2024-07-19 22:09

July 19 (Reuters) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, disregarding international calls to release his country's political prisoners, suggested on Friday he would enlist them to clear up widespread damage from a storm. WHY IT IS IMPORTANT Lukashenko has long dismissed accusations of human rights abuse, but in the past week has faced calls by former Nobel laureates and U.N.-mandated experts to release more of the estimated 1,400 political prisoners in the country. Most of his rivals are in prison or have fled the country. CONTEXT Lukashenko staged a mass crackdown to quell protests by demonstrators who accused him of rigging his 2020 re-election. He maintained his hold on power after receiving assurances of support from Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2022, he allowed Putin to use Belarusian territory in the invasion of Ukraine. KEY QUOTES "Before everyone starts ... posting on the internet, get an axe or a saw and help out." "I have already told the interior minister ... he knows we have more than 20,000 inmates. And the so-called political prisoners. Send them to do the clearing. If needed, say so. Mobilise townspeople and especially these parasites." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/belaruss-lukashenko-suggests-political-prisoners-help-storm-clean-up-2024-07-19/

2024-07-19 21:53

July 19 (Reuters) - Maersk (MAERSKb.CO) , opens new tab on Friday said there was a fire incident on one of its chartered vessels sailing from Mundra, off the western coast of India to Colombo, Sri Lanka. The fire started due to a short circuit resulting in explosions and the death of a seaman from Philippines, local media said, adding that there were 21 crew members on board. The vessel is in stable condition, the company said in an emailed statement to Reuters. "At the moment, we are unable to confirm whether and to what extent is the impact of the fire," it added in the statement. The fire was reported around 2:30 p.m. local time and the vessel's crew has been engaged in firefighting with support from the Indian authorities, Maersk said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/maersk-reports-fire-incident-vessel-off-western-coast-india-2024-07-19/

2024-07-19 21:30

LSEG data feeds, FX pricing temporarily affected by outage European Energy Exchange says some clients had problems trading Schwab reports issues with some online functions Bank of America, Goldman Sachs see no major impact on systems LONDON/NEW YORK, July 19 (Reuters) - Trading returned to normal on Friday after a global technology outage hampered operations at financial firms from London to Singapore and New York, although a few residual problems remained, including outages at some JPMorgan Chase automated teller machines. A software update wreaked havoc on computer systems globally, grounding flights, forcing some broadcasters off air and hitting services from banking to healthcare. The outage sent ripples through financial markets during Asia and early European trading hours with a number of firms involved in various aspects of the trading process affected. LSEG Group (LSEG.L) , opens new tab, which runs the London Stock Exchange, said its Workspace news and data platform, regulatory news service and currency spot and forward prices had been affected by the outage caused by a "third-party global technical issue". By midday in London, most of those issues seemed to have been resolved. Securities trading on the London Stock Exchange was not affected. A spokesperson for FTSE Russell, which is part of LSEG, said that they were experiencing an impact to real-time platforms, "which is preventing clients from accessing and receiving data" and affecting its indices. The European Energy Exchange said in a statement , opens new tab on its website that clients using the Trayport power and gas trading platform were having problems trading "due to infrastructure issues with third-party service provider". At least six trading sources at oil majors Shell (SHEL.L) , opens new tab and BP (BP.L) , opens new tab as well as trading house Vitol said operations were affected. BP and Shell did not immediately respond to requests for comments. Vitol said core trading operations were functioning well though some individual computers and some processes that interface with third party systems were impacted temporarily. "Friday's global tech outage is an example of an unforeseen event that market participants always fear, but don't frequently think about," said Glen Smith, chief investment officer at GDS Wealth Management. By the start of U.S. business, normality was returning. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq said markets were operational and working normally. Major U.S. banks including Bank of America and Goldman Sachs said they had not seen any major impact on their systems or operations. Citigroup has also not been affected, a source familiar with the matter said. "The vast majority of our ATMs are operating normally and we are working to restore service to the remaining ATMs as quickly as possible," JPMorgan said. It has 16,000 ATMs across the U.S. and 4,800 branches. HURDLES TO ACCESSING SYSTEMS While there were no confirmed reports of trading difficulties as a result of the outage, some traders earlier said there were signs of disruption at smaller financial institutions. One London-based trader said several multilateral trading facilities were affected, leaving some clients unable to trade. Some banks and financial services firms said employees and customers had problems accessing their systems. "People can't switch their computers on after restarts. Those who didn't restart are doing fine," another trader said. Schwab had a posting on its website saying: "Due to a third-party, global, industry-wide issue, certain online functionality may be intermittently slow or unavailable. We’re actively monitoring the issue. Phone services may be disrupted and hold times may be longer than usual." Schwab did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Barclays (BARC.L) , opens new tab reported customers were unable to manage accounts on its digital investing platform Smart Investor. Germany's Allianz (ALVG.DE) , opens new tab said the outage affected the ability of employees to log on to their computers. Banks in South Africa also reported disruptions. A spokesperson at the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) said the outages had not had a systemic impact on the financial services industry. "Core functions, including banking and payment processing, are largely functioning with some scattered effects," the spokesperson said. Fitch said the latest event would likely increase regulatory scrutiny on IT providers. "Financial institutions' dependencies on third parties has grown in recent years as part of the ongoing digitalisation of the sector," said Monsur Hussain, Head of Financial Institutions Research at Fitch. "The economies of scale are compelling, but they can also bring systemic risks." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/traders-london-singapore-struggle-cyber-outage-disrupts-business-2024-07-19/

