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World

At least 64 killed in Nepal’s worst air crash in 30 years

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KATHMANDU, Jan 15 (Reuters) – At least 64 people were killed on Sunday when a domestic flight crashed in Pokhara in Nepal, the small Himalayan country’s worst air crash in three decades.

Hundreds of rescue workers were scouring the hillside where the Yeti Airlines flight, carrying 72 people from the capital Kathmandu, went down.

Local TV showed rescue workers scrambling around broken sections of the aircraft. Some of the ground near the crash site was scorched, with licks of flames visible.

“We have sent 31 bodies to the hospital and are still taking out 33 bodies from the gorge,” said police official Ajay K.C., adding that rescue workers were having difficulty reaching the site in a gorge between two hills near the tourist town’s airport.

Reuters Graphics

The crash is Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, the Aviation Safety Network database showed, when a Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A300 crashed into a hillside upon approach to Kathmandu, killing all 167 people on board.

The plane made contact with the airport from Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. (0505 GMT), the aviation authority said in a statement. “Then it crashed.”

“Half of the plane is on the hillside,” said Arun Tamu, a local resident, who told Reuters he reached the site minutes after the plane went down. “The other half has fallen into the gorge of the Seti river.”

Khum Bahadur Chhetri said he watched from the roof of his house as the flight approached.

“I saw the plane trembling, moving left and right, and then suddenly its nose dived and it went into the gorge,” Chhetri told Reuters, adding that local residents took two passengers to a hospital.

The government has set up a panel to investigate the cause of the crash and it is expected to report within 45 days, the finance minister, Bishnu Paudel, told reporters.

SERIES OF CRASHES

At least 309 people have died since 2000 in plane or helicopter crashes in Nepal – home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest – where sudden weather changes can make for hazardous conditions.

The European Union has banned Nepali airlines from its airspace since 2013, citing safety concerns.

Those on the twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft included two infants and four crew members, said airline spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula.

The journey to Pokhara, Nepal’s second largest city tucked under the picturesque Annapurna mountain range, from the capital Kathmandu is one of the Himalayan country’s most popular tourist routes, with many preferring a short flight instead of a six-hour-long drive through hilly roads.

The weather on Sunday was clear, said Jagannath Niroula, spokesman for Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority.

Passengers included five Indians, four Russians and one Irish, two South Korean, one Australian, one French and one Argentine national.

The ATR72 of European planemaker ATR is a widely used twin engine turboprop plane manufactured by a joint venture of Airbus (AIR.PA) and Italy’s Leonardo (LDOF.MI). Yeti Airlines has a fleet of six ATR72-500 planes, according to its website.

“ATR specialists are fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer,” the company said on Twitter, adding that its first thoughts were for those affected, after having been informed of the accident.

Airbus and Leonardo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 said on Twitter the Yeti Airlines aircraft was 15 years old and equipped with an old transponder with unreliable data.

“We are downloading high-resolution data and verifying the data quality,” it said.

On its website, Yeti describes itself as a leading domestic carrier. Its fleet consists of six ATR 72-500s, including the one that crashed. It also owns Tara Air, and the two together offer the “widest network” in Nepal, the company says.

Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Additional reporting by Jamie Freed; Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal and Aditya Kalra; Editing by William Mallard and Susan Fenton

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World

Iran executes British-Iranian accused of spying

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  • Alireza Akbari was a former Iranian deputy defence minister
  • Arrested in 2019, he was accused of spying for Britain
  • Execution piles more strain on fraught ties with West
  • UK’s Sunak calls it ‘a callous and cowardly act’
  • U.S. joins UK in condemning ‘barbaric act’

DUBAI/LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Iran has executed a British-Iranian national who once served as its deputy defence minister, its judiciary said, defying calls from London and Washington for his release after he was handed the death sentence on charges of spying for Britain.

Britain, which had declared the case against Alireza Akbari politically motivated, condemned the execution, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak calling it “a callous and cowardly act carried out by a barbaric regime”.

Akbari, 61, was arrested in 2019.

The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported the execution without saying when it had taken place. Late on Friday, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly had urged Iran not to follow through with the sentence.

Also condemned by the United States and France, the execution looks set to further worsen Iran’s long-strained relations with the West, which have deteriorated since talks to revive its 2015 nuclear deal hit deadlock and after Tehran unleashed a deadly crackdown on protesters last year.

In an audio recording purportedly from Akbari and broadcast by BBC Persian on Wednesday, he said he had confessed to crimes he had not committed after extensive torture.

