2.3 percent in 2020.

President Mauricio Macri negotiated a $56.3 billion standby financing deal with the International Monetary Fund last year. The agreement requires his government to erase its primary fiscal deficit.

(Reporting by Eliana Raszewski in Buenos Aires; Writing by Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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Trump vows to release FISA docs; Border at 'breaking point' 3.28.19 #MAGAFirstNews with @PeterBoykin

Trump vows to release FISA docs; Border at 'breaking point' 3.28.19 #MAGAFirstNews with @PeterBoykin TRUMP VOWS TO RELEASE FISA DOCS USED IN RUSSIA PROBE - President Trump, in an exclusive wide-ranging interview Wednesday night on Fox News' "Hannity," vowed to release the full and unredacted Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants and related documents used by the FBI to investigate his campaign, saying he wants to "get to the bottom" of how the ... See More long-running Russia collusion narrative began ... Trump told anchor Sean Hannity that his lawyers previously had advised him not to take that dramatic step out of fear that it could be considered obstruction of justice. The president also accused FBI officials of committing "treason" -- slamming former FBI Director James Comey as a "terrible guy," former CIA Director John Brennan as potentially mentally ill, and Democrat House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff as a criminal.

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Pope seeks to build on Muslim outreach with Morocco trip

Pope Francis is forging ahead with promoting moderate Islam during a weekend trip to Morocco, seeking to build on warming ties with the Sunni world while also ministering to a tiny Catholic community and offering solidarity with migrants.

For the 82-year-old pope, the 27-hour, whirlwind visit to Rabat, the Moroccan capital, will be a welcome reboot to a year that has otherwise been dominated by the global Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal and the downfall of three of his cardinals.

The trip comes after Francis' February visit to the United Arab Emirates, where the pope and the imam of Cairo's Al Azhar, the seat of Sunni learning, signed a landmark joint statement establishing the relationship between Catholics and Muslims as brothers, with a common mission to promote peace.

The document, which Francis has been giving to visiting heads of state and which has been welcomed by Muslim intellectuals in Europe and the Mideast, is likely to feature in some of Francis' remarks.

The highlight of the Morocco trip will be Francis' visit Saturday to the Mohammed VI Institute, a school of learning for imams that epitomizes Morocco's efforts to promote a moderate brand of Islam and export it via preachers to Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

Morocco, a Sunni Muslim kingdom of 36 million, reformed its religious policies and education to limit the spread of fundamentalism in 2004, following terrorist bombings in Casablanca in 2003 that killed 43 people.

The Mohammed VI Institute, named for the king, trains Moroccan imams, as well as those from sub-Saharan Africa, Tunisia, Libya and Europe.

"Morocco has taken it upon itself to become a patron of moderate Islam in both Africa and Europe," said Abdellah Boussouf, secretary-general of the Council of the Moroccan Community Living Abroad.

The aim, he said, is to prevent Muslims in Europe and Africa from becoming victims of terrorism to "change the negative image Islam has" in Europe.

Francis had planned to deliver a greeting at the institute, which is located in the Madinat al'Irfane University campus district of Rabat. But a revised plan calls instead for two students and Morocco's minister for religious affairs to take the floor, while the pope and king listen, Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said.

Youssef Aknoui, a graduate of the institute and a preacher at Rabat's Ahli Fes Mosque, told The Associated Press the school stresses academics as well as the Moroccan tradition of Islam.

"The institute oriented us toward a more balanced, rationalized understanding of Islam," he said. "We were trained in history and communication, all means to combat religious fundamentalism in our work now."

That repudiation of religious fundamentalism runs throughout the "Human Fraternity" document Francis signed in Abu Dhabi with Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al Azhar.

The document outlines a shared set of values and principles common to Christians and Muslims, focusing on the dignity of every person and a rejection of violence committed in God's name.

"It has surprised us all, because this understanding of being part of a single human family means that Muslims and Catholics, from this document onwards, recognize and accept one another as brothers," said Paola Pizzo, professor of contemporary history of Islamic countries at the University of Chieti-Pescara.

The document also calls for changes to laws that "prevent women from fully enjoying their rights." Pizzo, who heads the Christian-Muslim relations department at Rome's Sant'Egidio Community, said that requires "a maximum commitment in the Sunni world to promote the dignity of women."

