2025-01-05 00:08
Heatwave elevates bushfire risk in Victoria state Temperatures could reach 45°C in parts of Victoria A wind change is set to bring cooler weather on Sunday night SYDNEY, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Australia's southeast sweated in a heatwave that intensified on Sunday, elevating bushfire risk and prompting authorities to issue fire bans for more parts of Victoria state. Australia is in the grips of a high-risk bushfire season, with firefighters last week battling a large blaze that ripped through Victoria's Grampians National Park, razing homes and farmland. The nation's weather forecaster warned that temperatures could reach 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in some parts of Australia's second most populous state of Victoria on Sunday. The mercury in state capital Melbourne was forecast to hit 38 C (100 F). In the state's northwest, in the town of Mildura, where the temperature was predicted to reach 42 C (107 F), it was already 32.9 C (91 F) at 10:30 a.m., surpassing the January mean maximum temperature, according to forecaster data. The heat sparked total fire bans for three Victorian districts where authorities labelled the fire danger as "extreme", the second highest danger rating. Bureau of Meteorology official Miriam Bradbury said temperatures would likely peak in Victoria on Sunday. "What that means for the fire dangers is we are seeing a spike across more districts," Bradbury told Australian Broadcasting Corp television. The states of Western Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania were also under heatwave warnings on Sunday, the forecaster said on its website. Bradbury on Saturday said a wind change bringing a cool change to the country's southeast was expected on Sunday night. Australia's last few fire seasons have been quiet compared with the catastrophic 2019-2020 "Black Summer" of wildfires that destroyed an area the size of Turkey, killing 33 people and billions of animals. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australias-southeast-braces-extreme-fire-danger-amid-intense-heatwave-2025-01-05/
2025-01-04 21:03
NEW YORK, Jan 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Surgeon General's warning of an increased risk of cancer from drinking alcohol may end up resonating most with younger Americans - who in recent years were already turning to mocktails and juices instead of alcoholic drinks. It is unclear whether Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's suggestion to update warning labels on the risks of alcohol will be acted upon by Congress, but, over the last decade, the youngest adults have been drinking less. Brooklyn resident Amy Hudson, 35, said she cut back on drinking alcohol from multiple times a week to less than three times a month after she started having chronic migraines in 2021. "I found mocktails to be a good way to get antioxidants while incorporating anti-inflammatory foods into my diet," Hudson said. Ingredients like pineapple, cherry juice and ginger have helped manage her migraines, she said. In 2023, 49.6% of Americans between ages 18 and 25 had used alcohol in the last month, according to U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration national survey figures, down from 59.6% from 2013. Sean Goldsmith, chief executive officer of non-alcoholic beverage e-commerce platform The Zero Proof, said the surgeon general's announcement comes as "more and more people are realizing that drinking alcohol is not good for you." He is in one of his busiest seasons of the year - "Dry January," a month where some people choose to abstain from alcohol following the holiday season. About 90% of The Zero Proof's shoppers are alcohol drinkers looking for healthier beverages, Goldsmith said. More than 60% of his customers are women and most are Millennials aged between 28 and 43. Public health bodies like the World Health Organization have increasingly turned their attention towards alcohol after making progress on stronger tobacco controls. The American Medical Association in a Friday statement noted that it has warned for years of the increased cancer risk from any alcohol consumption. "Despite decades of compelling evidence of this connection, too many in the public remain unaware of alcohol's risk," it said. Sara Martin, a 42-year-old salesperson in Los Angeles, isn't participating in Dry January, but said mocktails are great options at work parties. "I'm in an industry that drinks more heavily than I can keep up with," she said. She's glad younger people in her industry "are pushing back on the compulsory alcohol culture," but doesn't think that labeling cancer risks alone will reduce drinking. "It took massive public awareness campaigns to link cigarettes and lung cancer firmly in people's minds," Martin said. "But the labels would be the first step." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/even-before-us-alcohol-warning-younger-americans-were-turning-mocktails-2025-01-04/
2025-01-04 21:02
KYIV, Jan 4 (Reuters) - A Russian guided bomb attack on Saturday wounded 10 people, including two children, in a village in Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region, near the Russian border, local authorities said. The region borders Russia's Kursk region and has been regularly shelled by Russian forces for months. Video posted by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy showed parts of a building in the village of Svesa reduced to rubble. Rescue teams ferried residents out of the building on stretchers. "An entire block of the building, from the ground to the fifth floors was destroyed," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. "Neighbouring houses were also damaged." Zelenskiy said guided bomb strikes hit two other villages in Sumy region and also neighbouring Kharkiv region. Russia, which began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, did not immediately comment on the events in Sumy. Guided, or glide, bombs are conventional, often Soviet-era, weapons with satellite-aided navigation to extend their range and precision. They are often dropped from beyond the range of Ukrainian air defences. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-attack-wounds-three-ukraines-sumy-region-local-officials-say-2025-01-04/
2025-01-04 19:24
