2025-04-06 03:04

French foreign minister in Algiers after presidents talk Ties soured after Paris changed stance on Western Sahara French firms being cut out, wheat imports collapse Immigration issue galvanising French politics ALGIERS, April 6 (Reuters) - France's foreign minister said on Sunday that ties with Algeria were back to normal after he held 2 1/2 hours of talks with Algeria's president following months of bickering that have hurt Paris' economic and security interests in its former colony. Ties between Paris and Algiers have been complicated for decades, but took a turn for the worse last July when Macron angered Algeria by recognising a plan for autonomy for the Western Sahara region under Moroccan sovereignty. Sign up here. A poor relationship has major security, economic and social repercussions: trade is extensive and some 10% of France's 68 million population has links to Algeria, according to French officials. "We are reactivating as of today all the mechanisms of cooperation in all sectors. We are going back to normal and to repeat the words of President (Abdelmadjid) Tebboune: 'the curtain is lifted'," Jean-Noel Barrot said in a statement at the presidential palace in Algiers after 2 1/2 hours of talks. His visit comes after a call between President Emmanuel Macron and his counterpart Tebboune on March 31, during which the two agreed to a broad roadmap to calm tensions. French officials say Algiers had put obstacles to administrative authorisations and new financing for French firms operating in the country. Nowhere was that felt more than in wheat imports. Traders say the diplomatic rift led Algerian grains agency OAIC to tacitly exclude French wheat and firms in its import tenders since October. OAIC has said it treats all suppliers fairly, applying technical requirements. Barrot said he had specifically brought up the difficulties regarding economic exchanges, notably in the agrobusiness, automobile and maritime transport sectors. "President Tebboune reassured me of his will to give them new impetus," Barrot said. AUTHOR ARRESTED Beyond business, the relationship has also soured to the point where security cooperation, including over Islamist militancy, stopped. The detention by Algiers in November of 80-year-old Franco-Algerian author Boualem Sansal also worsened the relationship. He has since been sentenced to five years in prison. Barrot said he hoped a gesture of "humanity" could be made by Algiers given his age and health. With Macron's government under pressure to toughen immigration policies, the spat has fed into domestic politics in both countries. Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau has called for a 1968 pact between the two countries that makes it easier for Algerians to settle in France to be reviewed, after Algiers refused to take back some of its citizens who were ordered to leave France under the "OQTF" (obligation to leave French territory) deportation regime. Barrot said Retailleau would soon go to Algiers and that the two sides would resume cooperation on judicial issues. The relationship between the two countries is scarred by the trauma of the 1954-1962 war in which the North African country, which had a large settler population and was treated as an integral part of France under colonial rule, won independence. https://www.reuters.com/world/france-algeria-resume-dialogue-rocky-path-ahead-2025-04-06/

2025-04-06 00:34

SYDNEY, April 6 (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday pledged A$2.3 billion ($1.39 billion) to help homeowners buy batteries to store solar power and lower their energy costs, a major issue in the May 3 general election. Albanese's centre-left Labor runs neck-and-neck in opinion polls with the Liberal-National opposition led by Peter Dutton, who has campaigned on a plan to lower power bills by forcing LNG gas producers to divert some exports to domestic consumption. Sign up here. On Sunday, Albanese said in a statement that his proposal would save households about A$4,000 or 30% on the installed cost of a typical energy-storage battery. "The battery will be installed at home and store power from solar panels for the household to use when needed," the prime minister said. One in three Australian households now has solar panels but only one in 40 has a battery, according to the government. Nationals leader David Littleproud told Australian Broadcasting Corp television that the measure would aid "only a select few" and do little to help renters and pensioners with their power bills. Under the opposition plan, gas exporters on Australia's east coast would be forced to direct 10% to 20% more product to the domestic market. Longer-term, the conservative coalition wants Australia to adopt nuclear power. Albanese, after enjoying a healthy lead for much of his term, now has personal approval ratings near those of Dutton, a former police officer and the defence minister in the last conservative government. ($1 = 1.6554 Australian dollars) https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australias-albanese-pledges-a23-billion-help-homeowners-buy-solar-batteries-2025-04-06/

2025-04-05 22:29

RIO DE JANEIRO, April 5 (Reuters) - Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras (PETR4.SA) , opens new tab has completed work on a veterinary center in the Amazon region that is required for it to obtain an environmental permit for an offshore drilling project, the company said on Saturday. The animal care center in the town of Oiapoque, Amapa state, is designed to assist animals in the event of an oil spill. Sign up here. It was one of Brazilian environmental agency Ibama's main demands in response to Petrobras' proposal to drill offshore in the environmentally sensitive Foz do Amazonas region. Amapa has granted the veterinary center an operating license but it still requires Ibama's clearance. Petrobras said in a statement it informed the agency the center will be available for inspection starting Monday. The center is designed to care for birds, marine mammals, turtles, dolphins and manatees, said Petrobras, which aims to conduct exploratory drilling in a block 540 kilometers (325 miles) off Amapa's coast. Foz do Amazonas in the so-called Equatorial Margin is Brazil's most promising oil frontier. It shares geology with nearby Guyana, where Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) , opens new tab is developing huge fields. Ibama blocked Petrobras from drilling there in 2023, but the company filed a new request, which the agency is assessing. There is no deadline for a final answer. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/petrobras-completes-animal-care-center-required-offshore-license-2025-04-05/

