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  • Benedict’s death clears path for Pope Francis to retire of old age in future

    Benedict’s death clears path for Pope Francis to retire of old age in future

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    VATICAN CITY, Jan 3 (Reuters) – Six months ago Pope Francis brushed off speculation he was about to resign due to health problems, but even if he had toyed with the idea, he faced one major obstacle: there was already another ex-pope in retirement.

    The death on Saturday of Benedict, who in 2013 became the first pontiff in 600 years to step down instead of reigning for life, should make any decision to step down easier on Francis and the Church, which has struggled enough with having “two popes”, let alone three – two retired and one reigning.

    It could also prompt the current pontiff to review what happens to future popes who decide to shuffle away from office because of old age rather than holding on until they die.

    Francis is now 86, one year older than Benedict was when he retired. Despite needing a cane and a wheelchair, he shows no sign of slowing down. Trips are planned for Africa this month and Portugal in August.

    He has made it clear that he would not hesitate to step down someday if his mental or physical health impeded him from leading the 1.3 billion-member Church.

    In an interview with Reuters on July 2, he dismissed rumours of imminent resignation. “It never entered my mind,” he said, also denying rumours among diplomats that he had cancer.

    The previous month, the Catholic media world and some secular outlets were caught up in a frenzy of unsubstantiated reports and frivolous tweets speculating he would be out within a few months.

    But as he now approaches the 10th anniversary of his election in March, and in four years his life’s ninth decade, the chances of resignation will increase.

    Church law says a pope can resign but the decision must be without outside pressure, a precaution that harkens back to the centuries when European potentates influenced the papacy.

    NO LONGER UNTHINKABLE

    [1/2] Pope Francis leads the Mass to mark the World Day of Peace in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, January 1, 2023. Vatican Media/­Handout via REUTERS

    Now that longer life spans have made papal resignations no longer unthinkable, there have been repeated calls from Church leaders to regulate the role of former pontiffs, in part because of the confusion stemming wrought by two men wearing white living in the Vatican.

    Francis told a Spanish newspaper last month that he did not intend to define the juridical status of popes emeritus, although he had previously indicated privately that a Vatican department could script such rules.

    Australian Cardinal George Pell, a conservative who was close to Benedict, has written that while a retired pontiff could retain the title of “pope emeritus”, he should return to being a cardinal, and be known as “Cardinal (surname), Pope Emeritus”.

    Pell also said a former pontiff should not wear white, as Benedict did, telling Reuters in a 2020 interview that it was important for Catholics to be clear that “there is only one pope”.

    Academics and canon lawyers at Italy’s Bologna University who have studied the issue say the Church cannot risk even the appearance of having “two heads or two kings” and have proposed a set of rules.

    They say a former pope should not return to being a cardinal, as Pell proposes, but be called “Bishop Emeritus of Rome”.

    Francis told Reuters in July that is precisely what he would want to be called.

    In that case there might not be any need for new legislation he would then be subject to existing rules covering retired bishops.

    Existing rules say bishops emeritus should “avoid every attitude and relationship that could even hint at some kind of parallel authority to that of the diocesan bishop, with damaging consequences for the pastoral life and unity of the diocesan community”.

    Although he had retired, Benedict wrote, gave interviews and, unwittingly or not, became a lightning rod for opponents of Pope Francis, either for doctrinal reasons or because they were loath to relinquish the clerical privileges the new pope wanted to dismantle.

    Francis told Reuters that he would not stay in the Vatican or return to his native Argentina but live modestly in a home for retired priests in the Italian capital “because it’s my diocese”. He said he would want it to be near a large church so he could spend his final days hearing confessions.

    Reporting by Philip Pullella
    Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Hardliner Jim Jordan emerges as a Republican alternative for U.S. House speaker

    Hardliner Jim Jordan emerges as a Republican alternative for U.S. House speaker

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    WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (Reuters) – For much of the last 16 years Republican Jim Jordan’s combative, in-your-face style of politics made the former college wrestler a constant source of trouble for his party’s leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives.

    Now his party is deciding whether the hardline co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus will lead the chamber in challenging Democratic President Joe Biden and the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate for the next two years.

    The 58-year-old congressman from Ohio emerged on Tuesday as a potential alternative to Kevin McCarthy for the House speakership, a powerful job that is second in line to the Oval Office after the vice president.

    With McCarthy opposed by enough Republicans to deny him a House majority on vote after vote, a group of fellow hardliners nominated Jordan, who nonetheless backed McCarthy and gave an impassioned speech on his behalf.

    Twenty Republicans voted for Jordan – fewer than a tenth of those backing McCarthy, but enough to stop his progress. The House recessed after three votes without giving McCarthy the House majority he needed on Tuesday and adjourned until noon ET (1700 GMT) on Wednesday to try again.

    Being elected speaker would be a huge step up for Jordan, known for eschewing suit jackets at congressional hearings and news conferences, potentially making him the successor to, and a sharp break from, liberal predecessor Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat.

    Now in his ninth term and 17th year in the House, Jordan would likely push hard for steep cuts to domestic programs including popular social services and be a voice against abortion and LGBTQ rights, while advocating greater parental roles in public school education.

    While raising his profile on House committees over the years and especially during Republican Donald Trump’s presidency, Jordan also found himself fending off accusations that as a wrestling coach at Ohio State University in the 1980s and 1990s he was aware of sexual harassment plaguing the college team but did nothing to stop it.

    A champion wrestler in high school and college before becoming a college coach, Jordan denied the accusations and thrived in Congress.

    TRUMP DEFENDER

    During Trump’s first impeachment in late 2019 and early 2020, it was Jordan who stood before the cameras reciting the mantra over and over: “There was no quid pro quo.”

    He was referring to charges by Democrats, who then controlled the House, that Trump held back U.S. military aid to Ukraine while asking its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a phone call to launch an investigation into Joe Biden’s son Hunter. The call took place at a time when the elder Biden was emerging as Trump’s likely opponent in the 2020 presidential race.

    In 2011, with a newly installed Republican majority in the House, Jordan made President Barack Obama’s life miserable by demanding deep budget cuts opposed by Democrats. He helped lead the government to the precipice of an historic default on government debt by insisting on the cuts.

    Jordan ignored pleas, including from the U.S. business community, to relent and allow for more government borrowing. Global financial markets were rocked by the uncertainty.

    With the House once again controlled by Republicans, and the party’s far-right wing ascendant, concerns about a possible government default later this year have re-emerged.

    On immigration, Jordan was a key player in blocking what had been long negotiations toward comprehensive immigration reform.

    A bipartisan bill passed in 2013 in the Senate would have vastly increased spending on border security. But it also would have granted a path to citizenship for immigrants living in the United States illegally for years and had committed no serious crimes.

    With then-Speaker John Boehner maneuvering to bring a similar bill to a vote in the House, Jordan told Reuters at a key moment that it was dead. He turned out to be right in an embarrassment to Boehner.

    In his speech nominating McCarthy on Tuesday for the speaker’s job, Jordan spelled out his own priorities.

    “We have a border that is no longer a border. We have a military that can’t meet its recruitment goals. We have bad energy policy, bad education policy, record spending, record debt and a government that has been weaponized against ‘we the people’; against the very people that we represent,” he said.

    Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • U.S. FDA allows abortion pills to be sold at retail pharmacies

    U.S. FDA allows abortion pills to be sold at retail pharmacies

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    WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will allow retail pharmacies to offer abortion pills in the United States for the first time, the agency said on Tuesday, even as more states seek to ban medication abortion.