“Alireza Akbari, who was sentenced to death on charges of corruption on earth and extensive action against the country’s internal and external security through espionage for the British government’s intelligence service … was executed,” Mizan said.

The Mizan report accused Akbari of receiving payments of 1,805,000 euros ($1.95 million), 265,000 pounds ($323,989.00), and $50,000 for spying.

Cleverly said in a statement the execution would “not stand unchallenged”. He later announced Britain had summoned the Iranian Charge d’Affaires, imposed sanctions on Iran’s prosecutor general, and temporarily withdrawn its ambassador from Tehran for further consultations.

It marks a rare case of the Islamic Republic executing a serving or former senior official. One of the last occasions was in 1984, when Iranian navy commander Bahram Afzali was executed after being accused of spying for the Soviet Union.

British statements on the case have not addressed the Iranian charge that Akbari spied for Britain.

Iran’s foreign ministry summoned the British ambassador over what it called London’s “meddling in Iran’s national security realm”, the state news agency IRNA reported.

Iranian state media, which have portrayed Akbari as a super spy, broadcast a video on Thursday which they said showed he played a role in the 2020 assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, killed in an attack outside Tehran which authorities blamed at the time on Israel.

In the video, Akbari did not confess to involvement in the assassination but said a British agent had asked for information about Fakhrizadeh.

Iran’s state media often airs purported confessions by suspects in politically-charged cases.

Reuters could not establish the authenticity of the state media video and audio, or when or where they were recorded.

Akbari was a close ally of Ali Shamkhani, now the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who was defence minister from 1997 to 2005. Akbari fought during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s as a member of the Revolutionary Guards.

Alireza Akbari, Iran’s former deputy defence minister, speaks during an interview with Khabaronline in Tehran, Iran, in this undated picture obtained on January 12, 2023. Khabaronline/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

Ramin Forghani, a nephew of Akbari, told Reuters the execution had come as a shock.

“I don’t think a person who spent all his life, from an early age, to serve the country – since the Iran-Iraq war – would spy for any country,” he said, noting Akbari had the rank of colonel in the Revolutionary Guards.

Speaking by phone from Luxembourg, he said Akbari’s wife, who lives in London, had tried but failed to persuade Iranian officials to spare his life. Reuters was unable to reach her.

‘DESPICABLE AND BARBARIC’

The U.S. State Department described the execution as politically motivated and unjust. The U.S. ambassador to London called it “appalling and sickening”. French President Emmanuel Macron called it a “despicable and barbaric act”.

Iran’s ties with the West have also been strained by its support for Russia in Ukraine, where Western states say Moscow has used Iranian drones.

Along with other Western states, Britain, which has a long history of fraught ties with Iran, has been fiercely critical of Tehran’s crackdown on anti-government protests, sparked by the death in custody of a young Iranian-Kurdish woman in September.

Iran has issued dozens of death sentences as part of the crackdown, executing at least four people.

A British minister said on Thursday Britain was actively considering proscribing the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation but had not reached a final decision.

In the recording broadcast by BBC Persian, Akbari said he had made false confessions due to torture.

“With more than 3,500 hours of torture, psychedelic drugs, and physiological and psychological pressure methods, they took away my will. They drove me to the brink of madness… and forced me to make false confessions by force of arms and death threats,” he said.

Amnesty International said the execution displayed again Tehran’s “abhorrent assault on the right to life”. In Akbari’s case, “it is particularly horrific given the violations he revealed he was subjected to in prison”.

The Iranian authorities have not responded to accusations Akbari was tortured.

An Iranian state TV report – details of which Reuters could not independently verify – said he was arrested on espionage charges in 2008 before he was freed on bail and left Iran.

In an interview with BBC Persian broadcast on Friday, Akbari’s brother Mehdi said he had returned to Iran in 2019 based on an invitation from Shamkhani.

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Reporting by Dubai newsroom, Michael Holden in London, Tassilo Hummel in Paris and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by William Mallard, Angus MacSwan, Tomasz Janowski and Christina Fincher

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US

U.S. airports rumble back to life after FAA computer outage

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WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (Reuters) – U.S. flights were slowly beginning to resume departures and a ground stop was lifted after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) scrambled to fix a system outage overnight that had forced a halt to all U.S. departing flights.

The cause of the problem, which delayed thousands of flights in the United States, was unclear, but U.S. officials said they had so far found no evidence of a cyberattack.

“Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted. We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem” the FAA said in a Tweet.

More than 4,300 flights had been delayed and 700 canceled as officials said it will take hours to recover from the halt to flights.

