2024-12-14 20:58

PARIS, Dec 14 (Reuters) - A powerful cyclone slammed into Mayotte early on Saturday, raising concerns about the scale of devastation from the worst storm to hit the French overseas territory in almost a century, officials said. The storm damaged and destroyed government buildings, the hospital and makeshift housing, and raised concerns about access to food, water and sanitation in the Indian Ocean archipelago, French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou told reporters after an evening inter-ministerial meeting. "Everyone understands that this was a cyclone that was unexpectedly violent," Bayrou said. Located nearly 8,000 km (4,970 miles) from Paris, a four-day trip by sea from France, Mayotte is significantly poorer than the rest of the country and has grappled with gang violence and social unrest for decades. Tensions were exacerbated earlier this year by a water shortage. The airport runway was still able to be used and authorities were planning to use it only for military flights to transport water and food. Ahead of the storm, authorities had put the archipelago on high alert and warned residents to stay indoors, with gusts of wind blowing up to about 200 kph (124 mph). "Our island is at this moment deeply affected by the most violent and destructive cyclone that we have seen since 1934. Many of us have lost everything," Mayotte's prefect, a top local official, wrote in a post on Facebook. French media reported that at least four people had died on both of Mayotte's islands. Asked if he could provide official numbers for how many deaths or injuries had occurred from the storm, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau declined, saying it was too early to tell. Thani Mohamed-Soilihi, the junior minister for Francophonie and international partnerships who was born in Mayotte, has not heard from his family or friends on the islands in the aftermath of the cyclone, Bayrou and Retailleau said. Retailleau said the government had sent 110 civil security military officers and firefighters to its former colony, which lies between Madagascar and mainland Africa, and would send another 140 on Sunday. In addition, 1,600 gendarmes and police officers were on the ground to maintain public order. "There was some looting, but very quickly, we reacted," Retailleau said. The storm, which made landfall in the morning, was expected to remain dangerous as it moved southwest, a weather bulletin said. Local officials in Mayotte did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/cyclone-batters-frances-mayotte-territory-killing-least-two-people-2024-12-14/

2024-12-14 17:53

DUBAI, Dec 14 (Reuters) - The Iranian currency extended its fall on Saturday, hitting a new all-time low against the U.S. dollar amid uncertainties about Donald Trump's imminent arrival in the White House and tensions with the West over Tehran's nuclear programme. The rial plunged to 756,000 to the dollar on the unofficial market on Saturday, compared to 741,500 rials on Friday, according to Bonbast.com, which reports exchange rates. The bazar360.com website said the dollar was being sold for about 755,000 rials. Facing an official inflation rate of about 35%, Iranians seeking safe havens for their savings have been buying dollars, other hard currencies, gold or cryptocurrencies, suggesting further headwinds for the rial. The dollar has been gaining against the rial since trading around 690,000 rials in early November amid concerns that once inaugurated in January, Trump would re-impose his "maximum pressure" policy against Iran with tougher sanctions and empower Israel to strike Iranian nuclear sites. Iran's currency again declined after the board of governors of the UN nuclear agency IAEA passed a European-proposed resolution against Tehran - increasing the risk of new sanctions - and following the downfall of Syria's President Bashar al Assad, a long-time ally of the Islamic Republic. Trump in 2018 reneged on a nuclear deal struck by his predecessor Barack Obama in 2015 and re-imposed U.S. economic sanctions on Iran that had been relaxed. The deal had limited Iran's ability to enrich uranium, a process that can yield fissile material for nuclear weapons. Iran's rial has lost more than 90% of its value since the sanctions were re-imposed in 2018. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/iran-currency-slips-new-lows-amid-us-europe-tensions-2024-12-14/

2024-12-14 13:20

DAMASCUS, Dec 14 (Reuters) - The Syrian pound has strengthened against the U.S. dollar by at least 20% over the past two days amid an influx of Syrians from neighboring Lebanon and Jordan and an end to strict controls on trade in foreign currencies after the fall of the Assad government. Damascus currency traders cited exchange rates between 12,500 and 10,0000 on Saturday, a wide spread of between 20% and 50% stronger than the previous rate of 15,000, with high volatility in the market. The traders cited the return of thousands of Syrians who had sought refugee abroad during the country's 13-year war and the open use of U.S. dollars and Turkish currency in markets as having contributed to the change. Using foreign currencies for everyday trade could previously land Syrians in jail, and many feared even uttering the word "dollar" in public. More than 90% of Syrians live under the poverty line, according to U.N. agencies. The country's oil industry, manufacturing, tourism and other key sectors have been choked by years of fighting and large segments of the population are employed by a decrepit public sector where monthly wages average around 300,000 Syrian pounds. Syria's new government, picked by rebels who took Damascus on Sunday in a lightning offensive that toppled 50 years of Assad family rule, say they will raise wages and prioritize improving services. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/syrian-currency-firms-against-us-dollar-after-assads-fall-2024-12-14/