    The regulatory change will potentially expand abortion access as President Joe Biden’s administration wrestles with how best to protect abortion rights after they were sharply curtailed by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade ruling and the state bans that followed.

    Pharmacies can start applying for certification to distribute abortion pill mifepristone with one of the two companies that make it, and if successful they will be able to dispense it directly to patients upon receiving a prescription from a certified prescriber.

    The FDA had first said it would be making those changes in December 2021 when it announced it would relax some risk evaluation and mitigation strategies, or REMS, on the pill, that had been in place since the agency approved it in 2000 and were lifted temporarily in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The changes included permanently removing restrictions on mail order shipping of the pills and their prescription through telehealth.

    The agency finalized the changes on Tuesday after reviewing supplemental applications from Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, the two companies that make the drug in the United States.

    “Under the Mifepristone REMS Program, as modified, Mifeprex and its approved generic can be dispensed by certified pharmacies or by or under the supervision of a certified prescriber,” the agency said on its website on Tuesday.

    Mifeprex is the brand name version of mifepristone which, in combination with a second drug called misoprostol that has various uses including miscarriage management, induces an abortion up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy in a process known as medication abortion.

    Abortion rights activists say the pill has a long track record of being safe and effective, with no risk of overdose or addiction. In several countries, including India and Mexico, women can buy them without a prescription to induce abortion.

    “Today’s news is a step in the right direction for health equity,” Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement.

    “Being able to access your prescribed medication abortion through the mail or to pick it up in person from a pharmacy like any other prescription is a game changer for people trying to access basic health care,” Johnson added.

    NO EQUAL ACCESS

    The regulatory change will, however, not provide equal access to all people, GenBioPro, which makes the generic version of mifepristone, said in a statement.

    Abortion bans, some targeting mifepristone, have gone into effect in more than a dozen states since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to terminating pregnancies when it scrapped the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling last year.

    Women in those states could potentially travel to other states to obtain medication abortion.

    The president of anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said the latest FDA move endangers women’s safety and the lives of unborn children.

    “State lawmakers and Congress must stand as a bulwark against the Biden administration’s pro-abortion extremism,” she said in a statement.

    FDA records show a small mortality case number associated with mifepristone. As of June 2021, there were reports of 26 deaths linked with the pill out of 4.9 million people estimated to have taken it since it was approved in September 2000.

    Retail pharmacies will have to weigh whether or not to offer the pill given the political controversy surrounding abortion, and determine where they can do so.

    A spokesperson for CVS Health (CVS.N) said the drugstore chain owner was reviewing the updated REMS “drug safety program certification requirements for mifepristone to determine the requirements to dispense in states that do not restrict the dispensing of medications prescribed for elective termination of pregnancy.”

    A spokesperson for Walgreens (WBA.O), one of the largest U.S. pharmacies, said the company was also reviewing the FDA’s regulatory change. “We will continue to enable our pharmacists to dispense medications consistent with federal and state law.”

    Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington, Shivani Tanna, Rahat Sandhu, and Kanjyik Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Himani Sarkar

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

    Ahmed Aboulenein

    Thomson Reuters

    Washington-based correspondent covering U.S. healthcare and pharmaceutical policy with a focus on the Department of Health and Human Services and the agencies it oversees such as the Food and Drug Administration, previously based in Iraq and Egypt.

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  • Putin’s call for Orthodox Christmas truce in Ukraine greeted with scepticism

    Putin’s call for Orthodox Christmas truce in Ukraine greeted with scepticism

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    • Putin orders ceasefire to start at noon on Friday
    • Ukraine says no truce until invaders leave
    • Germany, U.S. agree to send combat vehicles to Ukraine

    KYIV/BAKHMUT, Ukraine, Jan 5 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Thursday for a 36-hour ceasefire in Ukraine to mark Orthodox Christmas, a move rejected by Kyiv which said there could be no truce until Russia withdraws its troops from occupied land.

    The United States and Germany made a joint announcement to supply Ukraine with armoured combat vehicles, a boost for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who has urged Western allies to provide his forces with armour and heavy weapons for months.

    Fifty Bradley Fighting Vehicles would be included in a $2.8 billion U.S. package. Germany said it was sending Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicles, following an announcement by France on Wednesday it was sending AMX-10 RC armoured combat vehicles.

    The Kremlin said Putin had ordered Russian troops to cease firing from midday on Friday along the entire front, in response to a call for a Christmas truce from Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, a close Putin ally.

    “Proceeding from the fact that a large number of citizens professing Orthodoxy live in the areas of hostilities, we call on the Ukrainian side to declare a ceasefire and allow them to attend services on Christmas Eve, as well as on Christmas Day,” Putin said in his order.

    Russia’s Orthodox Church observes Christmas on Jan. 7. Ukraine’s main Orthodox Church has rejected the authority of the Moscow patriarch, and many Ukrainian believers have shifted their calendar to celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 as in the West.

    A genuine truce in Ukraine would be the first since May, when the sides halted intense fighting in the devastated port of Mariupol to allow Ukrainian forces to surrender there.

    On Thursday night, Zelenskiy accused Russia of wanting to use a truce as cover to stop Ukrainian advances in the strategic industrial area and eastern frontline known as the Donbas.

    “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 nightly video address, speaking pointedly in Russian rather than Ukrainian.

    ‘CYNICAL’ SAYS U.S.

    In Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden, the State Department and the Pentagon greeted Putin’s order with scepticism. Biden said he thought Putin was “trying to find some oxygen”.

    Ukraine has scored some battlefield successes in the past few months although Russia has kept up a barrage of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s energy plants, knocking out power to millions of people at times in the middle of winter. Russia has denied targeting civilians since its invasion began Feb. 24 but the strikes included Christmas Day and New Year’s attacks on civilian infrastructure, according to Kyiv.

    “There’s one word that best described that and it’s ‘cynical’,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a press briefing of Putin’s ceasefire order.

    “Our concern … is that the Russians would seek to use any temporary pause in fighting to rest, to refit, to regroup, and ultimately to re-attack,” Price said.

    Putin’s ceasefire also appeared to face challenges from Russia’s own side. Denis Pushilin, Russian-installed leader in Ukraine’s Donetsk province, scene of the heaviest fighting, wrote on Telegram: “There can be no talk of any truce!”

    He said Putin’s order involved only halting offensive operations.

    Earlier on Thursday, the Kremlin said Putin had told Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow was ready for peace talks – but only under the condition that Ukraine “take into account the new territorial realities”, a reference to Kyiv acknowledging Moscow’s annexation of Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podolyak called that demand “fully unacceptable”.

    MEAT GRINDER

    Ten months after Putin ordered what he calls a “special military operation” to protect Russian security, Moscow and Kyiv have entered the new year with hardened diplomatic positions.

    Putin has shown no willingness to discuss relinquishing his territorial conquests, despite mounting losses among his troops.

    While some of the heaviest fighting of the war continues, the front line has been static since the last big Russian retreat in mid-November. The worst battles have taken place near the eastern city of Bakhmut, which both sides have compared to a meat grinder.

    Ukraine says Russia has lost thousands of troops despite seizing scant ground in months of futile waves of assaults on Bakhmut. Russia says the city is key to its aim to capture the rest of Donetsk province, one of four partially occupied regions it claims to have annexed.

    Near the front, Reuters saw explosions from outgoing artillery and smoke filling the sky.