Some Catholic conservatives, meanwhile, have criticized the document's statement that "God willed" a plurality of religions. For these critics of Francis, the claim relativizes the centrality of the Catholic faith in human salvation.

Francis will also visit a migrant center run by the Catholic Church's Caritas charity organization in Morocco and attend a Mass on Sunday with Morocco's largely expat Catholic community, which numbers about 23,000.

Morocco last year became the main departure point for sub-Saharan African migrants seeking to reach Europe via Spain, after Italy essentially closed its borders to migrants leaving from Libya.

The rising numbers of migrants have put pressures on the kingdom, and become a hot political issue in Spain ahead of that country's April 28 general election.

___

El Masiati reported from Rabat, Morocco.

Source: Fox News World

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UK to launch ‘early warning’ indicators for next economic shock

A general view is seen of the London skyline from Canary Wharf in London
FILE PHOTO: A general view is seen of the London skyline from Canary Wharf in London, Britain, October 19, 2016. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

March 18, 2019

By William Schomberg

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will launch a new set of early warning indicators aimed at spotting the next big economic downturn more quickly, based on the volume of road traffic, businesses’ value-added tax returns and how long ships spend in port.

The Office for National Statistics has been under pressure to use more of the digital data created by businesses and consumers which other statistics agencies are streaming into their measurements of the economy.

The Bank of England is likely to pay attention too, as it is trying to improve its understanding of early signals coming from Britain’s economy as it navigates Brexit.

“Policymakers and analysts demand faster insight into the state of the UK economy in order to make informed, timely decisions on matters such as the setting of interest rates,” said Louisa Nolan, the ONS’s lead data scientist.

The ONS said its new indicators would be launched in April and in many cases they would be available a month earlier than gross domestic product data, the main measure of how fast an economy is growing or shrinking.

The ONS cautioned against using the new indicators as predictors of GDP but said they would be able to identify large changes to economic activity.

A new VAT index, which will show whether businesses are seeing more or less turnover, would have spotted the first quarter of the 2008-09 recession in Britain five months before it showed up official estimates, although GDP figures have been improved since then, the ONS said.

There was a “surprisingly good correlation” between the ONS’s shipping indicators and imports, while traffic counts for heavy goods vehicles in England were consistent with at least some economic events, such as the financial crisis.

The traffic flows numbers might also help to measure how much Britain’s economy can grow without creating excessive inflation pressure, the ONS said.

(Reporting by William Schomberg, editing by David Milliken)

Source: OANN

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Soccer legend Pele back in Brazil, healthy but undergoing tests

FILE PHOTO: Brazilian soccer legend Pele is seen in Paris
FILE PHOTO: Brazilian soccer legend Pele is seen in Paris, April 2, 2019. Picture taken April 2, 2019. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann/File Photo

April 9, 2019

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian soccer legend Pele arrived home in Brazil after a spell in a French hospital on Tuesday and was immediately taken to a Sao Paulo clinic for further urinary tests, doctors said.

“At the moment, he is undergoing admission exams and his health is good,” doctors at the Israelite Albert Einstein Hospital said in a brief statement.

Considered by many as the game’s finest player and the only man to have won three World Cups, Pele was hospitalized in France last Wednesday after suffering a fever following an event in the city with French World Cup-winner Kylian Mbappe.

The 78-year old former Santos player was diagnosed as suffering from a urinary infection and was treated with antibiotics and released on Monday.

He arrived back in his home state on Tuesday morning.

Doctors said the urinary infection had been cured but did not give more details about what were believed to be routine tests at the hospital where he has been treated on several occasions previously.

(Reporting by Andrew Downie; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Source: OANN

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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)

Source: OANN

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

April 26, 2019

By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Editing by Ronnie Greene)

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

April 26, 2019

By Noor Zainab Hussain and Tanishaa Nadkar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reuters was not immediately able to contact Zhevago.

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

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

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

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

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

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

April 26, 2019

By Emma Rumney and Stephen Eisenhammer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FLOOD WARNINGS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

April 26, 2019

By Manoj Kumar and Nidhi Verma

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A government spokesman declined to comment.

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

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

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

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

Only for them to surge after the vote.

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

‘CREDIT NEGATIVE’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

($1 = 70.1800 Indian rupees)

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

Source: OANN

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