2024-11-10 01:44

OTTAWA, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Canada has detected its first presumptive case of H5 bird flu in a person, a teenager in the western province of British Columbia, health officials said on Saturday. The teenager likely caught the virus from a bird or animal and was receiving care at a children's hospital, the province said in a statement. The province said it was investigating the source of exposure and identifying the teenager's contacts. The risk to the public remains low, Canada's Health Minister Mark Holland said in posting on X. "This is a rare event," British Columbia Health Officer Bonnie Henry said in a statement. "We are conducting a thorough investigation to fully understand the source of exposure here in B.C." H5 bird flu is widespread in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in poultry and U.S. dairy cows, with several recent human cases in U.S. dairy and poultry workers. There has been no evidence of person-to-person spread so far. But if that were to happen, a pandemic could unfold, scientists have said. Earlier in November, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked for farm workers who have been exposed to animals with bird flu to be tested for the virus even if they do not have symptoms. Bird flu has infected nearly 450 dairy farms in 15 U.S. states since March, and the CDC has identified 46 human cases of bird flu since April. In Canada, British Columbia has identified at least 22 infected poultry farms since October, and numerous wild birds tested positive, according to the province. Canada has had no cases reported in dairy cattle and no evidence of bird flu in samples of milk. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/british-columbia-detects-first-presumptive-human-h5-bird-flu-case-canada-2024-11-10/

2024-11-09 20:53

VALENCIA, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia on Saturday over regional authorities' handling of devastating floods that killed more than 220 people in one of Europe's worst natural disasters for decades. In the latest demonstration over the floods, protesters filled the centre of Valencia demanding the resignation of regional government leader Carlos Mazon and chanting "Killers!". "Our hands are stained with mud, yours with blood," read one banner. Some demonstrators dumped dirty boots outside the government building while others plastered it with mud. Residents in stricken areas accuse Mazon of issuing an alert too late, at 8 p.m. on Oct. 29, well after water was already pouring into many nearby towns and villages. The Valencian leader has said he would have issued an earlier alarm earlier if authorities had been notified of the seriousness of the situation by an official water monitoring body. Mazon did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. "We want to show our indignation and anger over the poor management of this disaster which has affected so many people," said Anna Oliver, president of Accio Cultural del Pais Valenciano, one of about 30 groups that organised the protest. Though the demonstration was largely peaceful, police charged stone-throwing protesters at one point and objects hurled at the city council building caused minor damage. Following days of storm warnings from the national weather service from Oct. 25 onward, some municipalities and local bodies raised the alarm much earlier than the regional government. For example, Valencia University told its staff on Oct. 28 not to come to work. Several town halls suspended activities, shut down public facilities and told people to stay home. Weather service AEMET raised its threat level for heavy rains in the area to a red alert at 7:36 a.m. on Oct. 29. Nearly 80 people are still missing in what is the most deadly deluge in a single European country since floods in Portugal in 1967 killed around 500. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/thousands-protest-over-handling-spanish-flood-disaster-2024-11-09/

2024-11-09 20:45

HOUSTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) - More than a quarter of crude oil production and nearly 17% of natural gas output in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico was offline in the aftermath of Hurricane Rafael, the U.S. offshore energy regulator said on Saturday. The late season storm entered the Gulf of Mexico as a powerful category three hurricane on Wednesday and moved into the central Gulf, prompting oil firms to evacuate dozens of production and drilling facilities. Rafael has weakened into a tropical storm, but will meander in the central Gulf for at least the next two days, the National Hurricane Center said. There were 490,241 barrels of oil and 313 million cubic feet of natural gas shut-in on Saturday, offshore regulator Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) reported. U.S. Gulf of Mexico federal offshore oil production accounts for 15% of total U.S. crude oil production and 2% of dry natural gas production. Oil and gas workers have been evacuated from 41 of the 371 manned production platforms, and seven drilling vessels have been moved out of the storm's path, BSEE said. Storm losses this week have totaled 1.59 million barrels of oil and 826 million cubic feet of natural gas, according to BSEE data. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/more-than-quarter-us-gulf-mexico-oil-output-offline-2024-11-09/

