2024-05-26 09:03

May 26 (Reuters) - The death toll in Papua New Guinea's massive earthquake rose to 670, the U.N. migration agency estimated on Sunday, according to AP News. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/papua-new-guinea-landslide-death-toll-670-ap-news-reports-citing-un-agency-2024-05-26/

2024-05-26 08:08

ANC set to lose majority for first time, polls show Anger has risen at stalled social and economic progress Investors wary of any ANC coalition with radical parties Bad result for ANC could curtail Ramaphosa presidency JOHANNESBURG, May 26 (Reuters) - South Africans will vote on Wednesday with widespread anger over power cuts, joblessness and corruption threatening to end the dominance of the African National Congress, thirty years after Nelson Mandela led it into power. At no point since world media beamed iconic images of Black South African voters queueing to cast ballots for the first time following the end of white-minority rule has the ANC looked so likely to lose its parliamentary majority. Polls suggest the ANC's share of the vote could fall as low as 40%, compared with 57.5% in 2019, which would force the party into a wobbly coalition with rivals - and potentially expose President Cyril Ramaphosa to a leadership challenge. Yet a survey released earlier this week by Afrobarometer suggested a third of voters were undecided, making this poll the most unpredictable in South Africa's democratic history. Nicole Beardsworth, politics researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand, sees the ANC getting "a bit of a bump" on the day, confounding the worst predictions - especially with Ramaphosa's introduction this month of popular measures such as a national health insurance law and proposed basic income grant. "But I don't think we're going to see the ANC get over 50%," she said. "They're ... going to have negotiate a coalition. The big question is: with whom?" Much will depend on how well or badly they do, she said. A small margin would enable them to do a deal with a marginal party with limited leverage to make significant demands. Bigger losses could mean a coalition with the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) - a prospect that makes business leaders and South Africa's privileged white minority shudder - or with several small parties that could thwart decision-making. Yet some think punishment at the polls could be a catalyst for the ANC to clean itself up: "A different party might come out of it," independent analyst Ralph Mathekga said. ACHIEVEMENTS AND FAILURES For three decades the ANC has traded off its legacy of freeing the Black majority from white rulers whose apartheid system took their land, kept them poor and uneducated, and forbade them to visit most of the country except to clean houses or dig gold mines. In its early years in government, it began reversing these inequities - bringing electricity, water and half-decent housing to millions. But corruption and incompetence have eroded some of those gains. State power provider Eskom's creaking coal-fired power stations haven't kept up with demand, causing frequent blackouts, while roads, sewage treatment plants and schools rot from the inside. A third of South Africans are jobless. "I don't see what I'm voting for. We don't have roads (or decent) houses," Zinhle Nyakenye, 31 and unemployed, told Reuters in Mandela's home town of Qunu, as she fetched water for household use from a stream. Corruption has spread, although a strong rule of law - one of the ANC's most enduring legacies - has resulted in legal proceedings against powerful people such as ex-president Jacob Zuma, while the parliamentary speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula resigned last month. Both deny wrongdoing. Zuma in December created a breakaway party called uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) that could take votes from the ANC in its eastern Zulu heartlands. It may also stir up trouble if Zuma's supporters - who rioted and looted for days when he was arrested for contempt of court in July 2021 - don't like the results. But South Africa's robust legal system also means rules for coalition building are clear, even if the players have never done it, said Chatham House's Chris Vandome. "South Africa's system was designed so that political parties in a very fractured country could work together," Vandome said. "It was never designed for a dominant party to maintain absolute control ... for 30 years." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-african-election-could-spell-end-anc-dominance-2024-05-26/