    “We are holding up. The guys are trying to hold up the defence,” said Viktor, a 39-year-old Ukrainian soldier driving an armoured vehicle out of Soledar, a salt-mining town on Bakhmut’s northeastern outskirts.

    Most civilians have been evacuated from Bakhmut. Those who have stayed survive under near constant bombardment, with no heat or electricity. Parts of the city are a wasteland, with sections of residential apartment blocks flattened into concrete piles.

    Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Peter Graff and Grant McCool; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Cynthia Osterman

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • UK’s Sunak criticised for asking homeless man if he ‘works in business’

    UK’s Sunak criticised for asking homeless man if he ‘works in business’

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    LONDON, Dec 24 (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced criticism on Saturday for seeming out of touch with ordinary people when he asked a homeless man at a charity whether he “worked in business” and wanted to get into the finance industry.

    Sunak, a former Goldman Sachs banker and one of Britain’s wealthiest people, was serving breakfast at a homeless shelter in London on Friday, when he began chatting with a man who identified himself as Dean.

    “Do you work in business?” the prime minister asks the man at one point during the conversation, as he hands him a plate of sausages, toast and eggs.

    “No, I’m homeless. I’m actually a homeless person,” the man replies.

    Angela Rayner, deputy leader of the opposition Labour Party, posted a clip of the exchange on Twitter, calling it “excruciating,” while another Labour lawmaker, Bill Esterson, called Sunak “out of touch”.

    His ascent to the British premiership in October made Sunak the richest occupant of Number 10 Downing Street at a time when the country is struggling with a cost-of-living crisis.

    The prime minister this week made surprise phone calls to British diplomats and military personnel around the world to give them Christmas wishes, his office said on Friday.

    His awkward exchange with the homeless man began when the man asks Sunak if he’s “sorting the economy out”.

    When the homeless man then says he is interested in business and finance, Sunak replies that he used to work in finance too, before asking: “Is that something you would like to get into?”

    “Yeah I wouldn’t mind,” says Dean. “But, I don’t know, I’d like to get through Christmas first.”

    Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar; Editing by David Holmes

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Argentina president rejects Supreme Court ruling, sparking backlash

    Argentina president rejects Supreme Court ruling, sparking backlash

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    BUENOS AIRES, Dec 23 (Reuters) – Argentina’s leftist President Alberto Fernandez has sparked a battle with the country’s top court and something of a legal crisis after he said he would reject a ruling it made to give a larger proportion of state funds to the city of Buenos Aires.

    The South American country has a system to regulate how state funds are distribute between the country’s regions, including the capital city area, which is controlled by a conservative mayor and had been pushing for a larger slice.

    In a ruling on Wednesday the Supreme Court said the level should be raised from 1.4% of the total pool of funds to 2.95% after it was cut by government decree during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The city is the wealthiest and most populous area of the country.

    Fernandez, in a statement late on Thursday, said the ruling was unjustified and pledged to ignore it.

    “It is an unprecedented, incongruous, and impossible-to-enforce ruling,” he said, calling the decision politically motivated ahead of general elections next year and adding that it would hurt the other provinces.

    Fernandez, who has seen his popularity slide and whose ruling coalition was badly defeated in midterm congressional elections last year, said that the state would “challenge the members of the Supreme Court” and seek to have the ruling revoked.

    His remarks sparked off a backlash on both sides, some agreeing with the president that the ruling was unjustified and others saying the rejection of a Supreme Court decision set a dangerous precedent and undermined the justice system.

    “The president decided to break the constitutional order, completely violate the rule of law and attack democracy,” said Buenos Aires city mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, who is seen as a potential 2023 presidential candidate.

    Various industry groups criticized the move as dangerous to the rule of law, while a number of regional governors sided with the president.

    “This measure is, under current conditions, impossible to comply with,” said Buenos Aires province Governor Axel Kicillof.

    “There are already 18 governors who denounce the partisan decision of the Supreme Court to benefit the head of the city government against all the provinces.”

    Reporting by Adam Jourdan and Marta Lopez
    Editing by Frances Kerry

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Ukraine says Russia strike kills at least 10; Moscow blames pro-Kyiv forces

    Ukraine says Russia strike kills at least 10; Moscow blames pro-Kyiv forces

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    KYIV, Dec 24 (Reuters) – A Russian strike on Ukraine’s recently recaptured city of Kherson killed at least 10 people, wounded 58 and left bloodied corpses on the road, authorities said, in what Kyiv condemned as wanton killing for pleasure.

    A pro-Moscow official responded by saying Ukrainian forces had launched the attack in a bid to blame the Russian military.

    Fresh from a trip to the United States seeking weapons to resist the 10-month-old Russian invasion, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy published photos showing streets strewn with burning cars, smashed windows and bodies.

    “Social networks will most likely mark these photos as ‘sensitive content’. But this is not sensitive content – it is the real life of Ukraine and Ukrainians,” he wrote.

    “These are not military facilities. … It is terror, it is killing for the sake of intimidation and pleasure.”

    Russia controls most but not all of Kherson region. Local Governor Yaroslav Yanushevych, appointed by Kyiv, told national television the death toll had risen to 10, Interfax Ukraine news agency said.

    Vladimir Saldo, the region’s Russian-installed governor, said Kyiv had ordered troops to shell the city.

    “This is a disgusting provocation with the obvious aim of blaming the Russian armed forces,” he wrote on Telegram.

    Yuriy Sobolevskyi, deputy chair of the regional council, said a missile landed next to a supermarket by the city’s Freedom Square.

    Cars burn on a street after a Russian military strike, amid Russia’s attack of Ukraine, in Kherson, Ukraine December 24, 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS

    “There were civilians there, each of whom lived their own life, went about their own business,” he said, noting a girl selling phone Sim cards, others unloading items from a truck, and passersby.

    Reuters was unable to independently verify the reports from Kherson.

    Ukraine retook the city, the only regional capital Russia had since its Feb. 24 invasion, in November. Since then, Kyiv says Russian forces have heavily shelled the city from across the vast Dnipro river.

    ‘KILL WITH IMPUNITY’

    Ukrainian presidential aide Kyrylo Tymoshenko said the attack came from a Grad multiple rocket launcher.

    Another aide, Mykhailo Podolyak, criticized those calling for Kyiv to seek peace talks with Russia, referencing Moscow’s relentless pounding of Ukraine’s power grid since October that has left millions without heat or water.

    “I’ll remind those who propose to take into account (Russian) ‘peace’ initiatives: Right now Russia is ‘negotiating,’ killing Kherson residents, wiping out Bakhmut, destroying Kyiv/Odesa grids, torturing civilians in Melitopol,” Podolyak wrote.

    “Russia wants to kill with impunity. Shall we allow it?”

    Yanushevych had earlier shared a message from the city’s blood bank calling for urgent donations.

    Kyiv was still recovering from Monday’s wave of missile strikes, which knocked out half the city’s power supply into the next day, according to Ukraine’s prime minister.

    Reporting by Max Hunder;
    Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, David Ljunggren, Josie Kao and Leslie Adler

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Taliban bans female NGO staff, jeopardizing aid efforts

    Taliban bans female NGO staff, jeopardizing aid efforts

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    • Taliban orders NGOs to stop female staff from working
    • Comes after suspension of female students from universities
    • U.N. says order would seriously impact humanitarian operations
    • U.N. plans to meet with Taliban to seek clarity

    KABUL, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s Taliban-run administration on Saturday ordered all local and foreign NGOs to stop female employees from working, in a move the United Nations said would hit humanitarian operations just as winter grips a country already in economic crisis.