2025-04-05 11:36

LONDON, April 5 (Reuters) - A meeting of top OPEC+ ministers on Saturday is expected to make no new changes to oil ouptut policy, two delegates told Reuters, after the group's surprise decision this week to raise output further helped send prices crashing to pandemic-level lows. Several ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, or OPEC+ as the group is known, will hold an online joint ministerial monitoring committee meeting (JMMC) at 1200 GMT. Sign up here. The JMMC, which groups the oil ministers from Saudi Arabia, Russia and other leading producers, usually meets every two months and can make recommendations to change policy. Two sources said on Saturday no new decisions were expected at the meeting. On Thursday, eight OPEC+ countries unexpectedly agreed to speed up their plan to phase out oil output cuts by increasing output by 411,000 barrels per day in May instead of 135,000 bpd, a decision that prompted oil prices to extend sharp losses. Brent crude prices closed 7% lower at $65.58 a barrel on Friday, their lowest since August 2021, pressured by the OPEC+ decision and trade war fears after US President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff announcement this week. The May hike is the next increment of a plan agreed by Russia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria, Kazakhstan and Oman to gradually unwind their most recent output cut of 2.2 million bpd, which came into effect this month. OPEC+ also has 3.65 million bpd of other output cuts in place until the end of next year to support the market. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/opec-panel-meeting-seen-making-no-policy-changes-after-surprise-output-hike-2025-04-05/

2025-04-05 11:34

April 5 (Reuters) - Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday Ukraine had increased its attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, hitting targets 14 times in the last 24 hours, despite a U.S.-brokered moratorium, a charge Ukraine's military called "fake" and "disinformation". In a statement published on Telegram, the ministry said Ukraine "multiplied the number of unilateral attacks using drones and artillery shells on the energy infrastructure of Russian regions". Sign up here. It said the strikes had caused damage in Russia's Bryansk, Belgorod, Smolensk, Lipetsk and Voronezh regions, as well as the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Kherson, parts of which Russia controls. Reuters was unable to verify the reports of the strikes. In its own statement on Telegram, Ukraine's military said that the reports were fake, and that its forces were only striking military targets. Ukraine's military has previously said it halted strikes on Russian energy facilities on March 18. Russia and Ukraine agreed last month to a U.S. proposal for a 30-day moratorium on striking each other's energy infrastructure. Both sides have since repeatedly accused each other of violating the deal. The deal was part of a wider diplomatic push by U.S. President Donald Trump since his return to office in January to end the conflict. Separately on Saturday, authorities in two Russian regions reported Ukrainian drone strikes on local industrial facilities. The governor of Russia's Volga river region of Mordovia said Ukrainian drones had struck an industrial facility. Media reports said it was an optical fibre factory in the region's capital, Saransk. The governor of Samara region, another Volga riverside province, said that a factory in the city of Chapaevsk had been attacked by Ukrainian drones. A source in Ukraine's SBU security service told Reuters that the target was a plant producing industrial explosives, and that the strike had caused multiple explosions and fires. On Friday, a Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih killed at least 19 people, including nine children, local officials said. Russia's Defence Ministry said it targeted a military gathering in the city, a statement the Ukrainian military denounced as disinformation. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ukraine-multiplying-energy-attacks-despite-us-brokered-moratorium-2025-04-05/

2025-04-05 11:30

CERNOBBIO, Italy, April 5 (Reuters) - The euro zone economy's long standing structural headwinds have been exacerbated by a surge in uncertainty which may get even worse in the wake of U.S. trade tariffs, European Central Bank policy maker Isabel Schnabel said on Saturday. Speaking at an economic forum in northern Italy, Schnabel said the ECB would look closely in the coming weeks at the implications for euro zone growth and inflation of the tariffs announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday. Sign up here. For now, she said recent events had caused "a dramatic surge in uncertainty" which may be only the beginning. "Some people had the view that Liberation Day (the name Trump gave to his tariff announcements on Wednesday) could be the day of peak uncertainty, but I'm not entirely sure that is the case," she said. Schnabel, who sits on the ECB's Frankfurt-based executive board, directly rejected an assertion by Trump that the European Union had been formed to "screw" the United States. "Of course the EU was not born to screw the United States, but it was born to make Europe thrive," she said. https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/ecbs-schnabel-says-dramatic-surge-uncertainty-may-get-worse-2025-04-05/