2024-03-31 06:24

KYIV, March 31 (Reuters) - Russia launched 16 missiles and 11 drones at Ukraine in an overnight air attack, Ukraine's air force said on Sunday morning. In a statement on Telegram, the air force said it had managed to down nine of the drones and nine of the missiles. It did not identify their targets. For over a week, Russia has significantly stepped up an air strike campaign against Ukrainian energy facilities, causing significant damage and leaving Ukrainians fearing a return to the blackouts seen in the first winter of the full-scale war. Ukraine's largest private energy firm, DTEK, said on Saturday that five of its six plants had been damaged or destroyed with 80% of its generating capacity lost, and that repairs could take up to 18 months. The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-says-russia-fired-16-missiles-11-drones-overnight-2024-03-31/

2024-03-30 21:03

KYIV, March 30 (Reuters) - The head of Ukraine's largest private energy firm, DTEK, said on Saturday that five of its six plants had been damaged or destroyed with 80% of its generating capacity lost after two weeks of Russian attacks and that repairs could take up to 18 months. Russian missile and drone attacks hit thermal and hydro power plants in central and western Ukraine overnight on Friday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address on Saturday, said Russia was carrying out "vile strikes" designed to cause the "bleeding" of Ukrainian energy. "America, Europe, our other partners, everyone knows what we need," he said. "Everyone knows how important it is right now to help us protect ourselves from these strikes." DTEK, which meets about a quarter of the country's needs, has seen its thermal power stations and other facilities repeatedly hit by Russian missiles, drones and artillery in more than two years of war. DTEK Executive Director Dmytro Sakharuk said in remarks shown on national television that waves of attacks on March 22 and March 29 had hit thermal and hydro production "in almost all regions" and that distribution facilities were destroyed. "To be specific, five out of six of our stations were severely damaged, some units were destroyed, some were damaged by 50% or more," he said. "This applies to both the western regions and the central regions, and both the equipment necessary for the production of electricity and for transmission from the station to the grid were damaged," he said. His company suffered losses amounting to $300 million for equipment alone, he said, while labour costs would require as much as half as much again. "We have determined that 80% of the available generating capacity is not working now," he added. A senior official at the Centrenergo generating company said the 10-unit Zmiivska thermal plant in northeastern Kharkiv region had been destroyed in the March 22 attacks. DTEK spent $110 million restoring 10 blocks hit by Russian attacks last year, Sakharuk said, with two-thirds of those now destroyed again. It will require months of repairs, he said, and in some cases as long as a year and half. "It takes time to manufacture a turbine or a generator or a transformer, so you need be prepared for the fact that the power will return gradually," he said. The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-power-firm-hit-by-russian-attacks-warns-repairs-could-take-18-months-2024-03-30/

2024-03-30 20:32

March 30 (Reuters) - Salvage crews worked to lift the first piece of Baltimore's collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge from the water on Saturday to allow barges and tugboats to access the disaster site, Maryland and U.S. officials said, the first step in a complex effort to reopen the city's blocked port. The steel truss bridge collapsed early on Tuesday morning, killing six road workers, when a massive container ship lost power and crashed into a support pylon. Much of the span crashed into the Patapsco River, blocking the Port of Baltimore's shipping channel. Maryland Governor Wes Moore told a news conference that a section of the bridge's steel superstructure north of the crash site would be cut into a piece that could be lifted by crane onto a barge and brought to the nearby Tradepoint Atlantic site at Sparrows Point. "This will eventually allow us to open up a temporary restricted channel that will help us to get more vessels in the water around the site of the collapse," Moore said. He declined to provide a timeline for this portion of the clearance work. "It's not going to take hours," he said. "It's not going to take days, but once we complete this phase of the work, we can move more tugs and more barges and more boats into the area to accelerate our recovery." Workers will not yet attempt to remove a crumpled part of the bridge's superstructure that is resting on the bow of the Dali, the 984-foot Singapore-flagged container ship that brought down the bridge. Moore said it was unclear when the ship could be moved, but said that its hull, while damaged, is "intact." "This is a remarkably complex operation," Moore said of the effort to clear bridge debris and open the Port of Baltimore to shipping traffic. The bodies of two workers who were repairing the bridge deck at the time of the disaster have been recovered, but Moore said efforts to recover four others presumed dead remain suspended because conditions are too dangerous for divers to work amid too much debris. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath told reporters that teams from the Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy's salvage arm and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the debris from the Patapsco River's deep-draft shipping channel would have to be removed before the Dali could be moved. Saturday's operation involves cutting a piece just north of that channel and lifting it with a 160-ton marine crane onto a barge. A larger, 1,000-ton crane also is at the bridge site. The piece will be brought to Tradepoint Atlantic, the site of the former Bethlehem Steel Mill which is being developed into a distribution center for companies including Amazon.com (AMZN.O) , opens new tab, Home Depot (HD.N) , opens new tab and Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) , opens new tab. The facility's port, which sits on the Chesapeake Bay side of the collapsed bridge, is fully operational. Tradepoint Atlantic did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the company's role in the salvage operation. Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefield said that Tradepoint officials had agreed to allow other ships to unload vehicles at the facility's deepwater dock to be prepared for shipment to dealers. In Oklahoma, authorities said on Saturday they shut down a portion of U.S. highway 59 near Sallisaw after a barge struck a bridge over the Arkansas River. There were no immediate reports of injuries, according to media reports, and officials would be conducting inspections of the bridge. Five days after the tragedy in Maryland, the jobs of some 15,000 people whose work revolves around daily port operation are on hold. While logistics experts say that other East Coast ports should be able to handle container traffic, Baltimore is the largest U.S. port for "roll-on, roll-off" vehicle imports and exports of farm and construction equipment. U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said the Small Business Administration has approved the state's request for a disaster declaration that allows small firms affected by the disaster to apply for emergency low-interest loans of up to $2 million through the end of 2024. The federal government on Thursday awarded Maryland an initial $60 million in emergency funds to clear debris and begin rebuilding the Key Bridge, an extraordinarily fast disbursement. President Joe Biden has pledged that the federal government would cover all costs of removing the debris and rebuilding the bridge. Get weekly news and analysis on the U.S. elections and how it matters to the world with the newsletter On the Campaign Trail. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/salvage-crews-lift-first-piece-collapsed-baltimore-bridge-2024-03-30/