    A letter from the economy ministry, confirmed by spokesperson Abdulrahman Habib, said female employees of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were not allowed to work until further notice because some had not adhered to the administration’s interpretation of Islamic dresscode for women.

    It comes days after the administration ordered universities to close to women, prompting global condemnation and sparking some protests and heavy criticism inside Afghanistan.

    Both decisions are the latest restrictions on women that are likely to undermine the Taliban-run administration’s efforts to gain international recognition and clear sanctions that are severely hampering the economy.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter he was “deeply concerned” the move “will disrupt vital and life-saving assistance to millions,” adding: “Women are central to humanitarian operations around the world. This decision could be devastating for the Afghan people.”

    Ramiz Alakbarov, the U.N. deputy special representative for Afghanistan and humanitarian coordinator, told Reuters that although the U.N. had not received the order, contracted NGOs carried out most of its activities and would be heavily impacted.

    “Many of our programmes will be affected,” he said, because they need female staff to assess humanitarian need and identify beneficiaries, otherwise they will not be able to implement aid programs.

    International aid agency AfghanAid said it was immediately suspending operations while it consulted with other organisations, and that other NGOs were taking similar actions.

    The potential endangerment of aid programmes that millions of Afghans access comes when more than half the population relies on humanitarian aid, according to aid agencies, and during the mountainous nation’s coldest season.

    “There’s never a right time for anything like this … but this particular time is very unfortunate because during winter time people are most in need and Afghan winters are very harsh,” said Alakbarov.

    He said his office would consult with NGOs and U.N. agencies on Sunday and seek to meet with Taliban authorities for an explanation.

    Aid workers say female workers are essential in a country where rules and cultural customs largely prevent male workers from delivering aid to female beneficiaries.

    “An important principle of delivery of humanitarian aid is the ability of women to participate independently and in an unimpeded way in its distribution so if we can’t do it in a principled way then no donors will be funding any programs like that,” Alakbarov said.

    When asked whether the rules directly included U.N. agencies, Habib said the letter applied to organisations under Afghanistan’s coordinating body for humanitarian organisations, known as ACBAR. That body does not include the U.N., but includes over 180 local and international NGOs.

    Their licences would be suspended if they did not comply, the letter said.

    Afghanistan’s struggling economy has tipped into crisis since the Taliban took over in 2021, with the country facing sanctions, cuts in development aid and a freeze in central bank assets.

    A record 28 million Afghans are estimated to need humanitarian aid next year, according to AfghanAid.

    Reporting by Kabul newsroom; additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington
    Editing by Mark Potter and Josie Kao

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Harry and Meghan dismiss Sun apology for offending column as ‘PR stunt’

    Harry and Meghan dismiss Sun apology for offending column as ‘PR stunt’

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    LONDON, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan on Saturday dismissed an apology by the tabloid Sun newspaper for publishing a column highly critical of Meghan as a “PR stunt” and said the newspaper had not contacted her to say sorry.

    In the column, television presenter Jeremy Clarkson wrote of Meghan: “At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.”

    Britain’s Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) regulator said on Tuesday that it had received more than 17,500 complaints, the most about any article since it was established in 2014.

    “While the public absolutely deserves the publication’s regrets for their dangerous comments, we wouldn’t be in this situation if The Sun did not continue to profit off of and exploit hate, violence and misogyny,” a spokesperson for Harry and Meghan said.

    “A true apology would be a shift in their coverage and ethical standards for all. Unfortunately, we’re not holding our breath.”

    The Sun, in its apology, said: “We at The Sun regret the publication of this article and we are sincerely sorry”, adding that the article had been removed from its website and archives.

    More than 60 lawmakers signed a letter written by Caroline Nokes, chair of parliament’s Women and Equalities Select Committee, to the editor of The Sun warning such articles contribute to a climate of hatred and violence against women.

    In a statement posted on Twitter on Monday, Clarkson said he was “horrified to have caused so much hurt” and would be “more careful in future”.

    The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as Harry and Meghan are officially known, stepped down from royal duties in March 2020, saying they wanted to make new lives in the United States away from media harassment.

    In a Netflix documentary series, Meghan spoke about how her treatment by the media had left her feeling suicidal as well as concern over whether she and her children were safe.

    Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar: Editing by Nick Macfie

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Kurdish protest over Paris shooting turns violent

    Kurdish protest over Paris shooting turns violent

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

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

    Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said there had been a sudden violent turn in the protest but it was not yet clear why.

    Speaking on news channel BFM TV, Nunez said a few dozen protestors were responsible for the violence, adding there had been 11 arrests and around 30 minor injuries.

    As some demonstrators left the square they threw projectiles at police who responded with tear gas. Skirmishes continued for around two hours before the protestors 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.

    [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

    However, the questioning was later halted on medical grounds and the man transferred to a psychiatric unit, the prosecutor’s office said in an update.

    The suspect will be presented to an investigating magistrate when his health permits, it added.

    After a gathering on Friday afternoon that had also led to clashes with police, the Kurdish democratic council in France (CDK-F) organised the demonstration at Republic Square on Saturday.

    Hundreds of Kurdish protestors, 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 had soured after some protestors were provoked by people making pro-Turkish gestures in a passing vehicle.

    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.

    Kurdish representatives, who met on Saturday with Nunez as well as French Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti, reiterated their call for Friday’s shooting to be considered a terror attack.

    Reporting by Manuel Ausloos, Antony Paone, Gus Trompiz, Kate Entringer and Caroline Pailliez; Editing by David Holmes and Mark Potter

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Analysis: China’s massive older chip tech buildup raises U.S. concern

    Analysis: China’s massive older chip tech buildup raises U.S. concern

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    OAKLAND, Calif./SHANGHAI/WASHINGTON Dec 13 (Reuters) – China’s largest chip maker SMIC (0981.HK) is ramping up production of a decade-old chip technology, key to many industries’ supply chains, setting off alarm bells in the United States and prompting some lawmakers to try to stop them.

    The United States and allied nations could further step up restrictions if China announces a trillion yuan ($144 billion) support package for its chip industry, as Reuters exclusively reported on Tuesday, said TechInsights’ chip economist Dan Hutcheson.

    Starting with the Trump administration, the United States has been tightening the noose around China’s high-tech ambitions. It cut off the world’s largest telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies from the U.S. market and technologies, as well as cut off air supply to China’s advanced chip making through a series of rules this year.

    But why worry about older chip technology?

    China, which in 2020 had 9% of the global chip market, has a track record of dominating key technologies by flooding the market with cheaper products and wiping out global competition, say China watchers.

    They did it with solar panels and 5G telecom equipment, and could do it with older technology chips, said Matt Pottinger, former Deputy National Security Advisor of the United States during the Trump administration who has been studying chip policy at the Hoover Institution.

    “It would give Beijing coercive leverage over every country and industry – military or civilian – that depend on 28 nanometer chips, and that’s a big, big chunk of the chip universe,” he said.

    “28 nanometer” refers to a chip technology commercially used since 2011. It is still widely used in automotive, weapons and the explosive category of internet of things gadgets, said Hutcheson.

    Hutcheson, who has been monitoring chip production capacity for four decades, said the concern is that Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (0981.HK) and other chipmakers in China could use government subsidies to sell chips at a low price. And a possible new round of financial support from Beijing would increase chip production even further.