2024-11-09 18:15

MEXICO CITY, Nov 9 (Reuters) - An agreement aimed at ensuring more regular water from Mexico to the United States has been reached, both governments said on Saturday, following a long period of tension over a decades-old treaty. A new measure of the International Boundary and Water Commission, which oversees the 1944 U.S.-Mexico water treaty, will provide Mexico with "tools and flexibility to deliver water earlier in the five-year cycle," a statement by the IBWC said. The neighboring countries have tussled over the 1944 treaty, which was designed to allocate shared water resources. Mexico is required to send 1.75 million acre-feet of water from the Rio Grande to the United States over a five-year cycle, supplying farmers with critical irrigation. The Latin American country, however, has not fully delivered recently amid some of the most severe drought-driven water shortages in nearly 30 years. Mexico said in its own statement that the measure would provide greater reliability and predictability in water allocations to users in both countries, establish new working groups and improve water quality in the Rio Grande basin. The new measure was the result of 18 months of negotiation, the IBWC said. Mexico and the United States will establish working groups to "develop water conservation for the benefit of both countries," the IBWC said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-mexico-reach-agreement-rio-grande-water-deliveries-amid-drought-shortages-2024-11-09/

2024-11-09 16:09

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said he was not concerned about a potential clash between the Fed and President-elect Donald Trump because both major U.S. political parties want inflation lower. "I am not concerned about the dynamics in Washington," following Tuesday's election of Trump, Kashkari said in an interview on Fox News. "Both sides of the aisle want us to keep the economy strong and get inflation down." "We have made a lot of progress and we want to get the job done," said Kashkari, the first Fed policymaker to speak publicly following the central bank's decision last week to cut the benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to a range from 4.5% to 4.75%. Kashkari did not express a view on further rate reductions as soon as the Fed's December meeting, but noted that recent strong growth and productivity gains might point to the need for higher interest rates than otherwise. "I have been surprised at how resilient the economy has been," Kashkari said. "If that is sustained and we are in a structurally more productive economy going forward, that tells me we wouldn't end up cutting as far." Trump's election raised the prospect he would renew the spat he had with Fed chair Jerome Powell over interest rate policy in his initial term, when the president wanted lower interest rates. But the emphasis has shifted since then to completing the battle against inflation, an issue that was central to Trump's campaign. "I have a lot of confidence on the structures in place that force us and focus us on doing our economic jobs," Kashkari said. "Everybody wants inflation back down and a strong labor market." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/feds-kashkari-both-political-parties-want-inflation-lower-fox-news-2024-11-09/

2024-11-09 15:25

ACCRA, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Ghana, the world's number two cocoa producer, has raised the fixed farmgate price paid to cocoa farmers for the second time this 2024/25 season to help boost farmers' incomes, President Nana Akufo-Addo said. Akufo-Addo, whose two-term mandate ends on Jan. 7, 2025, said at a farmers' award ceremony late on Friday that cocoa farmers would now receive 49,600 Ghanaian cedi ($3,062) per metric ton compared with the 48,000 Ghanaian cedi announced when the season opened on Sept. 1. A cocoa marketing board (Cocobod) spokesperson said the increase had been introduced with immediate effect. Reports of a possible price hike led to farmers' hoarding beans in October, potentially squeezing global supplies. The authorities have been seeking to increase farmers' incomes and deter smuggling, which led to Ghana losing more than a third of its cocoa output for 2023/24, according to Cocobod officials. This compounded sectoral woes that brought Ghana's production to a more than two-decade low, helping send global cocoa prices to record highs. Akufo-Addo also said he had directed Cocobod to provide scholarships to cocoa farmers' children in tertiary education. However Bright Simons, a vice president at Accra-based think tank IMANI Africa, said the motivation for the policies "appears to be strictly about votes in the impending elections", noting that the price hike was significantly below the cumulative effects of inflation and currency depreciation, muting the potential impact. Ghana, one of Africa's most stable democracies, heads to the polls on Dec. 7 to elect a replacement to Akufo-Addo, who first came to office in 2017. Vice President Muhamudu Bawumia of the ruling New Patriotic Party, and former president John Mahama of the main opposition National Democratic Congress party, are the main contenders. Polls from Accra-based research group Global InfoAnalytics tip Mahama to win as Ghana's worst economic crisis in a generation weighs against the ruling party. Bawumia, an economist and former central banker, is seen as the face of the government's economic policies. Ghana's cocoa production is second only to neighbouring Ivory Coast. ($1 = 16.2000 Ghanaian cedi) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/ghana-raises-cocoa-farmgate-price-again-2024-11-09/