2024-03-30 17:57

LARNACA, Cyprus, March 30 (Reuters) - Ships carrying 332 tons of food for Gaza left Cyprus's Larnaca port on Saturday in a convoy which will reach the besieged enclave early next week, authorities said. It is the second shipment this month after Israel eased a 17-year naval blockade on the Gaza Strip to allow aid in from Cyprus, sourced by U.S. charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) for starving Palestinians. The aid will be taken to Gaza on a cargo ship and a barge towed by a salvage vessel, along with a tugboat carrying a support team in a journey which will take about 60 hours, a Cypriot official told Reuters. Cypriot authorities have established, in cooperation with Israel, a maritime corridor to facilitate pre-screened cargoes arriving directly in Gaza. WCK, which has been active in Gaza for months, arranged the mission with Spain's Open Arms charity, with financing mainly from the UAE and support from Cypriot authorities. On its first mission earlier in March, it built a makeshift jetty from rubble to offload almost 200 tons of food in the enclave, which does not have any port facilities. Saturday's convoy includes two forklifts and a crane to assist with future marine deliveries, as well as a team to operate the crane. Separately, the United States plans to construct a floating pier off Gaza to receive aid. The target for completion is May 1, but it could be ready by around April 15, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said late on Friday, citing briefings with U.S. officials earlier in the week. The United Nations has warned that famine is imminent in the northern Gaza Strip, where 300,000 people are trapped by fighting. More than half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million could face famine by July. Aid agencies say food delivered by sea to Gaza, though welcome, cannot meet people's needs and they have urged Israel to allow more aid to arrive by land. U.N. officials have accused Israel of blocking humanitarian supplies to Gaza. Israeli officials reject those accusations and say the delivery of aid once inside the territory is the responsibility of U.N. and humanitarian agencies. The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/second-shipment-with-almost-400-tons-food-gaza-leaves-cyprus-port-2024-03-30/

2024-03-30 17:52

VALLETTA, March 30 (Reuters) - Air Malta was set to cease operations on Saturday to make way for another government-owned airline after European Union regulators blocked another public bailout for the national flag carrier, the airline and the Maltese government said. Air Malta will fold 50 years after its first flight. It is set to be succeeded on Sunday by a new state-owned carrier, called KM Malta Airlines, which will take over eight Airbus A320 aircraft which Air Malta had operated on lease. Air Malta operated a network of flights to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, but wilted under government interference which yielded a bloated workforce and an unsustainable wage bill. Finance Minister Clyde Caruana said in October that Air Malta made losses for 20 years and at one time employed 1,400 people to operate nine aircraft. The new airline will operate eight aircraft with fewer than 400 staffers, he added. Make sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments with the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/maltese-flag-carrier-air-malta-folds-be-replaced-by-new-airline-2024-03-30/

2024-03-30 15:28

ATHENS, March 30 (Reuters) - Greek authorities have arrested a senior member of an international gang that smuggled Latin American fuel products for illegal sale around the world, raking in an estimated profit of more than $21 billion, police said on Saturday. The gang member, an Italian national for whom Interpol had issued an arrest warrant, was found in a southern Athens suburb on Friday, a police official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. The warrant had ordered the man's arrest and his extradition to Venezuela to be tried for crimes including the illegal transport and trade of resources of strategic importance, the official said. The gang stole the fuel products that were loaded onto its oil tankers from ports in Latin America, and switched off tracking transponders to deceive shipping brokers, police said in a statement. The criminal organisation made a profit of more than $21 billion from the smuggling, harming both brokers and their countries, police said. The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/greece-arrests-member-gang-that-raked-21-bln-fuel-product-smuggling-2024-03-30/