2024-05-26 08:04

DHAKA/KOLKATA, May 26 (Reuters) - Bangladesh and India braced on Sunday for cyclone Remal, the first of the year, as the storm with wind speeds of up to 120 kmh (75 mph) is set to make landfall overnight, India's weather department said. The Bangladesh weather office raised its storm danger signal to 10, the highest level, for two ports and nine coastal districts, announcing warnings over loudspeakers and starting to evacuate people from coastal areas. "Nearly 60,000 people have been moved to shelters since morning," Mijanur Rahman, chief of Bangladesh's disaster management team, told Reuters. The low-lying coasts of Bangladesh and India, two South Asian neighbours, have experienced frequent severe storms in recent years. Cyclone Yaas in 2021 for instance left more than 50,000 people homeless and killed at least one. Bangladesh has set up nearly 8,000 cyclone shelters and mobilised 78,000 volunteers, the state minister for disaster management and relief Mohibbur Rahman told Reuters. India has deployed its disaster relief force in the eastern state of West Bengal. Flights have been suspended at the major metropolitan city of Kolkata. Parts of West Bengal have started experiencing bouts of moderate rainfall, and the government has cancelled leave for employees in essential services, a civic body official said. The Indian navy also said it had kept ships, aircraft, divers and medical supplies on standby for deployment if required. "The landfall of cyclone Remal will take place between 11 PM and 1 AM," Somnath Dutta, head of the weather forecast section in regional meteorological centre in Kolkata, told Reuters. Pictures on social media platform X showed the disaster management team alerting tourists at a beach in West Bengal. A number of trains travelling through areas that fall in the ambit of the cyclonic storm were also cancelled, another official said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/india-bangladesh-brace-years-first-cyclone-2024-05-26/

2024-05-26 06:13

DUBAI, May 26 (Reuters) - Iran has approved a plan to raise its oil output to four million barrels per day, the country's Tasnim news agency said on Sunday, without providing a time frame. "An economic council headed by Iran's interim president Mohammad Mokhber has approved a plan to raise the country's oil output from 3.6 million barrels per day to 4 million barrels per day," Tasnim added. Iran is a major producer within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/iran-plans-raise-oil-output-4-mln-barrels-per-day-tasnim-2024-05-26/

2024-05-26 05:25

SYDNEY, May 26 (Reuters) - More than 670 people are assumed to have died in Papua New Guinea's massive landslide, the U.N. migration agency estimated on Sunday as rescue efforts continued. Media in the South Pacific nation north of Australia had previously estimated Friday's landslide had buried more than 300 people. But more than 48 hours later the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the death toll may be more than double that, as the full extent of the destruction is still unclear and continuing dangerous conditions on the ground are hampering aid and rescue efforts. Only five bodies had been retrieved from the rubble so far. The agency based its death toll estimates on information provided by officials at Yambali Village in the Enga province, who say more than 150 houses were buried in Friday's landslide, Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the agency's mission in Papua New Guinea said in an email statement. "Land is still sliding, rocks are falling, ground soil is cracking due to constant increased pressure and ground water is running thus the area is posing an extreme risk for everyone," Aktoprak said. More than 250 houses nearby have been abandoned by the inhabitants, who had taken temporary shelter with their relatives and friends, and some 1,250 people have been displaced, the agency said. "People are using digging sticks, spades, large agricultural forks to remove the bodies buried under the soil," Aktoprak said. The IOM said an elementary school, small businesses and stalls, a guesthouse, and a petrol station were also buried. The U.N.'s Papua New Guinea office said five bodies were retrieved from an area where 50 to 60 homes had been destroyed, and a number of injured reported, including at least 20 women and children. IOM said the community in this village was relatively young and it's feared that the most fatalities would be children of 15 years or younger. COMMUNITY GRIEVING Social media footage posted by villagers and local media teams show people clambering over rocks, uprooted trees and mounds of dirt searching for survivors. Women could be heard weeping in the background. The landslide hit a section of highway near the Porgera gold mine, operated by Barrick Gold (ABX.TO) New Tab, opens new tab through Barrick Niugini Ltd, its joint venture with China's Zijin Mining (601899.SS) New Tab, opens new tab. The Porgera Highway remains blocked, IOM said, and the only way to reach the Porgera Gold Mine and other localities cut off from the rest of Enga Province is via helicopter. The geographic remoteness and the tough, hilly terrain is slowing rescue and aid efforts. The government and the PNG Defence Force engineering team is on the ground now, but heavy equipment like excavators, required for the rescue, are yet to reach the village. IOM said the community may not allow use of excavators until they consider they had fulfilled their mourning and grieving obligations. "People are coming to terms with the fact that the people under the debris are now all but lost," IOM said in an earlier status update by email. The government plans to establish two care/evacuation centres, each on one side of the landslide affected area to host the displaced who may need shelter. A humanitarian convoy has started distributing bottled water, food, clothing, hygiene kits, kitchen utensils, tarpaulins, as well as personal protective equipment. Aid group CARE Australia said late on Saturday that nearly 4,000 people lived in the impact zone but the number affected was probably higher as the area is "a place of refuge for those displaced by conflicts" in nearby areas. At least 26 men were killed in Enga Province in February in an ambush amid tribal violence that prompted Prime Minister James Marape to give arrest powers to the country's military. The landslide left debris up to 8 metres (25 feet) deep across 200 square km (80 square miles), cutting off road access and making relief efforts difficult, CARE said. Marape has said disaster officials, the Defence Force and the Department of Works and Highways were assisting with relief and recovery efforts. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/more-than-4000-likely-impacted-by-papua-new-guinea-landslide-aid-group-says-2024-05-26/