    “The Chinese could just flood the market with these technologies,” he said. “Normal companies can’t compete, because they can’t make money at those levels.”

    U.S. LAWMAKERS PUSHING AGAINST SMIC

    Those concerns have pushed some lawmakers to use legislation for setting the defense budget hold back SMIC.

    While the measure is weaker than what was initially proposed, this week U.S. Senators are expected to pass the annual National Defense Authorization Act 2023 that includes a section barring the U.S. government from using chips from SMIC and two other Chinese memory chip makers. It is not clear what impact the restriction, which kicks in five years after it becomes law, will have on SMIC.

    Founded in 2000 with backing from Beijing, SMIC has long struggled to break into the ranks of the world’s leading chip manufacturers.

    But it is a giant in older technology, including chips that regulate power flows in electronics. And its revenue was close to $2 billion in the third quarter this year, roughly double the same period last year on the back of the global chip shortage.

    SMIC FILLING SUPPLY GAP

    With U.S. export controls making it impossible to produce advanced chips, SMIC is doubling down on mature technology chips and has announced four new facilities, or fabs, since 2020. When those come online, it would more than triple the company’s output, estimates Samuel Wang, Gartner chip analyst. He said there is a huge ramp up in new chip fabs across China.

    “All this will start to have an impact from early 2024 and will be full blown by 2027,” said Wang, adding the chip supply increase will put downward pressure on chip prices.

    The importance of older chip technology hit the industry in the face in 2021 as a shortage of those chips prevented manufacturing of millions of cars and consumer electronics.

    Mark Li, Bernstein Research’s chip analyst in Asia, said the company is becoming a formidable competitor to Taiwan’s UMC Microelectronics Corp (6615.T) and U.S.-headquartered GlobalFoundries Inc (GFS.O).

    “SMIC has been much more willing to add capacity than other fabs at the low-end, and especially in this shortage we’ve seen in the past two years,” he says. “It’s not an issue now…but who knows, maybe in a few years there will be another shortage and capacity will be a big problem.”

    ($1 = 6.9430 Chinese yuan renminbi)

    Reporting By Jane Lanhee Lee in Oakland, Calif and Josh Horwitz in Shanghai, and Alexandra Alper in Washington D.C.; Editing by Josie Kao

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Indonesia evacuates villagers as volcano erupts on Java island

    Indonesia evacuates villagers as volcano erupts on Java island

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    JAKARTA, Dec 4 (Reuters) – A volcano erupted in Indonesia on Sunday spewing a cloud of ash 15 km into the sky and forcing the evacuation of nearly 2,000 people, authorities said, as they issued their highest warning for the area in the east of Java island.

    There were no immediate reports of any casualties from the eruption of the Semeru volcano and Indonesia’s transport ministry said that there was no impact on air travel but notices had been sent to two regional airports for vigilance.

    “Most roads have been closed since this morning and now it is raining volcanic ash and it has covered the view of the mountain,” community volunteer Bayu Deny Alfianto told Reuters by telephone from near the volcano.

    Semeru, the tallest mountain on Java, erupted last year killing more than 50 people and displacing thousands.

    Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) said 1,979 people had been moved to 11 shelters and authorities had distributed masks to residents. The eruption began at 2:46 a.m. (1946 GMT on Saturday) and rescue, search and evacuation efforts were going on.

    The volcano’s plume of ash reached a height of 50,000 feet (15 km), said Japan’s Meteorology Agency, which had initially been on alert for the possibility that the volcano could trigger a tsunami. It later ruled that out.

    The eruption, some 640 km (400 miles) east of the capital, Jakarta, follows a series of earthquakes in the west of Java, including one last month that killed more than 300 people.

    [1/7] Mount Semeru volcano spews volcanic ash during an eruption as seen from Candipuro in Lumajang, East Java province, Indonesia, December 4, 2022, in this photo taken by Antara Foto. Antara Foto/Iwan/ via REUTERS

    Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation, PVMBG, raised the level of volcanic activity to its highest level and warned residents not to approach within 8 km (5 miles) of Semeru’s eruption centre.

    Hot ash clouds had drifted nearly 12 miles (19 km) from the centre of eruption, it said.

    PVMBG chief Hendra Gunawan said a bigger volume of magma could have built up compared with previous eruptions of the volcano, in 2021 and 2020, which could mean greater danger for a bigger area.

    “Semeru’s hot clouds could reach further and at a distance where there are many residences,” he said.

    In a video sent to Reuters by police in the area, villagers were seen moving away from the slopes of the volcano, some with belongings stacked on motor bikes. A damaged bridge was covered in volcanic ash.

    With 142 volcanoes, Indonesia has the world’s largest population living close range to volcano, with 8.6 million people within 10 km (6 miles) of one.

    The deadly late-November quake that hit in West Java was 5.6 magnitude but at a shallow depth. A 6.1 quake struck at a deeper depth on Saturday sending people running from buildings but it did not cause major damage or casualties.

    Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman and Angie Teo in Jakarta; Additional reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto in Tokyo; Editing by William Mallard and Lincoln Feast

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  • Protests in Malta as parliament debates abortion amendment

    Protests in Malta as parliament debates abortion amendment

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    VALLETTA, Dec 4 (Reuters) – A large picture of an unborn baby was placed outside the office of Malta’s prime minister on Sunday as demonstrators called on the government to halt plans to amend the country’s strict anti-abortion laws.

    The protest, the biggest in years, attracted several thousand people including Malta’s top Catholic bishop and the leader of the conservative opposition, but was led by a former centre-left president, Marie Louise Coleiro Preca.

    “We are here to be the voice of the unborn child,” said 19-year-old university student Maria Formosa, one of the speakers at the rally. “Through abortion, life is always lost.”

    Some of those present carried placards reading slogans such as “Keep abortion out of Malta” and “Protect our children”. They also chanted “No to abortion, yes to life”.

    Traditionally Catholic Malta is the only member of the European Union which bans abortion in all circumstances, even when a woman’s life or health is endangered by her pregnancy.

    Last week, Health Minister Chris Fearne presented an amendment in parliament that would make doctors no longer risk up to four years’ imprisonment if their intervention to help women with severe health issues causes the end of a pregnancy.

    To date, no doctor has been prosecuted on such charges.

    The centre-right opposition, the powerful Catholic Church and some NGOs have described the amendment as not needed and as paving the way for a full liberalisation of abortion, a claim rejected by the ruling centre-left Labour party.

    Prime Minister Robert Abela’s government holds a comfortable majority and no dissent has appeared within its ranks, but opinion polls show a big majority against abortion, particularly among older people.

    No one from the government made any comment in response to the protest on Sunday.

    The move to change abortion rules comes after a U.S. tourist, Andrea Prudente, was refused a request in June to terminate a non-viable pregnancy after she began to bleed profusely.

    Her doctors said her life was at risk and she was eventually transferred to Spain where she had an abortion. She later sued the Malta government, calling on the courts to declare that banning abortion in all circumstances breaches human rights.

    The case has not yet come to trial.

