2024-12-25 19:14
BENGHAZI, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Libya's eastern-based government said in a statement on Wednesday that it had agreed on a proposal to end fuel subsidies and would prepare a mechanism to implement the agreement. The administration headed by Osama Hamad, a rival to the internationally recognised government based in Tripoli, did not disclose further details about the proposal. It is unclear if Hamad's government will be able to implement the proposal in the divided country, however. In OPEC-member Libya a litre of gasoline costs just 0.150 Libyan dinars ($0.03), the second-cheapest in the world according to the Global Petrol Prices online tracker. Smuggling networks have flourished amid the political turmoil and armed conflict that followed a 2011 uprising against former dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The country became split in 2014 between warring eastern and western administrations. Fuel smuggling from Libya is estimated to be worth at least $5 billion per year, according to a World Bank report. The subsidy-scrapping proposal was approved by Hamad in Benghazi in a meeting with the deputy governor of the Tripoli-based Central Bank of Libya (CBL), Mari Barrasi, and four members of the bank's board of directors. The meeting was held at the CBL's Benghazi branch headquarters. Hamad was appointed in 2023 by the eastern parliament to replace Abdulhamid Dbeibah, who had been installed through a U.N.-backed process in 2021 that the parliament said had lost its legitimacy. Tripoli-based Dbeibah said in January that he would put the issue of removing fuel subsidies to a public survey, but he has since taken no further action on that. The cost of fuel subsidies from January to November of this year totalled 12.8 billion Libyan dinars, CBL data shows. The official exchange rate is 4.8 Libyan dinars to $1. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/libyas-eastern-based-government-agrees-proposal-end-fuel-subsidies-2024-12-25/
2024-12-25 18:55
SARAJEVO, Dec 25 (Reuters) - More than 200,000 homes across Bosnia and Herzegovina were without electricity for a second day on Wednesday, authorities said, after a snowstorm the day before caused widespread disruption across several Balkan countries. Mainly in northwestern and central Bosnia, towns and villages suffered ongoing power outages, the country's two power utilities said. The snowfall had stopped on Wednesday, when the Catholic population was celebrating Christmas, but many roads remained blocked, cutting off access to towns and villages. "Our teams are on site all the time, doing everything in their power," Jelena Markovic, spokesperson for the Elektroprenos BiH distribution company, said. Most transmission lines were in inaccessible areas, she said. In neighbouring Croatia, emergency crews said they rescued 48 people who had been buried in the snow in the central Lika region. In Slovenia, authorities said strong winds and snow made it impossible for a rescue helicopter to reach a Hungarian hiker who has been stranded in the Alps since Sunday. As many as 10,000 homes were also without electricity for much of Wednesday in western Serbia, the Tanjug news agency quoted Ivan Spajic, the head of the department for emergencies in the town of Sabac as saying, although the issue was mostly restored by late in the day. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/more-than-200000-homes-without-power-bosnia-after-balkan-snowstorm-2024-12-25/
2024-12-25 17:56
OSLO, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Finland's Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on Wednesday authorities in his country were investigating an undersea power cable outage on a line connecting Finland and Estonia. An unplanned break in service on the Estlink 2 interconnector occurred at 1026 GMT, operator Fingrid said in a statement on the Nordpool regulatory web site, reducing its available capacity to 358 megawatts (MW) from an installed capacity of 1,016 MW. "Even at Christmas the authorities are on standby to investigate the matter," Orpo said in a post on X. The interruption did not affect Finland's electricity supply, he added. Authorities in the region have been on high alert for potential acts of sabotage following a string of outages of power cables, gas pipelines and telecom links in the Baltic Sea in recent years, although subsea cables are also subject to technical malfunctions and outages caused by accidents. "An investigation into the incident has been initiated," Fingrid control room manager Arto Pahkin said in a statement. At the time of the outage the electricity had been flowing in the direction from Finland to Estonia at a rate of 658 MW, Fingrid said. (This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of the name to Pahkin, not Pahki, in paragraph 6) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-investigates-outage-undersea-power-link-estonia-finnish-pm-says-2024-12-25/
2024-12-25 17:37