The FAA had earlier ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures after its pilot alerting system crashed and the agency had to perform a hard reset around 2 a.m., officials said.

The FAA said shortly before 8:30 a.m. departures were resuming at Newark and Atlanta airports.

The FAA is expected to implement a ground delay program in order to address the backlog of flights halted for hours. Flights already in the air had been allowed to continue to their destinations during the ground stop.

U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the Transportation Department to investigate the outage and said the cause of the failure was unknown at this time. Asked if a cyber attack was behind the outage, Biden told reporters at the White House, “We don’t know.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pledged “an after-action process to determine root causes and recommend next steps.”

The FAA said it was working to restore the Notice to Air Missions system that alerts pilots to hazards and changes to airport facilities and procedures that had stopped processing updated information.

A total of 4,314 U.S. flights were delayed as of 9:04 a.m. ET, flight tracking website FlightAware showed. Another 737 were canceled.

MODERNIZATION NEEDED

United said it has resumed operations. The Chicago-based carrier, however, warned that customers might continue to see some delays and cancellations.

Shares of U.S. carriers fell in Wednesday’s premarket trading. Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) was down 2.4%, while Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL.N), United Airlines (UAL.O) and American Airlines (AAL.O) were down about 1%.

“America’s transportation network desperately needs significant upgrades … We call on federal policymakers to modernize our vital air travel infrastructure.” said Geoff Freeman, President and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, a group representing U.S. airlines, hotels, car rental companies, and theme parks.

FAA’s system outage comes weeks after an operational meltdown at Southwest at the end of last year left thousands of passengers stranded.

A severe winter storm right before Christmas coupled with the Texas-based carrier’s dated technology led to over 16,000 flight cancellations last month.

The DOT, FAA’s parent agency, heavily criticized Southwest’s failures and pressured the airline to compensate passengers for missed flights and other related costs. There is no legal requirement that the FAA must compensate passengers for flight delays caused by agency computer issues.

ESSENTIAL INFORMATION

A NOTAM is a notice containing information essential to personnel concerned with flight operations, but not known far enough in advance to be publicized by other means.

Information can go up to 200 pages for long-haul international flights and may include items such as runway closures, bird hazard warnings and construction obstacles.

United Airlines (UAL.O) said it had temporarily delayed all domestic flights and would issue an update when it learned more from the FAA.

Germany’s Lufthansa and Air France both said they were continuing to operate flights to and from the United States, while the French airline said it was monitoring the situation.

The operator of Paris international airports – Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and Orly airport – said it expects delays to flights.

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport said on Twitter that ground stops across the country were causing delays. A ground stop is an air traffic control measure that slows or halts aircraft at a given airport.

In an earlier advisory on its website, the FAA said its NOTAM system had “failed”, although NOTAMs issued before the outage were still viewable. Earlier this month, a problem with a different airline computer control system delayed dozens of flights in Florida.

A total of 21,464 flights are scheduled to depart airports in the United States on Wednesday with a carrying capacity of nearly 2.9 million passengers, data from Cirium shows.

American Airlines has the most departures from U.S. airports with 4,819 flights scheduled, followed by Delta and Southwest, Cirium data showed.

Reporting by Doina Chiacu and David Shepardson in Washington, Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bengaluru, Jamie Freed in Sydney and Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago; Additional reporting by Nathan Gomes and Steve Holland in Washington
Writing by Shailesh Kuber and Alexander Smith Editing by Edmund Blair and Nick Zieminski

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World

Macron, unions head for French pension reform showdown

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  • Retirement age set to be raised to 64 from 62
  • Unions, left-wing opposition reject the reform
  • Adoption in parliament depends on the right

PARIS, Jan 10 (Reuters) – The French should work two years longer to age 64 before retiring, the government said on Tuesday, announcing an unpopular pension system overhaul that immediately prompted unions to call for strikes and protests.

The right to retire at a relatively young age is deeply cherished in France and the reform will be a major test of President Emmanuel Macron’s ability to deliver change as social discontent mounts over the cost of living.

The reform’s passage through parliament will not be easy. Macron’s government says it is vital to keep the pension budget out of the red. Unions argue the reform is unfair and unnecessary.

“Nothing justifies such a brutal reform,” Laurent Berger, leader of the moderate, reform-minded CFDT union, told reporters after trade union leaders agreed on a nationwide strike for Jan. 19, which will kick off a series of strikes and protests.

An Odoxa poll showed four out of five citizens oppose the higher retirement age.