    Reporting by Christopher Scicluna; Editing by Alvise Armellini and David Holmes

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Russia unleashes missiles across Ukraine, drones hit bases deep inside Russian territory

    Russia unleashes missiles across Ukraine, drones hit bases deep inside Russian territory

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    • Air alerts sound across Ukraine, south and north hit, 4 dead
    • Russia striking Ukraine’s infrastructure since October
    • Moscow: Ukrainian drones attack air bases in Russia, 3 dead
    • Price cap of $60 for Russian oil comes into force

    KYIV, Dec 5 (Reuters) – Ukraine said Russia destroyed homes in the southeast and knocked out power in many areas with a new volley of missiles on Monday, while Moscow said Ukrainian drones had attacked two air bases deep inside Russia hundreds of miles from front lines.

    A new missile barrage had been anticipated in Ukraine for days and it took place just as emergency blackouts were due to end, with previous damage repaired. The strikes plunged parts of Ukraine back into freezing darkness with temperatures now firmly below zero Celsius (32 Fahrenheit).

    At least four people were killed in the Russian missile attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, adding that most of some 70 missiles were shot down. Energy workers had already begun work on restoring power supplies, he said.

    Russia’s defence ministry said Ukrainian drones attacked two air bases at Ryazan and Saratov in south-central Russia, killing three servicemen and wounding four, with two aircraft damaged by pieces of the drones when they were shot down.

    Ukraine did not directly claim responsibility for the attacks. If it was behind them, they would be the deepest strikes inside the Russian heartland since Moscow invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

    One of the targets, the Engels air base near the city of Saratov, around 730 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow, houses bomber planes belonging to Russia’s strategic nuclear forces.

    “The Kyiv regime, in order to disable Russian long-range aircraft, made attempts to strike with Soviet-made unmanned jet aerial vehicles at the military airfields Dyagilevo, in the Ryazan region, and Engels, in the Saratov region,” the Russian defence ministry said.

    It said the drones, flying at low altitude, were intercepted by air defences and shot down. The deaths were reported on the Ryazan base, 185 km (115 miles) southeast of Moscow.

    The Russian defence ministry called the drone strikes a terrorist act aimed at disrupting its long-range aviation.

    Despite that, it said, Russia responded with a “massive strike on the military control system and related objects of the defences complex, communication centres, energy and military units of Ukraine with high-precision air- and sea-based weapons” in which it said all 17 designated targets were hit.

    Ukraine’s air force said it downed over 60 of more than 70 missiles fired by Russia on Monday – the latest in weeks of attacks targeting its critical infrastructure that have cut off power, heat and water to many parts of the country.

    “Our guys are awesome,” Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential staff, wrote on Telegram.

    Kyiv’s forces have also demonstrated an increasing ability to hit strategic Russian targets far beyond the 1,100 km-long frontline in south and eastern Ukraine.

    Saratov is at least 600 km from the nearest Ukrainian territory. Russian commentators said on social media that if Ukraine could strike that far inside Russia, it might also be capable of hitting Moscow.

    Previous mysterious blasts damaged arms stores and fuel depots in regions near Ukraine and knocked out at least seven warplanes in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014.

    [1/15] People take shelter inside the metro station amid Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, December 5, 2022. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

    President Vladimir Putin drove a Mercedes across the bridge linking southern Russia to Crimea on Monday, less than two months since that, too, was hit by an explosion.

    Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for any of the blasts, saying only that they were “karma” for Russia’s invasion.

    “If something is launched into other countries’ air space, sooner or later unknown flying objects will return to (their) departure point,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted, tongue in cheek, on Monday.

    MISSILE FRAGMENTS HIT MOLDOVA

    Moscow has been hitting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure roughly weekly since early October as it has been forced to retreat on some battlefronts.

    This time, police in Moldova were reported to have found missile fragments on its soil near the border with Ukraine.

    In the Zaporizhzhia region, at least two people were killed and several houses destroyed, the deputy head of the presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said.

    Missiles also hit energy facilities in the regions of Kyiv and Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, Odesa in the south and Sumy in the north, officials said.

    Forty percent of the Kyiv region had no electricity, regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba said, praising the work of Ukrainian air defences.

    Ukraine had only just returned to scheduled power outages from Monday rather than the emergency blackouts it has suffered since widespread Russian strikes on Nov. 23, the worst of the attacks on energy infrastructure that began in early October.

    Russia has said the barrages are designed to degrade Ukraine’s military. Ukraine says they are clearly aimed at civilians and thus constitute a war crime.

    WESTERN PRICE CAP ON RUSSIAN OIL

    A $60 per barrel price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil took effect on Monday, the latest Western measure to punish Moscow over its invasion. Russia is the world’s second-largest oil exporter.

    The agreement allows Russian oil to be shipped to third-party countries using tankers from G7 and European Union member states, insurance companies and credit institutions, only if the cargo is bought at or below the $60 per barrel cap.

    Moscow has said it will not abide by the measure even if it has to cut production. Ukraine wants the cap set lower: Zelenskiy said $60 was too high to deter Russia’s assault.

    A Russian oil blend was selling for around $79 a barrel in Asian markets on Monday – almost a third higher than the price cap, according to Refinitiv data and estimates from industry sources.

    Reporting by Nick Starkov and Reuters bureaus; Writing by Philippa Fletcher and Mark Heinrich; Editing by Peter Graff and Angus MacSwan

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • In Mexico, Aztec dig sets new records as royal mystery deepens

    In Mexico, Aztec dig sets new records as royal mystery deepens

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    MEXICO CITY, Nov 24 (Reuters) – An extensive cache of Aztec ritual offerings found underneath downtown Mexico City, off the steps of what would have been the empire’s holiest shrine, provides new insight into pre-Hispanic religious rites and political propaganda.

    Sealed in stone boxes five centuries ago at the foot of the temple, the contents of one box found in the exact center of what was a ceremonial circular stage has shattered records for the number of sea offerings from both the Pacific Ocean and off Mexico’s Gulf Coast, including more than 165 once-bright-red starfish and upwards of 180 complete corral branches.

    Archeologists believe Aztec priests carefully layered these offerings in the box within the elevated platform for a ceremony likely attended by thousands of rapt spectators amid the thunder-clap of drums.

    “Pure imperial propaganda,” Leonardo Lopez Lujan, lead archeologist at the Proyecto Templo Mayor of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), which is overseeing the dig, said of the likely spectacle.

    In the same box, archeologists previously found a sacrificed jaguar dressed like a warrior associated with the Aztec patron Huitzilopochtli, the war and sun god, before the COVID-19 pandemic forced a more than two-year pause on excavations.

    Previously unreported details include last month’s discovery of a sacrificed eagle held in the clutches of the jaguar, along with miniature wooden spears and a reed shield found next to the west-facing feline, which had copper bells tied around its ankles.

    The half-excavated rectangular box, dating to the reign of the Aztec’s greatest emperor Ahuitzotl who ruled from 1486 to 1502, now shows a mysterious bulge in the middle under the jaguar’s skeleton, indicating something solid below.

    “Whatever is underneath the jaguar is something enormously important,” said Lopez Lujan.

    “We’re expecting a great discovery.”

    Lopez Lujan, who heads excavations at what is today known as the Templo Mayor, thinks the box could contain an urn holding the cremated remains of Ahuitzotl, the emperor whose military campaigns expanded the empire to modern-day Guatemala while linking Mexico’s Pacific and Gulf coasts. But he says at least another year of digging is needed to settle the question.

    [1/10] A general view of the Templo Mayor where several ritual offerings have recently been found just off the steps of the Templo Mayor, the Aztec empire’s most sacred temple, in Mexico City, Mexico November 15 , 2022. REUTERS/Henry Romero.