2024-12-14 11:44

Scientists use tech to analyze "DNA of Brazilian gold" Illegal gold mining surged as Bolsonaro weakened controls Artisanal mining is now big business for criminal gangs BRASILIA, Dec 14 (Reuters) - (This Dec. 14 story has been corrected to remove the reference to the share of Brazilian gold exports going to Switzerland, in paragraph 27) Harley Sandoval, an evangelical pastor, real estate agent and mining entrepreneur, was arrested in July 2023 for illegally exporting 294 kilos of gold from Brazil's Amazon to the United States, Dubai and Italy. On paper, the gold was sourced from a legal prospect Sandoval was licensed to mine in the northern state of Tocantins. But police said not an ounce of gold had been mined there since colonial times. Using cutting-edge forensic technology, along with satellite imagery, Brazil's Federal Police said it was able to establish that the exported gold did not come from the Tocantins prospect. Instead, it had been dug up from three different wildcat mines in neighboring Pará, some on protected Indigenous reservation lands, according to previously unreported court documents dated November 2023 seen by Reuters. The prosecution is one of the first in Brazil using the new technology to tackle clandestine trading that may account for as much as half of the gold output of Brazil, a major producer and exporter of the precious metal. Illegal gold mining has surged at thousands of sites in the Amazon rainforest, bringing environmental destruction and criminal violence to the region. Seizures of illegally mined gold have surged seven-fold in the past seven years, according to Federal Police records obtained exclusively by Reuters. Sandoval, who has been released pending trial and continues to preach with his wife at a Pentecostal Evangelical church in the central Brazilian city of Goiania, denies the allegations. He maintains there is no way to establish where the gold was mined once it is melted down into ingots for export. "That's impossible. To export gold one always has to melt it down," he told Reuters by telephone. THE DNA OF GOLD Historically, gold is notoriously difficult to trace, especially once metal from different sources has been melted together, erasing the original signatures. After that, it can easily be traded as a financial asset or be used in the jewelry industry. But investigators say that's starting to change. A police program called "Targeting Gold" is creating a database of samples from across Brazil that are examined with radio-isotope scans and fluorescence spectroscopy to determine the unique composition of elements. The technique, long used in archaeology, was pioneered in mining by University of Pretoria geologist Roger Dixon to help distinguish between legal and stolen gold. The program developed in partnership with university researchers includes the use of powerful light beams from a particle accelerator at a Sao Paulo lab to study nano-sized impurities associated with gold, be it dirt or other metals like lead or copper, that help trace its origins. Humberto Freire, director of the Federal Police's recently-created Environment and Amazon Department, said the technology allows scientists to analyze "the DNA of Brazilian gold." "Nature has marked the gold with isotopes and we can read these unique fingerprints with radio-isotope scans," Freire said. "With this tool we can trace illegal gold before it gets refined for export." The program has helped fuel an increase in gold seizures since leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office last year — up 38% in 2023 from 2022, according to government numbers seen by Reuters. New Brazil central bank gold market regulations, including mandatory electronic tax receipts for all trades and tightened monitoring of suspect transactions, have also helped, according to Freire. "We estimate that around 40% of the gold that is extracted in the Amazon is illegal," he told Reuters. Brazil exported 110 tonnes of gold in 2020 worth $5 billion, according to official data, ranking among the world's top 20 exporters. Last year, exports were 77.7 tonnes, a drop the government attributes to improved enforcement of illegal mining. INDIGENOUS TENSIONS Lula's predecessor, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro weakened environmental controls in the Amazon. That triggered a new gold rush in Brazil, spurred by record world gold prices that were driven up by geopolitical tensions and central bank purchases, led by China. Prices have continued to new highs, trading at around $2,650 per ounce on Friday. Gold rushes have been a hallmark of mineral-rich Brazil from its Portuguese colonial past. But the latest surge in wildcat mining beginning during Bolsonaro's administration has been unprecedented. Satellite images show there are some 80,000 such prospects today in the Amazon rainforest, more than ever registered before. Once dominated by prospectors with gold pans, artisanal mining in Brazil has become an industrial-scale activity with heavy excavating machinery and million-dollar river dredgers. Criminal organizations fly people, equipment and gold into and out of the region with helicopters and planes that land at clandestine airstrips. Their excavations often leave behind gaping ponds of sludge contaminated with mercury, used to separate the gold from dirt and other minerals. Last year, thousands of miners who invaded the Yanomami territory, the country's largest Indigenous reservation on the northern border with Venezuela, brought violence and disease that caused malnutrition and a humanitarian crisis among the tribe, prompting Lula to send in troops. But many returned this year after the military pulled out. Lula, who has pledged to stamp out illegal gold mining, tried to fight back by deploying special forces of the environmental protection agency Ibama into Indigenous reservations and forest conservation parks. Police say cracking down on the organized crime gangs that back the wildcat miners is the next step in staunching an illegal trade that feeds the jewelry industry worldwide. Amazon neighbors, including Colombia and French Guiana, are considering adopting the Brazilian gold analysis method to deal with their illegal gold trade and European governments have shown interest, including Switzerland and Britain, the top importers from Brazil after Canada, police and diplomats said. Brazil accounts for just 1% of gold imported by Switzerland, a global trade hub for the metal, and "measures are in place to import only legally mined gold," a Swiss embassy statement said. The embassy said it has set up a working group with other importing countries to study traceability and anti-counterfeiting tools. A 2022 study by non-profit watchdog Instituto Escolhas found that 52% of the gold exported from the Amazon was illegal, nearly all from protected Indigenous reservation lands or national conservation parks. A vibrant lobby for informal gold mining has survived Bolsonaro in Brazil's Conservative Congress, where pending bills propose legalizing wildcat mining. For now, though, gold samples from across Brazil are being added to a database with the help of scientists at the Federal Police's criminology institute lab in Brasilia, where forensic expert Erich Moreira Lima oversees microscopic scanning of gold nuggets that are kept in a safe. "Now that we have a team set up, we hope to analyze the 30,000 gold samples the Brazilian Geological Service has collected. In a few years, we should have mapped all Brazil's 24 gold producing regions," he told Reuters. Geologist Maria Emilia Schutesky and her team at the National University of Brasilia's geosciences lab conduct mass spectrometry scans on gold samples to identify associated molecules, such as lead, to place the gold's origins. "We researchers seek a 100% ability to trace gold, but that is more than what the police needs to prove a crime, which is just to establish that the gold does not come from where a suspects claims it is from," Schutesky said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/new-technology-aids-brazils-crackdown-illicit-amazon-gold-trade-2024-12-14/