2024-07-19 21:26

SAO PAULO, July 19 (Reuters) - The world's top chicken exporter Brazil has voluntarily halted poultry exports to some countries after a case of Newcastle disease was detected in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, its agriculture ministry said on Friday. The move comes as local authorities try to contain the viral disease after around 7,000 birds died on a chicken farm in Brazil's southernmost state. The flock's remaining 7,000 birds were culled to comply with health protocols, according to meat lobby group ABPA. From a sample of 12 birds from the flock, government investigators found at least one positive case of Newcastle, ABPA, which represents exporters such as JBS (JBSS3.SA) , opens new tab and BRF (BRFS3.SA) , opens new tab, said. Newcastle causes respiratory problems in birds and sometimes leads to death. The temporary export restrictions could affect 50,000 to 60,000 metric tons of Brazilian poultry exports "in the worst-case scenario," ABPA said. Brazil produces 1.2 million tons and exports 430,000 tons of poultry products, on average, per month. The restrictions range, depending on the destination country, from all Brazilian poultry exports to products only from Rio Grande do Sul, the agriculture ministry said. The restrictions affect sales to 44 nations including China, Argentina, the European Union, Japan and Saudi Arabia, the ministry said. Rio Grande do Sul accounts for 15% of Brazilian poultry production and exports, according to ABPA. The agriculture ministry declared an animal health emergency in Rio Grande do Sul due to the Newcastle case. Notification by countries of Newcastle cases is mandatory under guidelines from the World Organisation for Animal Health. The last previous confirmed cases of Newcastle in Brazil occurred in 2006 in subsistence birds in the states of Amazonas, Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Sul, according to the ministry. Subsistence birds meet a family's need for food and are not kept for trade. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazil-declares-animal-health-emergency-rio-grande-do-sul-after-newcastle-2024-07-19/