    AZTEC WORLDVIEW

    To date, no Aztec royal tomb has ever been found despite more than 40 years of digging around the Templo Mayor, where more than 200 offerings boxes have been found.

    The temple towered as high as a 15-story building before it was razed in the years after the 1521 Spanish conquest of Mexico, the rubble serving to obscure many of the latest finds.

    Besides the central offering containing the jaguar, two additional boxes were recently identified adjacent to it, with both set to be opened in the next few weeks.

    More ferocious animals dressed as warriors, perhaps adorned with jade, turquoise and gold, are likely.

    The aquatic offerings covering the jaguar may represent the watery underworld where the Aztecs believed the sun sank each night, or possibly part of a king’s journey after death.

    Joyce Marcus, an archeologist specializing in ancient Mexico at the University of Michigan, says the recently unearthed offerings illuminate the Aztec “worldview, ritual economy, and the obvious links between imperial expansion, warfare, military prowess and the ruler’s role” in ceremonies that sanctified conquests and allowed tribute to flow into the capital.

    “Each offering box adds another piece of the puzzle,” she said.

    Lastly, the skulls of a dozen sacrificed children between one to six years old were also discovered in a nearby pit, dating back decades earlier but also linked to Huitzilopochtli.

    The information obtained from the excavations goes far beyond incomplete colonial-era accounts that were also colored by the European invaders’ own justifications for conquest, according to Diana Moreiras, Aztec scholar at the University of British Colombia.

    “We’re really getting to know the Aztecs on their own terms,” she said, “because we’re actually looking at what they did, not what the Spaniards thought about them.”

    Reporting by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Stephen Eisenhammer and Josie Kao

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of U.S. dollars

    Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of U.S. dollars

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    ACCRA, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Ghana’s government is working on a new policy to buy oil products with gold rather than U.S. dollar reserves, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia said on Facebook on Thursday.

    The move is meant to tackle dwindling foreign currency reserves coupled with demand for dollars by oil importers, which is weakening the local cedi and increasing living costs.

    Ghana’s Gross International Reserves stood at around $6.6 billion at the end of September 2022, equating to less than three months of imports cover. That is down from around $9.7 billion at the end of last year, according to the government.

    If implemented as planned for the first quarter of 2023, the new policy “will fundamentally change our balance of payments and significantly reduce the persistent depreciation of our currency,” Bawumia said.

    Using gold would prevent the exchange rate from directly impacting fuel or utility prices as domestic sellers would no longer need foreign exchange to import oil products, he explained.

    “The barter of gold for oil represents a major structural change,” he added.

    The proposed policy is uncommon. While countries sometimes trade oil for other goods or commodities, such deals typically involve an oil-producing nation receiving non-oil goods rather than the opposite.

    Ghana produces crude oil but it has relied on imports for refined oil products since its only refinery shut down after an explosion in 2017.

    Bawumia’s announcement was posted as Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta announced measures to cut spending and boost revenues in a bid to tackle a spiraling debt crisis.

    In a 2023 budget presentation to parliament on Thursday, Ofori-Atta warned the West African nation was at high risk of debt distress and that the cedi’s depreciation was seriously affecting Ghana’s ability to manage its public debt.

    The government is negotiating a relief package with the International Monetary Fund as the cocoa, gold and oil-producing nation faces its worst economic crisis in a generation.

    Reporting by Cooper Inveen and Christian Akorlie
    Writing by Sofia Christensen
    Editing by Estelle Shirbon and Elaine Hardcastle

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  • Trump defied Jan 6 committee subpoena, panel says

    Trump defied Jan 6 committee subpoena, panel says

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    Nov 14 (Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump did not show up for deposition testimony before the congressional committee investigating his supporters’ attack on the U.S. Capitol last year, the panel said on Monday.

    In doing so Trump defied a subpoena issued by the panel in October, Chair Bennie Thompson, a Democrat, and co-Chair Liz Cheney, a Republican, said in a joint statement.

    “The truth is that Donald Trump, like several of his closest allies, is hiding from the Select Committee’s investigation and refusing to do what more than a thousand other witnesses have done,” Thompson and Cheney said.

    The panel did not say what next steps they might pursue against Trump. Thompson told the New York Times in an interview that he would not rule out seeking contempt of Congress charges against the former president.

    “That could be an option. And we’ll have to wait and see,” Thomson told the Times. “The first thing we’ll do is see how we address the lawsuit. At some point after that, we’ll decide the path forward.”

    Trump filed a lawsuit on Friday seeking to avoid having to testify or provide any documentation to the Jan. 6 committee.

    The congressional committee has held a series of hearings as it seeks to make its case to the public that Trump provoked his supporters into storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while lawmakers met to formally declare his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

    The subpoena ordered Trump to submit documents to the panel by Nov. 4 and for him to appear for deposition testimony beginning on or about Nov. 14.

    On Nov. 4, it said it had agreed to give Trump an extension before producing the documents but the Nov. 14 deadline remained in place.

    Republicans are expected to dissolve the panel if they win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the mid-term elections.

    Reporting by Tyler Clifford and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Leslie Adler

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  • Biden and Xi clash over Taiwan in Bali but Cold War fears cool

    Biden and Xi clash over Taiwan in Bali but Cold War fears cool

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    • Biden, Xi meet for 3 hours before G20
    • Both leaders stress need to get ties back on track
    • Indonesia seeks partnerships on global economy at G20
    • Ukraine’s Zelenskiy to address G20 on Tuesday

    NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Nov 14 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping engaged in blunt talks over Taiwan and North Korea on Monday in a three-hour meeting aimed at preventing strained U.S.-China ties from spilling into a new Cold War.

    Amid simmering differences on human rights, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and support of domestic industry, the two leaders pledged more frequent communications. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Beijing for follow-up talks.

    “We’re going to compete vigorously. But I’m not looking for conflict, I’m looking to manage this competition responsibly,” Biden said after his talks with Xi on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia.

    Beijing has long said it would bring the self-governed island of Taiwan, which it views as an inalienable part of China, under its control and has not ruled out the use of force to do so. It has frequently accused the United States in recent years of encouraging Taiwan independence.

    In a statement after their meeting, Xi called Taiwan the “first red line” that must not be crossed in U.S.-China relations, Chinese state media said.

    Biden said he sought to assure Xi that U.S. policy on Taiwan, which has for decades been to support both Beijing’s ‘One China’ stance and Taiwan’s military, had not changed.

    He said there was no need for a new Cold War, and that he did not think China was planning a hot one.

    “I do not think there’s any imminent attempt on the part of China to invade Taiwan,” he told reporters.

    On North Korea, Biden said it was hard to know whether Beijing had any influence over Pyongyang weapons testing. “Well, first of all, it’s difficult to say that I am certain that China can control North Korea,” he said.

    Biden said he told Xi the United States would do what it needs to do to defend itself and allies South Korea and Japan, which could be “maybe more up in the face of China” though not directed against it.

    “We would have to take certain actions that would be more defensive on our behalf… to send a clear message to North Korea. We are going to defend our allies, as well as American soil and American capacity,” he said.

    Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said before the meeting that Biden would warn Xi about the possibility of enhanced U.S. military presence in the region, something Beijing is not keen to see.

    Beijing had halted a series of formal dialogue channels with Washington, including on climate change and military-to-military talks, after U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi upset China by visiting Taiwan in August.

    Biden and Xi agreed to allow senior officials to renew communication on climate, debt relief and other issues, the White House said after they spoke.

    Xi’s statement after the talks included pointed warnings on Taiwan.