2024-12-14 06:29

BEIJING/HONG KONG, Dec 14 (Reuters) - China's CNOOC Ltd (600938.SS) , opens new tab has sold its U.S. subsidiary, together with its upstream oil and gas assets in the Gulf of Mexico, to British chemicals group INEOS, according to a CNOOC statement issued on Saturday. The Chinese oil and gas major said CNOOC Energy Holdings U.S.A. entered into a sales agreement with a subsidiary of INEOS relating to CNOOC's upstream oil and gas assets in the U.S. part of the Gulf of Mexico. The deal primarily includes non-operator interests in oil and gas projects such as the Appomattox and Stampede fields. INEOS paid just under $2 billion for the assets, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter who was not authorised to speak to media. CNOOC said the transaction price was in line with market conditions but did not provide a figure, while INEOS declined to comment on the price. The Chinese firm aims to optimise its global asset portfolio and will work with INEOS towards a smooth transition, CNOOC International Chairman Liu Yongjie said in the statement. CNOOC has been sounding out potential buyers of its interests in U.S. oil and gas fields since 2022. Reuters had reported earlier CNOOC was considering an exit from operations in Britain, Canada and the United States over concerns those assets could become subject to Western sanctions because China had not condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chinas-cnooc-sells-us-assets-britains-ineos-2024-12-14/

2024-12-14 04:51

BEIJING, Dec 14 (Reuters) - China's economy is expected to grow by about 5% this year, the deputy director of the country's central financial and economic affairs commission said on Saturday. The world's second-largest economy is expected to contribute close to 30% of global growth, Han Wenxiu told an economic conference. Han, who is also a senior official in the ruling Communist Party, said there was a need to boost consumption and view domestic demand expansion as a long-term strategic move that would become the main driving force for economic growth. China pledged on Thursday to issue more debt and loosen monetary policy to maintain a stable economic growth rate, bracing for more trade tensions with the U.S. as Donald Trump returns to the White House. Government advisers have recommended that Beijing keep its growth target of around 5% for next year, Reuters reported last month. But while the stock market anticipates a revival in China's flagging consumption, bond investors are betting the economy will continue to struggle. Han said a more active fiscal policy and moderately loose monetary policy would help China respond better to unstable and uncertain factors in the economy, and provide strong support for achieving annual targets. China's foreign exchange reserves likely remained above $3.2 trillion this year while employment and prices are expected to remain stable, Han said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/chinas-gdp-growth-expected-around-5-this-year-senior-official-says-2024-12-14/