“I’m well aware that changing our pension system raises questions and fears among the French,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne had told a news conference shortly before.

“We offer today a project to balance our pension system, a project that is fair,” she said, adding that France had to face reality.

Overhauling the pension system was a central pillar of Macron’s reformist agenda when he entered the Elysee Palace in 2017. But he shelved his first attempt in 2020 as the government battled to contain COVID-19.

The second attempt will not be any easier.

“It’s one slap in the face after another,” said 56-year-old Frederic Perdriel during a small protest in the western city of Rennes ahead of Borne’s announcement. “There are other ways to finance pensions than raising the retirement age.”

“BRUTAL, CRUEL”

Macron and Borne will need to win support among conservative Les Republicains (LR) lawmakers in the coming months to pass the reform in parliament.

That looks less challenging than it did a few weeks ago after concessions on the retirement age – Macron had originally wanted it to be 65 – and a minimum pension.

Olivier Marleix, who leads the LR group in the lower house of parliament, reacted positively to Borne’s announcements.

“They heard us,” he said, while asking for more efforts to ensure employment for people close to retirement age.

Even so, LR is divided on the issue, so every vote counts.

The Socialists, the hard-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) and the far-right’s National Rally were swift to denounce the reform. Left-wing lawmaker Mathilde Panot branded the plan “archaic, unfair, brutal, cruel.”

“The French can count on our determination to block this unfair reform,” the far-right’s Marine Le Pen said.

Under the government plan, the retirement age will be raised by three months per year from September, reaching the target age of 64 in 2030.

From 2027, eight years earlier than planned in past reforms, it will be necessary to have worked 43 years to receive a full pension.

Other measures aim to boost the employment rate among 60 to 64-year-olds, which is one of the lowest among leading industrialised nations.

With one of the lowest retirement ages in the industrialised world, France also spends more than most countries on pensions at nearly 14% of economic output, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau, Leigh Thomas, Stephane Mahe, Tassilo Hummel, Blandine Henault; writing by Ingrid Melander; editing by Richard Lough, Alexandra Hudson and Josie Kao

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Business

Western Europe’s first satellite launch mission takes off

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  • Converted Boeing 747 takes off from Newquay, Cornwall
  • Rocket will be deployed over the Atlantic in next hour
  • ‘Start Me Up’ mission will deploy nine small satellites

NEWQUAY, England, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Virgin Orbit’s “Cosmic Girl” carrier aircraft took off from Newquay’s spaceport in Cornwall, southwest England on Monday night, the initial stage of Western Europe’s first ever satellite launch.

The modified Boeing 747 with a rocket under its wing took to the air and then soared out over the Atlantic Ocean, where after an hour it will release a rocket at about 35,000 feet (10,668 meters).

More than 2,000 space fans cheered when the aircraft left the runway.

The “horizontal” launch has catapulted the resort in southwest England – population 20,000 and famous for its reliable Atlantic waves – into the limelight as Western Europe’s go-to destination for small satellites.

Virgin Orbit (VORB.O), part-owned by British billionaire Richard Branson, said nine satellites would be deployed into lower Earth orbit (LEO) from its LauncherOne rocket in its first mission outside its United States base.

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Additional reporting by Sarah Young; editing by Nick Macfie and Sandra Maler, Kate Holton

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World

Fighting unabated in Ukraine as Russia’s Orthodox Christmas truce comes into force

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  • Russia shells Ukraine’s Kramatorsk, mayor says
  • Ukraine calls Putin order for Orthodox Christmas truce a trick
  • Russian envoy to U.N. says Ukraine has no respect

KYIV/BAKHMUT, Ukraine, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Russia and Ukraine attacked each others positions in eastern Ukraine on Friday with no sign they would observe a 36-hour ceasefire unilaterally ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin at short notice to mark Orthodox Christmas in the region.

On Friday morning – Christmas Eve for Russians and many Ukrainians – Russian shells hit Kramatorsk, a Ukrainian city near the frontline in the industrial Donetsk region that Russia claims as its territory, the city mayor said.

“Kramatorsk is under fire. Stay in shelters,” mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko posted on social media. He did not give details of damage.

The Kremlin had ordered the truce to begin at 1200, without specifying what time zone they were referring to. In Moscow, that would be 0900 GMT.

Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, starting a war that has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and reduced cities to rubble. Ukraine has driven Russia back from some of its territory but battles are raging over eastern and southern cities, and Russia has unleashed barrages of airstrikes on civilian infrastructure.