2024-07-19 21:20

July 19 (Reuters) - A global tech outage that appeared to be related to issues at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike (CRWD.O) , opens new tab and Microsoft (MSFT.O) , opens new tab affected operations at airports, airlines, banks and media outlets on Friday. Here is a list of disruptions that have been reported across sectors: AIRPORTS, AIRLINES Airports and airlines around the globe warned of delays and cancellations or switched to manual check-ins, with some halting flights. - Berlin airport temporarily halted all flights, a spokesperson told Reuters. Lufthansa's (LHAG.DE) , opens new tab Eurowings said it was halting domestic German flights as well as flights to and from Britain until 3 p.m. (1300 GMT). - Spanish airport operator Aena (AENA.MC) , opens new tab reported a computer systems incident, while Lisbon airport, Portugal's biggest, also experienced disruptions. Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport and Brussels airport were also reportedly affected. - Top Dutch airline KLM (AIRF.PA) , opens new tab said it could not handle flights on Friday and had suspended most of its operations. Air France, KLM's parent company, also said its operations were disrupted. - Turkish Airlines was experiencing problems with ticketing, check-ins and booking, it said in a post on X. Budapest Airport said several airline check-in systems were out of operation. - Major U.S. carriers including American Airlines (AAL.O) , opens new tab, Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) , opens new tab and United Airlines (UAL.O) , opens new tab halted flights on Friday morning, citing communication issues. American Airlines later said it had re-established operations. Frontier and Spirit, too, canceled directives to ground planes. - Ryanair (RYA.I) , opens new tab said it had canceled a small number of flights. - An SAS spokesperson said the Scandinavian airline was expecting delays. - Qantas (QAN.AX) , opens new tab, Australia's national airline, and Sydney airport said planes were delayed but still flying. - Swiss air traffic control company Skyguide said it had temporarily reduced Swiss air traffic capacity by 30%. - Roughly 90% of flights at London Gatwick Airport and London Stansted Airport had been delayed or canceled. - Indian carriers including SpiceJet (SPJT.BO) , opens new tab, Indigo, Akasa Air, Vistara, Air India and Air India Express were also experiencing problems on Friday. - Philippines' Cebu Air (CEB.PS) , opens new tab said it was facing technical issues and system downtime due to the Microsoft outage. FINANCIALS - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) , opens new tab said that the majority of its ATMs were operating normally and that the bank was working to restore service to the remaining ATMs. - Australia's largest bank, Commonwealth Bank (CBA.AX) , opens new tab, said earlier issues affecting PayID instant transfers had been resolved. Services including Netbank, the CommBank app, CommBiz, merchant payments and ATMs were available. - Several major oil and gas trading desks in London and Singapore were struggling to execute trades, six industry sources told Reuters. The Singapore Exchange said some services including its price feed web service were momentarily impacted. - Macquarie Capital was unable to provide liquidity for unexpired warrants on HKEX. - Services of South African lenders Capitec Bank (CPIJ.J) , opens new tab and Absa (ABGJ.J) , opens new tab were fully restored after experiencing disruptions. - London Stock Exchange Group's's (LSEG.L) , opens new tab Workspace news and data platform suffered an outage that affected user access worldwide, causing disruption across financial markets. It said in a client memo that technical problems on FX spot and forward rates had been resolved and services restored. - Some brokerages in India were facing technical difficulties, traders at the brokerages told Reuters. - German insurer Allianz (ALVG.DE) , opens new tab said it was experiencing a major outage that was impacting employees' ability to log on to their computers. - Some German banks were facing disruptions, a spokesperson for the Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft financial industry association said on Friday, without providing details. - Barclays (BARC.L) , opens new tab said its Smart Investor digital investing platform had been impacted. - Brazilian lender Bradesco said its digital platforms were unavailable on Friday. MEDIA - Britain's Sky News resumed broadcasting after an hours-long outage, but was operating at minimal capacity and without many of its usual services. - Australia's state broadcaster, ABC, said it was experiencing a "major network outage", without giving a reason. - Regular programming at Sky News Australia was disrupted. EMERGENCY SERVICES, HEALTHCARE - England's National Health Service said bookings of doctors' appointments and patient records were disrupted, but emergency services had not been affected. - Several hospitals in the Netherlands had to scale down their operations, Dutch press agency ANP reported. - Victoria state police in Australia said some internal systems had been hit, but