    [1/7] U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a news conference following his meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, ahead of the G20 leaders’ summit, in Bali, Indonesia, November 14, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

    “The Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations,” Xi was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

    “Resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese and China’s internal affair,” Xi said, according to state media.

    Taiwan’s democratically elected government rejects Beijing’s claims of sovereignty over it.

    Taiwan’s presidential office said it welcomed Biden’s reaffirmation of U.S. policy. “This also once again fully demonstrates that the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait is the common expectation of the international community,” it said.

    SMILES AND HANDSHAKES

    Before their talks, the two leaders smiled and shook hands warmly in front of their national flags at a hotel on Indonesia’s Bali island, a day before a Group of 20 (G20) summit set to be fraught with tension over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    “It’s just great to see you,” Biden told Xi, as he put an arm around him before their meeting.

    Biden brought up a number of difficult topics with Xi, according to the White House, including raising U.S. objections to China’s “coercive and increasingly aggressive actions toward Taiwan,” Beijing’s “non-market economic practices,” and practices in “Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, and human rights more broadly.”

    Neither leader wore a mask to ward off COVID-19, although members of their delegations did.

    U.S.-China relations have been roiled in recent years by growing tensions over issues ranging from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the South China Sea, trade practices, and U.S. restrictions on Chinese technology.

    But U.S. officials said there have been quiet efforts by both Beijing and Washington over the past two months to repair relations.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told reporters in Bali earlier that the meeting aimed to stabilise the relationship and to create a “more certain atmosphere” for U.S. businesses.

    She said Biden had been clear with China about national security concerns regarding restrictions on sensitive U.S. technologies and had raised concern about the reliability of Chinese supply chains for commodities.

    G20 summit host President Joko Widodo of Indonesia said he hoped the gathering on Tuesday could “deliver concrete partnerships that can help the world in its economic recovery”.

    However, one of the main topics at the G20 will be Russia’s war in Ukraine.

    Xi and Putin have grown close in recent years, bound by their shared distrust of the West, and reaffirmed their partnership just days before Russia invaded Ukraine. But China has been careful not to provide any direct material support that could trigger Western sanctions against it.

    Reporting by Nandita Bose, Stanley Widianto, Fransiska Nangoy, Leika Kihara, David Lawder and Simon Lewis in Nusa Dua, and Yew Lun Tian and Ryan Woo in Beijing; additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Kay Johnson and Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Grant McCool, Heather Timmons and Rosalba O’Brien

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • EXCLUSIVE G7 coalition has agreed to set fixed price for Russian oil -sources

    EXCLUSIVE G7 coalition has agreed to set fixed price for Russian oil -sources

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    WASHINGTON/LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – The Group of Seven rich nations and Australia have agreed to set a fixed price when they finalize a price cap on Russian oil later this month, rather than adopting a floating rate, sources said on Thursday.

    U.S. officials and G7 countries have been in intense negotiations in recent weeks over the unprecedented plan to put a price cap on sea-borne oil shipments, which is scheduled to take effect on Dec. 5 – to ensure EU and U.S. sanctions aimed at limiting Moscow’s ability to fund its invasion of Ukraine do not throttle the global oil market.

    “The Coalition has agreed the price cap will be a fixed price that will be reviewed regularly rather than a discount to an index,” said a coalition source, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “This will increase market stability and simplify compliance to minimize the burden on market participants.”

    The initial price itself has not been set, but should be in coming weeks, multiple sources said. Coalition partners agreed to regularly review the fixed price and revise it as needed, the source said, without disclosing further details.

    Pegging the price as a discount to some index would have resulted in too much volatility and potential price swings, the source added.

    The coalition worried that a floating price pegged below the Brent international benchmark might enable Russian President Vladimir Putin to game the mechanism by reducing supply, a second source with knowledge of the discussions said.

    Putin could benefit from a floating price system because the price for his country’s oil would also rise if Brent spiked due to a cut in oil from Russia, one of the world’s largest petroleum producers. The downside of the agreed fixed price system is that it will require more meetings of the coalition and bureaucracy to review it regularly, the source said.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other G7 officials argue the price cap, set to begin Dec. 5 on crude and Feb. 5 on oil products, will squeeze funding to Russia without cutting supply to consumers. Russia has said it will refuse to ship oil to countries that set price caps.

    Shipping services are eager to see more details about the G7 plan which is due to take effect in a month.

    A steady price cap could enable insurers to more confidently roll over contracts and initiate new ones without fear that the price could be adjusted by the countries buying Russian oil, which could have potentially exposed insurers to sanctions.

    No immediate comment was available from Treasury or the embassies of coalition members, which include the G7 rich nations, the European Union and Australia.

    Separately, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the United States and its allies had agreed on further details on which sales of Russian oil will face the price cap.

    Each load of seaborne Russian oil will only be subject to the price cap when first sold to a buyer on land, the countries determined. Reuters could not immediately verify the report which cited people familiar with the matter.

    Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Timothy Gardner in Washington and Noah Browning in London; editing by Heather Timmons and Matthew Lewis

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • India’s Aam Aadmi party set for big gains in Modi’s home state

    India’s Aam Aadmi party set for big gains in Modi’s home state

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    SURAT, India, Nov 4 (Reuters) – India’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), formed only a decade ago and having claimed power in Delhi and Punjab state, is set to be the biggest gainer in assembly elections in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat next month.

    AAP boss and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is known to have national ambitions. A strong showing in Gujarat, a prosperous state of more than 60 million, could indicate whether his party’s appeal has widened beyond smaller states ahead of the 2024 general election.

    According to a projection by ABP-CVoter, AAP’s vote share in Gujurat is expected to rise to 20% from zero five years ago, mainly at the expense of the main opposition Congress party, which dominated Indian politics before being drubbed by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the last two general elections.

    Seven voters in Gujarat’s Surat city, a diamond cutting and polishing hub, told Reuters they had been drawn to AAP’s promise to improve education and healthcare – both areas where the party says it has delivered results in Delhi since 2015.

    “Ninety-nine per cent I am going to vote for Aam Adam Party,” said diamond worker Bharat Patel.

    “Many in my personal and professional circles are also going to do the same. I have heard a lot about their work in education and healthcare in Delhi and I feel they deserve a chance.”

    The Hindu-nationalist BJP has been in power in Gujarat since 1998, with Modi serving as its chief minister for nearly 13 years. Current projections show Congress will stay the second- biggest party in the 182 member-assembly, but that could change.

    “It looks like the surge of the Aam Aadmi Party is not going down,” Yashwant Deshmukh, founder of polling agency CVoter, told Reuters. “If the trajectory continues, and they end up with a 25-26% vote share, they could trump Congress.”

    Gujarat will vote in two phases on Dec. 1 and Dec. 5. Results are due on Dec. 8.

    AAP, which grew out of an anti-corruption movement in 2012, has been strengthening its presence in Gujarat, including in its second-largest city of Surat.

    Early last year, it won 27 of the 120 seats in Surat’s municipal elections, emerging as the main contender to the BJP.

    Across Surat, large hoardings of the BJP and AAP dominate the streets. With pictures of Modi, the ruling party is underlining the advantages of having a BJP government at the state and nationally.

    “How many votes the AAP gets and how many seats it can win remains to be seen,” said Virang Bhatt, a Surat-based political analyst. “But the party has certainly managed to create strong visibility and appeal here.”

    Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Krishna N. Das and Mark Potter

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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