LISBON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Portuguese oil company Galp Energia (GALP.LS) , opens new tab is investigating an anonymous complaint about an alleged personal relationship between Chief Executive Filipe Silva and a company manager, economic website ECO reported on Saturday. Galp's ethics committee is analysing "alleged conflicts of interest due to a close and personal relationship (which had been) kept secret" with the female executive who reports to the CEO, ECO said, citing unidentified sources. A Galp spokesperson declined to comment. The news website did not identify the woman or specify her exact title, saying only she is a "superior director". Galp's code of conduct requires personal relationships to be communicated to the company's ethics committee when potential conflicts of interest are involved. ECO said Silva had told it he had not reported any personal relationship to the ethics committee and guaranteed that he had not been involved in any personal relationship which "threatened the integrity of Galp's decisions". One of the unidentified sources told ECO that the ethics committee's investigation could eventually lead to Silva's dismissal. Silva was picked as CEO in January 2023 for a four-year term due to end in late 2026. Galp's main business is extracting oil and gas from a rich offshore field in Brazil. The company also runs the Sines refinery in Portugal and renewable energy plants. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/portugals-galp-probes-alleged-ceo-relationship-website-eco-says-2025-01-04/
2025-01-04 14:11
End of Ukraine gas transit deal plunges Moldova region into crisis Local officials announce longer rolling blackouts Industry closed down, residents without heating, hot water KYIV, Jan 4 (Reuters) - The pro-Russian breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria, left without Russian gas supplies no longer transiting through neighbouring Ukraine, faced longer periods of rolling power cuts on Saturday, local authorities said. Flows of Russian gas via Ukraine to central and eastern Europe stopped on New Year's Day after a transit deal expired between the warring countries and Kyiv refused to extend it. Transdniestria, a mainly Russian-speaking enclave which has lived side-by-side with Moldova since breaking away from it in the last days of Soviet rule, received gas from Russian giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM) , opens new tab through the pipeline crossing Ukraine. The gas was used to operate a thermal plant which provided electricity locally and for much of Moldova under the control of the pro-European central government. The region's self-styled president, Vadim Krasnoselsky, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said rolling power cuts in various districts would be extended to four hours on Sunday. Hour-long cuts were first imposed on Friday evening after heating and hot water supplies were curtailed. The cuts were then extended to three hours on Saturday. "Yesterday's introduction of rolling cuts was a test. And it confirmed that an hour-long break to keep the electrical supply system operating was insufficient," Krasnoselsky wrote. "The power generated is not covering sharply rising demand." All industries except those producing food have been shut down. The official Telegram news channel of the region's separatist authorities announced the official closure on Saturday of a steel mill and bakery in the town of Rybnitsa. Regional officials announced new measures to help residents, especially the elderly, and warned that overnight temperatures would fall to -10 Celsius (+14 Fahrenheit). Residents were told not to put strain on the region's mobile phone network. USING FIREWOOD The news channel warned against using heaters in disrepair after two residents died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a stove. Online pictures showed servicemen loading up trucks with firewood for distribution. "Don't put off gathering in firewood," Krasnoselsky told residents. "It is better to ensure your supply in advance, especially since the weather is favorable so far." Moldova's government blames Russia for the crisis and has called on Gazprom to ship gas through the Turkstream pipeline and then through Bulgaria and Romania. Russia denies using gas as a weapon to coerce Moldova, and blames Kyiv for refusing to renew the gas transit deal. The Transdniestria power cuts are a problem for Moldova particularly because the enclave is home to a power plant which provides most of the power for government-controlled areas of Moldova at a fixed and low price. Prime Minister Dorin Recean said on Friday his country faced a security crisis after Transdniestria imposed the rolling blackouts, but he also said the Chisinau government had prepared alternative arrangements, with a mixture of domestic production and electricity imports from Romania. Even before the halt of supplies via Ukraine, Gazprom had said it would suspend exports to Moldova on Jan. 1 because of what Russia says are unpaid Moldovan debts of $709 million. Moldova disputes that and put the figure at $8.6 million. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/moldova-breakaway-region-face-new-power-cuts-saturday-officials-say-2025-01-04/
2025-01-04 11:16
Jan 4 (Reuters) - Russia declared a regional state of emergency on Saturday in Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, as workers cleared tons of contaminated sand and earth on either side of the Kerch Strait following an oil spill in the Black Sea last month. Mikhail Razvozhaev, the Russia-installed governor of the city of Sevastopol, said new traces of minor pollution required urgent elimination and declared a state of emergency in the city - giving authorities more power to take swift decisions such as ordering citizens to evacuate their homes. The Kerch Strait runs between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov and separates Crimea's Kerch Peninsula from Russia's Krasnodar region. Rescue workers have now cleared more than 86,000 metric tons of contaminated sand and soil, the emergencies ministry said on Saturday. The oil leaked from two ageing tankers that were hit by a storm on Dec. 15. One sank and the other ran aground. More than 10,000 people have been working to shovel up viscous, foul-smelling fuel oil from sandy beaches in and around Anapa, a summer resort. Environmental groups have reported deaths of dolphins, porpoises and sea birds. The emergencies ministry said on the Telegram messaging app that oil-tainted soil had been collected in the broader Kuban region in Russia and in Crimea, whose annexation by Russia has not been recognised by most other countries. The ministry published video footage of dozens of workers in protective suits loading bags of dirt onto diggers and others skimming dirt off the sand with shovels. Russia's transport ministry said this week experts had established that about 2,400 metric tons of oil products had spilled into the sea, a smaller spill than initially feared. When the disaster struck, state media reported that the stricken tankers, both more than 50-years old, were carrying some 9,200 metric tons (62,000 barrels) of oil products in total. The spill involved heavy M100-grade fuel oil that solidifies at a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) and, unlike other oil products, does not float to the surface but sinks to the bottom or remains suspended in the water column. (This story has been corrected to say Razvozhaev is governor of Sevastopol, not Crimea, in paragraph 2) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-clears-thousands-tons-contaminated-sand-after-black-sea-oil-spill-2025-01-04/