emergency services were operating normally. - Copenhagen's fire department said on X it was experiencing problems receiving automatically transmitted fire alarms, and urged people to call 112 in case of a fire. - Two hospitals in the northern German cities of Luebeck and Kiel canceled elective operations scheduled for Friday. - Non-profit hospital chain Mass General Brigham said the outage affected many of its systems. Due to the severity of the issue, it canceled all previously scheduled non-urgent surgeries, procedures and medical visits for the day. - Quest Diagnostics (DGX.N) , opens new tab said its patient services and customer contact teams were operating with reduced capacity and patients might experience longer waiting and service times. - Laboratory service provider Labcorp (LH.N) , opens new tab said the outage was impacting some of its business systems, call center operations and results delivery, including physician and patient portals. - Hospital operator Providence said it restored a key functionality allowing nurses, physicians and caregivers to access patient records and perform clinical documentation, but other clinical applications and workstations were still impacted. SHIPPING, LOGISTICS - Maersk (MAERSKb.CO) , opens new tab said the outage affected some of its operated terminals, but all were back in operation within a few hours. - FedEx Corp (FDX.N) , opens new tab said that its network was now operating across the globe after it faced substantial disruptions due to a worldwide IT outage experienced by a third-party software vendor. Rival UPS (UPS.N) , opens new tab also warned of potential delivery delays. - Railroad operator Union Pacific (UNP.N) , opens new tab said the CrowdStrike software outage had "varying levels of impact" across its network, but backup protocols helped it communicate with its teams and dispatchers. It later said its network was open to business. OTHERS - Critical infrastructure in Germany had been affected, an interior ministry spokesperson said. - New Zealand's parliamentary computer systems were affected, according to Rafael Gonzalez-Montero, head of the parliamentary service. - Australia's Telstra Group (TLS.AX) , opens new tab was facing disruptions to some of its systems, a spokesperson for the telecom firm told Reuters. - The Baltic Hub container terminal in the Polish city of Gdansk said it was hit by the global outage in Microsoft systems and was working to solve the issue. - The Paris Olympics organizing committee said the cyber outage was slowing its operations, but the impact was limited and ticket sales were unaffected. - The United Arab Emirates foreign ministry said its electronic systems were functioning normally again. - Maruti Suzuki (MRTI.NS) , opens new tab, India's largest carmaker, said it briefly halted production and despatch operations. It resumed operations and did not expect a material impact from the incident. - Port Houston said two of its terminals experienced system failures as part of the global tech outage. All systems were later up and running. - U.S. telecom giant Verizon (VZ.N) , opens new tab initially said "global IT issues" might impact some of its services and store operations could be limited, but its network was not impacted. - Soccer club Manchester United (MANU.N) , opens new tab said on X that it had to postpone a scheduled release of tickets. - Starbucks (SBUX.O) , opens new tab said its mobile order-ahead and pay features were temporarily down due to a worldwide tech outage. - North American pipeline operator Enbridge (ENB.TO) , opens new tab said it did experience some impacts to business applications as a result of the CrowdStrike software update. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/what-disruptions-have-been-reported-after-global-tech-outage-2024-07-19/

2024-07-19 20:56

July 19 (Reuters) - FedEx Corp (FDX.N) , opens new tab said that its network was now operating across the globe after it faced substantial disruptions due to a worldwide IT outage experienced by a third party software vendor on Friday. A global tech outage was disrupting operations in multiple industries on Friday, with airlines halting flights, some broadcasters going off-air and everything from banking to healthcare hit by system problems. It was not clear if the network disruption reported by FedEx were related to outages at Microsoft (MSFT.O) , opens new tab and cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. "We are working diligently to lessen any potential service impacts resulting from a global IT outage," FedEx said in a statement. FedEx's peer United Parcel Service (UPS.N) , opens new tab had also warned of potential delivery delays and added that contingency plans were in place. Railroad operator Union Pacific Corp (UNP.N) , opens new tab, which earlier in the day said the CrowdStrike software outage had "varying levels of impact" across its network, later said it was open for business. "Our key customer applications, including waybill systems, are functional," Union Pacific said in a statement. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/fedex-experienced-network-disruptions-due-global-it-outage-2024-07-19/