2024-05-31 07:03

Some buildings without power after Russian attack Energy company says debris hit power facilities Kharkiv and southern areas also targeted in air strikes KYIV, May 31 (Reuters) - A Russian missile attack on Kyiv destroyed a power facility and damaged the power grid in Holosiivskyi district of the Ukrainian capital on Friday, the DTEK energy company said. Ukraine's Air Force said on the Telegram messaging app that Russia attacked Kyiv with an Iskander short-range ballistic missile and drones. Russia has been stepping up air strikes and ground attacks on Ukraine as it seeks to capture more territory in the country's east and northeast, but the overnight air attack was not as intense as some previous onslaughts. Ukraine's largest private energy company said power had been restored to most of the buildings affected by the attack with back-up sources, leaving some 10 private residences and one business without power. All aerial targets were destroyed on their approach to the city, Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv's military administration, said on Telegram. There were no injuries, according to preliminary information, but missile debris fell down and damaged the facility and the grid. Ukraine's Air Force also said that Russia attacked the battered city of Kharkiv overnight with five anti-aircraft guided missiles and that Ukraine's forces also downed attack drones over the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions. There was no immediate comment from Russia about the attack. Moscow denies targeting civilians in the war that has killed thousands since February 2022 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-missile-attack-kyiv-sparks-fire-ukraine-military-says-2024-05-31/

2024-05-31 06:55

May 31 (Reuters) - Petrofac (PFC.L) New Tab, opens new tab reported higher annual losses on Friday, as the British oilfield services provider struggled with significant losses in its biggest division, Engineering & Construction (E&C). The company posted an incremental loss of about $190 million in its E&C division for the year, higher than its expectations of about $130 million. However, it said operating activity would be higher for the business in 2024. Full-year losses widened to $505 million from $320 million in the previous year, as the company also grappled with payment delays and cost overruns. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/petrofacs-annual-losses-swell-challenges-biggest-division-2024-05-31/

2024-05-31 06:28

LONDON, May 31 (Reuters) - The optics of sterling hitting its highest since 2016's Brexit referendum after a surprise UK election announcement is hard to ignore - and may suggest hope at margin for a healing of Brexit-related economic damage. What Washington's Peterson Institute for International Economics described this week as a "self-inflicted wound", Britain's messy exit from the European Union has dogged inward investment, the pound and British markets for almost a decade. That Brexit hurt the economy now seems uncontroversial to most observers. Only last month, the Bank of England's (BoE) next deputy governor for monetary policy Clare Lombardelli said the "evidence suggests that Brexit has had a negative economic impact through investment and trade." While parallel shocks from the pandemic and Ukraine-related energy and inflation spikes make the precise size of the negative hit hard to measure, Lombardelli New Tab, opens new tab said analysis showed Brexit had led to a large and long-lasting increase in uncertainty and reduced investment, output and productivity. Experts aside, the public seems to have figured that out already. Opinion polls now consistently show those who think it was wrong to leave the EU some 20 points ahead of those who still think it was right. Some show big majorities even in favour of re-joining. Whether a likely change of government shifts the dial significantly on the issue is still far from clear, but relations between Britain and the European Union could hardly get much worse than they've been for the past eight years. This month's surprise announcement of a July 4 election left the pound and broader British asset prices largely unruffled, with betting markets now putting more than a 90% chance the opposition Labour Party returns to power for the first time in 14 years, with opinion poll leads consistently above 20 points. As ever, a blizzard of other factors influence sterling's recent rise - not least scaled-back expectations for a summer interest rate cut from the BoE. But mounting pound strength into a change of government - which includes its rise against the euro to levels not seen since before the government budget farce of late 2022 - looks more than just a cyclical twist or turn. The BoE's trade-weighted sterling index hit its strongest this week since the 2016 referendum that eventually took Britain out of EU in 2020, 47 years after it joined the common market. Although still some 5% below pre-referendum levels, the pound has rebounded well over 10% from the nadir of its 2022 budget-related collapse and is up about 2.5% this year alone. But the return to 2016 levels is a notable milestone. And what's more, long-unloved, under-owned and heavily-discounted British stocks have finally joined peers at record highs this month despite the pound's rise. LABOUR'S SIDESTEP Although Labour has been keen to avoid what it sees as a divisive Brexit issue on the hustings and ruled out any plans to return to the EU's single market or customs union, it has pledged to renegotiate the post-Brexit agreement with the Brussels trading bloc. Last September, Labour leader and likely next Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised to improve the trading relationship with the EU in 2025 if his party won the election. Starmer said he would seek closer EU ties when the partnership comes up for review next year, aiming to improve the 2021 Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) struck by former PM Boris Johnson in areas such as security, innovation and research. That sounds marginal and far from any suggestion of a major Brexit reversal. But the sort of large Labour parliamentary majority currently projected may give a new government considerable latitude to reengage with Brussels on a whole host of issues should it so wish. For markets monitoring the situation, publication of election manifestos in the coming weeks now marks the next juncture, even if hopes for anything concrete on Brexit in these is low and with polling indicating the issue is low on the list of voter priorities right now. AXA Investment Managers Chief Economist Gilles Moec doubts either party will want to deal with Brexit head on before the vote, even though he thinks it is the "elephant in the room" when it comes to the overall economic picture. And JPMorgan's Allan Monks fears the absence of something more pointed in its manifesto may mean Labour will not have a mandate to act more forcefully over the years ahead. "Governments often deviate from manifesto pledges, but given the controversy of this issue that appears very unlikely here without a public vote," Monks said. "The TCA is up for a review... but the EU has indicated that this is about resolving teething problems rather than an opportunity to open up the agreement for meaningful changes." Low expectations shaping room for a surprise? Or perhaps there are simply other fish to fry? Brexit hopes or not, the pound seems to be making up its own mind either way. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/pound-nears-2016-levels-election-nods-new-brexit-tack-mike-dolan-2024-05-31/