MOSCOW, Dec 25 (Reuters) - A Russian cargo ship that ran into trouble on Monday in the Mediterranean Sea and later sank was rocked by a series of three explosions in "an act of terrorism," state news agency RIA cited the vessel's owner as saying on Wednesday. Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that the "Ursa Major," built in 2009, sank after an explosion ripped through its engine room and that two of its 16 crew were missing. RIA cited Oboronlogistika, the ship's ultimate owner and a company that is part of the Russian Defence Ministry's military construction operations, as saying on Wednesday that the vessel had been targeted in "a terrorist act." It cited Oboronlogistika as saying that the ship's surviving 14 crew members had reported that three consecutive explosions on the ship's starboard side had detonated at 1350 Moscow time (1050 GMT) in the vessel's aft on Dec. 23. The ship had then begun to sharply list as it was obviously taking in water, RIA cited Oboronlogistika as saying. The ship was not overloaded, it added. It was carrying two giant port cranes on its deck with their loading buckets, two heavy hatch covers for ice-breaking vessels, 129 empty containers, and a 20-foot container with roofing equipment, RIA said. Oboronlogistika had said that the ship had been en route to the Russian far eastern port of Vladivostok. Oboronlogistika and SK-Yug, a company LSEG lists as part of the group and the ship's direct owner and operator, declined to comment on the sinking at the time. Both entities were placed under sanctions by the United States in 2022 for their ties to Russia's military as was the Ursa Major itself. Spain's Maritime Rescue Service said it had received a distress signal from the Ursa Major on Monday when it was located about 57 miles off the coast of Almeira. Two vessels and a helicopter had been sent to the scene and the 14 surviving crew members taken to the Spanish port of Cartagena. LSEG ship tracking data shows the vessel departed from the Russian port of St. Petersburg on Dec. 11 and was last seen sending a signal at 2204 GMT on Monday between Algeria and Spain where it sank. On leaving St. Petersburg it had indicated that its next port of call was the Russian port of Vladivostok, not the Syrian port of Tartous which it has called at in the past. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-cargo-ship-which-sank-off-spanish-coast-was-victim-act-terrorism-ria-2024-12-25/
2024-12-25 13:25
MOSCOW, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Authorities in Russia's southern Krasnodar region on Wednesday declared a region-wide emergency, saying that oil was still washing up on the coastline 10 days after two ageing tankers ran into trouble. The oil is from the tankers which were hit by a storm on Dec. 15. One of the vessels split in half, while the other ran aground. The pollution, which has coated sandy beaches at and around Anapa, a popular summer resort, has caused serious problems for seabirds and everything from dolphins to porpoises and over 10,000 people have been trying to clear it up. Veniamin Kondratiev, governor of the Krasnodar region, said in a statement that he had decided to declare a region-wide emergency because oil was still polluting the coastline in the Anapa and Temryuk districts. He had previously declared a less serious municipal-level emergency. "Initially, according to the calculations of scientists and specialists, the main mass of fuel oil should have remained at the bottom of the Black Sea, which would have allowed it to be collected in the water," Kondratiev wrote on the Telegram messaging app. "But the weather dictates its own conditions, the air warms up and oil products rise to the top. As a result, they are being carried to our beaches." Separately, a crisis centre focused on the clean-up said that the bow of one of the tankers - the Volgoneft-239 - had been discovered underwater and that divers would check whether there was any leak of oil products from it as soon as weather conditions permitted. In total, more than 256 square kilometres of the coastal area have been surveyed and 25 tons of oil-water sludge collected, the same centre said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-region-declares-emergency-situation-black-sea-oil-spill-fallout-widens-2024-12-25/
2024-12-25 11:42
MOSCOW, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Russian companies have begun using bitcoin and other digital currencies in international payments following legislative changes that allowed such use in order to counter Western sanctions, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Wednesday. Sanctions have complicated Russia's trade with its major partners such as China or Turkey, as local banks are extremely cautious with Russia-related transactions to avoid scrutiny from Western regulators. This year, Russia permitted the use of cryptocurrencies in foreign trade and has taken steps to make it legal to mine cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin. Russia is one of the global leaders in bitcoin mining. "As part of the experimental regime, it is possible to use bitcoins, which we had mined here in Russia (in foreign trade transactions)," Siluanov told Russia 24 television channel. "Such transactions are already occurring. We believe they should be expanded and developed further. I am confident this will happen next year," he said, adding that international payments in digital currencies represent the future. Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin said that the current U.S. administration was undermining the role of the U.S dollar as the reserve currency by using it for political purposes, forcing many countries to turn to alternative assets. He singled out bitcoin as an example of such assets, saying that no-one in the world could regulate bitcoin. Putin's remarks indicated that the Russian leader backs the extensive use of cryptocurrencies. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/russia-is-using-bitcoin-foreign-trade-finance-minister-says-2024-12-25/