In a surprise, last minute announcement on Thursday, Putin unilaterally ordered his troops to observe a ceasefire from Friday to run through the Russian Orthodox Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, a move that was rejected as a trick by Ukraine and its allies.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy rejected the idea out of hand, saying the goal was to halt the progress of Ukraine’s forces in Donetsk and the wider eastern Donbas region and bring in more of Moscow’s forces.

“They now want to use Christmas as a cover, albeit briefly, to stop the advances of our boys in Donbas and bring equipment, ammunitions and mobilised troops closer to our positions,” Zelenskiy said in his Thursday night video address.

“What will that give them? Only yet another increase in their total losses.”

Ukraine’s military General Staff said its soldiers repelled multiple Russian attacks over the past day, with Moscow focused on trying to take towns in Donetsk, including Bakhmut, which has seen the heaviest battles in recent weeks.

“The enemy is concentrating its main efforts on attempts to establish control over the Donetsk region” without success, the General Staff said in a statement, adding that both Ukraine and Russia had launched multiple airstrikes over the past day.

Reuters could not independently verify the latest battlefield accounts.

U.S. President Joe Biden suggested Putin’s ceasefire offer was a sign of desperation. “I think he’s trying to find some oxygen,” he told reporters at the White House.

Russia’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, responded on Facebook saying: “Washington is set on fighting with us ‘to the last Ukrainian’.”

Russia’s Orthodox Church observes Christmas on Jan. 7. Ukraine’s main Orthodox Church has been recognised as independent by the church hierarchy since 2019 and rejects any notion of allegiance to the Moscow patriarch. Many Ukrainian believers have shifted their calendar to celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 as in the West.

Zelenskiy, pointedly speaking in Russian and not Ukrainian, said that ending the war meant “ending your country’s aggression … And the war will end either when your soldiers leave or we throw them out.”

Dmitry Polyansky, head of Russia’s permanent mission to the United Nations, wrote on Twitter that Ukraine’s reaction was “one more reminder with whom we are fighting in #Ukraine – ruthless nationalist criminals who … have no respect for sacred things”.

Reporting by Reuters bureuax; writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Angus MacSwan

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World

‘Feels like summer’: Warm winter breaks temperature records in Europe

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  • Ski slopes deserted due to lack of snow
  • Activists call for faster action on climate change
  • Pollen warning issued as plants bloom early
  • Governments get short-term gas-price respite

LONDON/BRUSSELS, Jan 4 (Reuters) – Record-high winter temperatures swept across parts of Europe over the new year, bringing calls from activists for faster action against climate change while offering short-term respite to governments struggling with high gas prices.

Hundreds of sites have seen temperature records smashed in the past days, from Switzerland to Poland to Hungary, which registered its warmest Christmas Eve in Budapest and saw temperatures climb to 18.9 degrees Celsius (66.02°F) on Jan. 1.

In France, where the night of Dec. 30-31 was the warmest since records began, temperatures climbed to nearly 25C in the southwest on New Year’s Day while normally bustling European ski resorts were deserted due to a lack of snow.

The Weather Service in Germany, where temperatures of over 20C were recorded, said such a mild turn of the year had not been observed in the country since records began in 1881.

Czech Television reported some trees were starting to flower in private gardens while Switzerland’s office of Meteorology and Climatology issued a pollen warning to allergy sufferers from early blooming hazel plants.

The temperature hit 25.1C at Bilbao airport in Spain’s Basque country. People basked in the sun as they sat outside Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum or walked along the River Nervion.

“It always rains a lot here, it’s very cold, and it’s January, (but now) it feels like summer,” said Bilbao resident Eusebio Folgeira, 81.

French tourist Joana Host said: “It’s like nice weather for biking but we know it’s like the planet is burning. So we’re enjoying it but at the same time we’re scared.”

Scientists have not yet analysed the specific ways in which climate change affected the recent high temperatures, but January’s warm weather spell fits into the longer-term trend of rising temperatures due to human-caused climate change.

“Winters are becoming warmer in Europe as a result of global temperatures increasing,” said Freja Vamborg, climate scientist at the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

It follows another year of extreme weather events that scientists concluded were directly linked to global warming, including deadly heatwaves in Europe and India, and flooding in Pakistan.

“The record-breaking heat across Europe over the new year was made more likely to happen by human-caused climate change, just as climate change is now making every heatwave more likely and hotter,” said Dr Friederike Otto, climate scientist at Imperial College London.

Temperature spikes can also cause plants to start growing earlier in the year or coax animals out of hibernation early, making them vulnerable to being killed off by later cold snaps.