2024-05-31 06:27

MIDRAND, South Africa, May 31 (Reuters) - South African parties geared up for coalition talks on Friday as the governing African National Congress (ANC) looked set to fall well short of a majority for the first time in 30 years of democracy. While the party of the late Nelson Mandela looked likely to remain the largest political force after Wednesday's election, voters appeared to have punished the former liberation movement for years of decline. With results in from 61.2% of polling stations, the ANC had 41.9% of votes, a precipitous drop from the 57.5% it secured in the last national election in 2019. The pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA) was in second place on 23%. uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), a new party led by former president Jacob Zuma, was at 11.7% and eating into ANC support, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma's home province. MK had overtaken the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), currently the third biggest party in parliament, which was sitting on 9.5%. Political parties' share of the vote will determine the number of seats they get in the National Assembly, which then elects the next president. That could still be the ANC's leader, incumbent President Cyril Ramaphosa. However, an embarrassing showing at the polls risks fuelling a leadership challenge -- but the ANC's Deputy Secretary-General Nomvula Mokonyane said he would not resign. "Nobody is going to resign ... Collectively, all of us, we still are confident that he (Ramaphosa) has to remain the president of the ANC," she told reporters at the results centre. "The leadership of the ANC will meet, structures of the ANC will be consulted. For now we are not talking to anybody," she said. The ANC had won every previous national election since the historic 1994 vote that ended white minority rule, but over the last decade South Africans have watched the economy stagnate, unemployment and poverty climb and infrastructure crumble, leading to regular power outages. 'DOOMSDAY COALITION' Speculation was intense about which party or parties the ANC may approach to form a coalition and remain in government, or what other negotiations might be going on behind closed doors. DA leader John Steenhuisen said calls would start over the weekend and his first move would be to meet other members of the Multi-Party Charter (MPC), an alliance of 11 opposition parties that was formed before the election to see whether it could be expanded. "The election (has) taken place now, we've got to play the hand that the voters have given us so we will look at a variety of options that will exist," he told Reuters. There was no clear path for MPC member parties to collectively secure more than 50% of the vote share and seats in parliament, unless it enlisted one of the EFF or MK, which seemed highly unlikely. The DA, the biggest party in the MPC, has denounced those parties as extremists and said an alliance between them and the ANC would be a "doomsday coalition". Before the election, Steenhuisen did not ruled out partnering with the ANC to block such a coalition, although the DA has consistently denounced the ANC and said it wanted it out of power. The uncertainty impacted the government bond market, with prices of the country's main internationally traded bonds down as much as 1.3 cents on the U.S. dollar. The falls were the third in a row and left the bonds at their lowest level in almost a month. Investors and the business community have voiced concern over the prospect of the ANC entering a coalition with the EFF, which is calling for the seizure of white-owned farms and the nationalisation of mines and banks, or with Zuma's MK which also talks about land confiscation. The results page on the electoral commission's website, which had been updating seamlessly since the start of the count, went blank for roughly two hours early on Friday due to a technical problem. The data reappeared shortly after 0700 GMT. "The data in the data centre remains intact and the results have not been compromised ... Result processing continues unaffected," the commission said in a statement. By law the election commission has seven days to release full provisional results, but election officials have said they are planning for a Sunday announcement. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africa-heads-coalition-anc-set-big-fall-2024-05-31/