2024-05-25 15:30

STRESA, Italy, May 25 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Reuters that European banks face growing risks operating in Russia and the U.S. is looking at strengthening its secondary sanctions on banks found to be aiding transactions for Russia's war effort. "We are looking at potentially a tougher stepping-up of our sanctions on banks that do business in Russia," Yellen told Reuters in an interview, declining to provide specifics and not identifying any banks at which they could be aimed. Speaking on the sidelines of a G7 finance leaders meeting in northern Italy, Yellen said that sanctions related to banks' dealings in Russia would only be imposed "if there was a reason to do so, but operating in Russia creates an awful lot of risk," she added. Asked whether she would like to see Austria's Raiffeisen Bank International (RBIV.VI) New Tab, opens new tab and Italian bank UniCredit (CRDI.MI) New Tab, opens new tab pull out of Russia, Yellen said: "I believe their supervisors have advised them to be extremely careful about what they do there." 'GET OUT' European Central Bank policymaker Fabio Panetta had clear instructions for Italian banks on Saturday telling reporters that lenders must "get out" of Russia because staying in the country brings a "reputational problem." Raiffeisen is the largest European lender doing business in Russia, followed by UniCredit. Another large Italian lender, Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI) New Tab, opens new tab is working to dispose of its Russian business. U.S. President Joe Biden's new secondary sanctions authority gives the Treasury the power to cut off banks from the U.S. financial system if they are found to be assisting the circumvention of primary sanctions against Russian and other entities over Moscow's war in Ukraine. Yellen and other U.S. Treasury officials have said that Russia's economy is increasingly a "war economy" making it more difficult to distinguish between civilian and military or dual-use transactions. The existence of the secondary sanctions has already chilled banks' engagement with Russia, but Yellen has expressed concern that Russia is managing to find avenues to acquire goods needed to boost its military production, citing transactions through China, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. WARNING LETTER Earlier this month, the Treasury warned Raiffeisen in writing that its access to the dollar-denominated financial system could be cut off because of its Russia dealings, citing a proposed 1.5 billion euro ($1.6 billion) deal with a sanctioned Russian tycoon, a person who has seen this correspondence told Reuters. After the warning, Raiffeisen dropped plans for the industrial stake linked to tycoon Oleg Deripaska, marking a setback for the lender more than two years after the invasion of Ukraine. The pressure underscored Washington's willingness to take European banks to task over their Russian ties. In Germany's financial capital Frankfurt on Tuesday, Yellen warned bank CEOs to step up efforts to comply with sanctions against Russia and shut down circumvention efforts to avoid the potential for severe penalties. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/european-banks-russia-face-awful-lot-risk-yellen-says-2024-05-25/