Robert Vautard, director of France’s Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute, said that while temperatures peaked from Dec. 30 to Jan. 2, the mild spell has lasted for two weeks and is still not over. “This is actually a relatively long-lived event,” he said.

EMPTY SLOPES

French national weather agency Meteo France attributed the anomalous temperatures to a mass of warm air moving to Europe from subtropical zones.

It struck during the busy skiing season, leading to cancelled trips and empty slopes. Resorts in the northern Spanish regions of Asturias, Leon and Cantabria have been closed since the Christmas holidays for lack of snow.

On Jahorina mountain above the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, which hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, it should have been one of the busiest weeks of the season. Instead, the chair-lifts hung lifeless above the grassy slopes. In one guesthouse a couple ate dinner alone in the restaurant, the only guests.

A ski jumping event in Zakopane, southern Poland, planned for the weekend of Jan. 7-8 was cancelled.

Karsten Smid, a climate expert at Greenpeace Germany, said while some climate change impacts were already unavoidable, urgent action should be taken to prevent even more drastic global warming.

“What’s happening right now is exactly what climate scientists warned us about 10, 20 years ago, and that can no longer be prevented now,” Smid said.

WEATHER EASES GAS STRAIN

The unusually mild temperatures have offered some short-term relief to European governments who have struggled to secure scarce gas supplies and keep a lid on soaring prices after Russia slashed deliveries of the fuel to Europe.

European governments have said this energy crisis should hasten their shift from fossil fuels to clean energy – but in the short term, plummeting Russian fuel supplies have left them racing to secure extra gas from elsewhere.

Gas demand has fallen for heating in many countries due to the mild spell, helping to reduce prices.

The benchmark front-month gas price was trading at 70.25 euros per megawatt hour on Wednesday morning, its lowest level since February 2022 – just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The head of Italy’s energy authority predicted that regulated energy bills in the country would fall this month, if the milder temperatures help keep gas prices lower.

However, a note by Eurointelligence cautioned that this should not lull governments into complacency about Europe’s energy crisis.

“While it will give governments more fiscal breathing room in the first part of this year, resolving Europe’s energy problems will taken concerted action over the course of several years,” it said. “Nobody should believe this is over yet.”

Reporting by Kate Abnett, Richard Lough, Alan Charlish, Krisztina Than, Luiza Ilie, Susanna Twidale, Riham Alkousaa, Jason Hovet, Emma Pinedo, Kirsten Donovan, Federico Maccioni; writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Mark Heinrich

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World

The New Year rings in as Asia then Europe usher out 2022

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Dec 31 (Reuters) – With fireworks planned in Paris, hopes for an end to war in Kyiv, and a return to post-COVID normality in Australia and China, Europe and Asia bid farewell to 2022.

It was a year marked for many by the conflict in Ukraine, economic stresses and the effects of global warming. But it was also a year that saw a dramatic soccer World Cup, rapid technological change, and efforts to meet climate challenges.

For Ukraine, there seemed to be no end in sight to the fighting that began when Russia invaded in February. On Saturday alone, Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles, Ukrainian officials said, with explosions reported throughout the country.

Evening curfews remained in place nationwide, making the celebration of the beginning of 2023 impossible in many public spaces. Several regional governors posted messages on social media warning residents not to break restrictions on New Year’s Eve.

In Kyiv, though, people gathered near the city’s central Christmas tree as midnight approached.

“We are not giving up. They couldn’t ruin our celebrations,” said 36-year-old Yaryna, celebrating with her husband, tinsel and fairy lights wrapped around her.

Oksana Mozorenko, 35, said her family had tried to celebrate Christmas to make it “a real holiday” but added: “I would really like this year to be over.”

In a video message to mark the New Year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Time Magazine’s 2022 Person of the Year, said: “I want to wish all of us one thing – victory.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin devoted his New Year’s address to rallying the Russian people behind his troops fighting in Ukraine.

Festivities in Moscow were muted, without the usual fireworks on Red Square.

“One should not pretend that nothing is happening – our people are dying (in Ukraine),” said 68-year-old Yelena Popova. “A holiday is being celebrated, but there must be limits.” Many Muscovites said they hoped for peace in 2023.

Paris was set to stage its first New Year fireworks since 2019, with 500,000 people expected to gather on the Champs-Elysees avenue to watch.

Like many places, the Czech capital Prague was feeling the pinch economically and so did not hold a fireworks display.

“Holding celebrations did not seem appropriate,” said city hall spokesman Vit Hofman, citing “the unfavourable economic situation of many Prague households” and the need for the city to save money.