2024-05-31 06:16

SINGAPORE, May 31 (Reuters) - Shipping fuel regulations introduced in 2020 have led to a substantial cut in sulphur dioxide (SO2) pollution, but may also have made the ocean warmer by reducing cloud cover, according to a modelling study in a paper published late on Thursday. International Maritime Organization (IMO) rules to tackle marine pollution forced shippers to cut their fuel sulphur content to 0.5% from 3.5%, leading to an 80% decline in SO2 emissions, according to a research team led by Tianle Yuan at the University of Maryland. SO2, however, besides being a major pollutant, also masks global warming by forming aerosols that thicken and brighten clouds, reflecting the sun's rays back into space. IMO fuel standards could have been responsible for 80% of the planet's total net heat uptake since 2020, with the impact particularly pronounced in busy shipping lanes, the researchers estimated in the paper New Tab, opens new tab published by the Communications Earth & Environment journal. Climate scientists identified the reduction of SO2 as a potential contributor to record ocean temperatures last year. Some also suggest cuts in air pollution around the world could have accelerated global warming. "This cooling effect (of SO2) is well understood - and documented episodes have occurred as consequences of several major volcanic eruptions emitting SO2 during the past 2,000 years," said Stuart Haszeldine, director of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute at the University of Edinburgh. Haszeldine, who was not involved in the paper, said while it was difficult to make exact predictions about the impact on global temperatures, the trend was "very clear, extremely worrying and very significant". Other scientists said the research might exaggerate the impact of the IMO fuel policy. "Research into why recent temperatures have been so high is ongoing and the reduced sulphur content in ship fuel is only one contributing factor," said Joel Hirschi at Britain's National Oceanography Centre. The authors said their research showed that "marine cloud brightening" could become a potential geoengineering solution to global warming. Scientists have been looking into ways to reflect heat back into space, but proposals to inject SO2 into the atmosphere have been controversial. Other experiments have also been conducted to spray seawater into the air to thicken clouds. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/cleaner-shipping-fuel-is-contributing-ocean-warming-scientists-say-2024-05-31/

2024-05-31 06:12

KYIV, May 31 (Reuters) - A Russian missile attack overnight destroyed a power facility and damaged the power grid in Kyiv on Friday, the DTEK energy company said via Telegram messaging app. Ukraine's largest private energy company said power has been restored to most of the buildings impacted in the attack with back-up sources, leaving some 10 private residences and one business without power. Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv's military administration, previously said a fire broke out in a non-residential building in the Holosiivskyi district of the city as a result of falling debris. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-attack-kyiv-damages-power-facility-grid-energy-company-says-2024-05-31/