Heavy rain and high winds meant firework shows in the Netherlands’ main cities were cancelled.

But several European cities were experiencing record warmth for the time of year. The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute said it was seeing the warmest New Year’s Eve on record, with the temperature in Prague’s centre, where records go back 247 years, reaching 17.7 Celsius (63.9 Fahrenheit).

It was also the warmest New Year’s Eve ever recorded in France, official weather forecaster Meteo France said.

[1/7] People gather on the Champs Elysees avenue during the New Year’s Eve celebrations near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, December 31, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier

In Croatia, dozens of cities, including the capital Zagreb, cancelled fireworks displays after pet lovers warned about their damaging effects, calling for more environmentally aware celebrations.

The Adriatic town of Rovinj planned to replace fireworks with laser shows and Zagreb was putting on confetti, visual effects and music.

‘SYDNEY IS BACK’

Earlier, Australia kicked off the celebrations with its first restriction-free New Year’s Eve after two years of COVID disruptions.

Sydney welcomed the New Year with a typically dazzling fireworks display, which for the first time featured a rainbow waterfall off the Harbour Bridge.

“This New Year’s Eve we are saying Sydney is back as we kick off festivities around the world and bring in the New Year with a bang,” said Clover Moore, lord mayor of the city.

Pandemic-era curbs on celebrations were lifted this year after Australia, like many countries around the world, re-opened its borders and removed social distancing restrictions.

In China, rigorous COVID restrictions were lifted only in December as the government reversed its “zero-COVID” policy, a switch that has led to soaring infections and meant some people were in no mood to celebrate.

“This virus should just go and die, cannot believe this year I cannot even find a healthy friend that can go out with me and celebrate the passage into the New Year,” wrote one social media user based in eastern Shandong province.

But in the city of Wuhan, where the pandemic began three years ago, tens of thousands of people gathered to enjoy themselves despite a heavy security presence.

Barricades were erected and hundreds of police officers stood guard. Officers shuttled people away from at least one popular New Year’s Eve gathering point and used loudspeakers to blast out a message on a loop advising people not to gather. But the large crowds of revellers took no notice.

In Shanghai, many thronged the historic riverside walkway, the Bund.

“We’ve all travelled in from Chengdu to celebrate in Shanghai,” said Da Dai, a 28-year-old digital media executive who was visiting with two friends. “We’ve already had COVID, so now feel it’s safe to enjoy ourselves.”

In Hong Kong, days after limits were lifted on group gatherings, tens of thousands of people met near the city’s Victoria Harbour for a countdown to midnight. Lights beamed from some of the biggest harbour-front buildings.

It was the city’s biggest New Year’s Eve celebration in several years. The event was cancelled in 2019 due to often violent social unrest, then scaled down in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

Malaysia’s government cancelled its New Year countdown and fireworks event at Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur after flooding across the nation displaced tens of thousands of people and a landslide killed 31 people this month.

Celebrations at the capital’s Petronas Twin Towers were pared back with no performances or fireworks.

Reuters 2022 Year in Review

Reporting by Reuters bureaux around the world; Writing by Neil Fullick, Frances Kerry and Rosalba O’Brien; Editing by Hugh Lawson, David Holmes and Daniel Wallis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

Kurds clash with police in Paris for second day after killings

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PARIS, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Clashes broke out for a second day in Paris on Saturday between police and members of the Kurdish community angry at the killing on Friday of three members of their community.

Cars were overturned, at least one vehicle was burned and small fires set alight near Republic Square, the traditional venue for demonstrations in the city where Kurds earlier held a peaceful protest.

Clashes broke out as some demonstrators left the square, throwing projectiles at police who responded with tear gas. Skirmishes continued for around two hours before the protesters dispersed.

A gunman carried out the killings at a Kurdish cultural centre and nearby cafe on Friday in a busy part of Paris’ 10th district, stunning a community preparing to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the unresolved murder of three activists.

Police arrested a 69-year-old man who the authorities said had recently been freed from detention while awaiting trial for a sabre attack on a migrant camp in Paris a year ago.

Following questioning of the suspect, investigators had added a suspected racist motive to initial accusations of murder and violence with weapons, the prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.

After an angry crowd clashed with police on Friday afternoon, the Kurdish democratic council in France (CDK-F) organised a gathering on Saturday at Republic Square.

[1/8] Smoke billows from a fire, as members of the Kurdish community attend a demonstration, following a shooting, in Paris, France December 24, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier

Hundreds of Kurdish protesters, joined by politicians including the mayor of Paris’ 10th district, waved flags and listened to tributes to the victims.

“We are not being protected at all. In 10 years, six Kurdish activists have been killed in the heart of Paris in broad daylight,” Berivan Firat, a spokesperson for the CDK-F, told BFM TV at the demonstration.

She said the event turned violent after some protesters were provoked by people in a passing vehicle who displayed a Turkish flag and made a nationalistic gesture.

Friday’s murders came ahead of the anniversary of the killings of three Kurdish women in Paris in January 2013.

An investigation was dropped after the main suspect died shortly before coming to trial, before being re-opened in 2019.

“The Kurdish community is afraid. It was already traumatised by the triple murder (in 2013). It needs answers, support and consideration,” David Andic, a lawyer representing the CDK-F, told reporters on Friday.

Kurdish representatives, who met with Paris’ police chief on Saturday, reiterated their call for Friday’s shooting to be considered a terror attack.

The questioning of the suspect was continuing, the prosecutor’s office added.

Reporting by Manuel Ausloos, Antony Paone, Gus Trompiz, Kate Entringer and Caroline Pailliez; editing by Philippa Fletcher and Nick Macfie

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Storm cuts U.S. oil, gas, power output, sending prices higher

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Dec 23 (Reuters) – Frigid cold and blowing winds on Friday knocked out power and cut energy production across the United States, driving up heating and electricity prices as people prepared for holiday celebrations.

Winter Storm Elliott brought sub-freezing temperatures and extreme weather alerts to about two-thirds of the United States, with cold and snow in some areas to linger through the Christmas holiday.

More than 1.5 million homes and businesses lost power, oil refineries in Texas cut gasoline and diesel production on equipment failures, and heating and power prices surged on the losses. Oil and gas output from North Dakota to Texas suffered freeze-ins, cutting supplies.

Some 1.5 million barrels of daily refining capacity along the U.S. Gulf Coast was shut due to the bitterly cold temperatures. The production losses are not expected to last, but they have lifted fuel prices.

Knocked out were TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA), Motiva Enterprises (MOTIV.UL) and Marathon Petroleum (MPC.N) facilities outside Houston. Cold weather also disrupted Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), LyondellBasell (LYB.N) and Valero Energy (VLO.N) plants in Texas that produce gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

Sempra Infrastructure’s Cameron LNG plant in Louisiana said weather disrupted its production of liquefied natural gas without providing details. Crews at the 12 million tonne-per-year facility were trying to restore output, it said.

Freeze-ins – in which ice crystals halt oil and gas production – this week trimmed production in North Dakota’s oilfields by 300,000 to 350,000 barrels per day, or a third of normal. In Texas’s Permian oilfield, the freeze led to more gas being withdrawn than was injected, said El Paso Natural Gas operator Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI.N).

U.S. benchmark oil prices on Friday jumped 2.4% to $79.56, and next-day gas in west Texas jumped 22% to around $9 per million British thermal units , the highest since the state’s 2021 deep freeze.

Power prices on Texas’s grid also spiked to $3,700 per megawatt hour, prompting generators to add more power to the grid before prices fell back as thermal and solar supplies came online.

New England’s bulk power supplier said it expected to have enough to supply demand, but elsewhere strong winds led to outages largely in the Southeast and Midwest; North Carolina counted more than 187,000 without power.

“Crews are restoring power but high winds are making repairs challenging at most of the 4,600 outage locations,” Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks wrote on Twitter.

Heating oil and natural gas futures rose sharply in response to the cold. U.S. heating oil futures gained 4.3% while natural gas futures rose 2.5%.

In New England, gas for Friday at the Algonquin hub soared 361% to a near 11-month high of $30 mmBtu.

About half of the power generated in New England comes from gas-fired plants, but on the coldest days, power generators shift to burn more oil. According to grid operator New England ISO, power companies’ generation mix was at 17% from oil-fired plants as of midday Friday.

Gas output dropped about 6.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) over the past four days to a preliminary nine-month low of 92.4 bcfd on Friday as wells froze in Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

That is the biggest drop in output since the February 2021 freeze knocked out power for millions in Texas.

One billion cubic feet is enough gas to supply about 5 million U.S. homes for a day.

Reporting by Erwin Seba and Scott DiSavino; additional reporting by Arathy Somasekhar and Laila Kearney; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Kirsten Donovan, Aurora Ellis and Leslie Adler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Scott Disavino

Thomson Reuters

Covers the North American power and natural gas markets.

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