PAKISTAN DAILY TIME

Moscow's decades-old gas ties with Europe lie in ruins Moscow's decades-old gas ties with Europe lie in ruins Meticulously crafted over decades as a major revenue stream for the Kremlin, Moscow's gas trade with Europe is unlikely to recover from the ravages of military conflict. After President Vladimir Putin's "special military operation" in Ukraine began almost a year ago, a combination of Western sanctions and Russia's decision to cut supplies to Europe drastically reduced the country's energy exports. The latest sanctions, including price caps, are likely to disrupt oil trade further but it is easier to find new markets for crude and refined products than for gas.Russia's gas trade with Europe has been based on thousands of miles of pipes beginning in Siberia and stretching to Germany and beyond. Until last year, they locked Western buyers into a long-term supply relationship. "Of course, the loss of the European market is a very serious test for Russia in the gas aspect," Yury Shafranik, Russian fuel and energy minister from 1993 to 1996, told Reuters. A former senior manager at Gazprom (GAZP.MM) was more direc.The work of hundreds of people, who for decades built the exporting system, now has been flushed down the toilet," the former manager told Reuters on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Current employees, however, say it is business as usual. "Nothing has changed for us. We had a pay rise twice last year," a Gazprom's official, who is not authorised to speak to press, told Reuters in Novy Urengoy. The Arctic city is often referred to as Russia's "gas capital" because it was built to serve the biggest gas fields. The state gas export giant Gazprom, which has offices there, was formed in the dying days of the Soviet Union in 1989 under the Ministry of Gas Industry, headed by Viktor Chernomyrdin. "Chernomyrdin never allowed anyone to put his nose into Gazprom. It was a state within a state, and remains so to an extent," Shafranik said. Since the military operation began on Feb. 24 last year, less information has been available. Like many Russian companies, Gazprom stopped disclosing details of its financial results. According to Reuters' estimates, based on export fees and export volumes data, Gazprom's revenues from overseas sales were around $3.4 billion in January down from $6.3 billion in the same period last year. The figures, combined with forecasts of exports and average gas prices, imply Gazprom's exporting revenues will almost halve this year, widening the $25 billion budget deficit Russia posted in January. Already, the company's natural gas exports last year almost halved to reach a post-Soviet low and the downward trend has continued this year. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen estimated Russia cut 80% of gas supplies to the EU in the eight months after the conflict began in Ukraine. As a result, Russia supplied only around 7.5% of western Europe's gas needs by the end of last year, compared with around 40% in 2021. Before the conflict, Russia had been confident of selling more to Europe, not less. Elena Burmistrova, the head of Gazprom's exporting unit, told an industry event in Vienna in 2019 the company's record-high exports outside Soviet Union of more than 200 billion cubic metres (bcm) achieved in 2018 were the "new reality". Last year, the total was just above 100 bcm. Russia's transporting capacities were undermined last year after mysterious blasts in the Baltic Sea at the Nord Stream pipelines from Russia to Germany. Russia and the West blamed each other for the blasts. Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S. reporter Seymour Hersh in a blog said the United States was responsible, which the United States said was 'utterly false'. Washington has long criticised Germany's policy of reliance on Russian energy, which until last year, Berlin had said was a means to improve relations. For his part, Putin had been seeking to diversify Russia's gas markets long before last year, but the policy has gathered momentum. In October, he mooted an idea of a gas hub in Turkey to divert the Russian gas flows from the Baltic Sea and North-West Europe. Russia is also seeking to boost its pipeline gas sales to China, the world's largest energy consumer and top buyer of crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal. Supplies began via the Power of Siberia Pipeline in late 2019 and Russia aims to raise the annual exports to around 38 bcm from 2025. Moscow also has an agreement with Beijing for another 10 bcm per year from a yet-to-be built pipeline from the Pacific island of Sakhalin, while Russia is also developing plans for Power of Siberia 2 from Western Siberia, which in theory could supply an additional 50 bcm per year to China. Whether that relationship can be as lucrative as the decades of supplying gas to Europe remains to be seen. Gazprom's most important assets are located in West Siberia and in the wider Arctic Yamal region, where the 100,000-strong city of Novy Urengoy, which celebrates its 50th-anniversary in 2025, houses seasonal workers in utilitarian, high-rise blocks. One of the fields in the tundra area, around 3,500 kilometres (2,175 miles) northeast of Moscow, where they work is Urengoy. Following the discovery of the field, which is among the world's largest in 1966, the Soviet Politburo began talks with Western Germany on exchanging gas for pipes, as Russia then lacked production technology. The resulting agreement, dubbed the "contract of the century" was finalised in 1970 after the then Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, nicknamed "Mr Nyet" in the West for his uncompromising approach, said "da" to the gas-for-pipes deal, which involved supplies of heavy equipment for Moscow as well as gas for Europe. The 20-year supply deal is worth about $30 billion in current gas prices. It meant that for decades, Europe and, especially Germany, benefited from relatively cheap, long-term contracts, and relied on Russian natural gas, or methane, for heating households and as a feedstock for the petrochemical industry. The negotiations with China on new gas sales are expected to be complex, not least because China is not expected to need additional gas until after 2030, industry analysts said. Russia also faces far more competition than in the past from renewable energy as the world seeks to limit the impact of climate change, as well as rival pipeline gas supplies to China, including from Turkmenistan. LNG, which can be shipped anywhere in the world, has further reduced the need for pipeline gas. Gazprom and China have kept their agreed gas price a secret. Ron Smith, analyst at Moscow-based BCS brokerage, expected the price for 2022 to average $270 per 1,000 cubic metres, much lower than prices in Europe. It is also below Gazprom's export price of $700 per 1,000 cubic metres, expected by Russian Economy Ministry this year. Last year, Russia's energy finances, which are not broken down publicly into oil and gas, were supported by the market impact of fears of shortage. In Europe, gas prices hit record levels and international oil prices shortly after the special military operation began spiked close to their all-time high. Since then, prices for gas and oil have eased and Western price caps introduced in December and early this year are designed to erode Russia's revenues further. The Kremlin meanwhile has set Gazprom the mammoth task of building 24,000 kilometres of new pipelines to provide gas for 538,000 households and apartments in Russia from 2021 to 2025. Domestic gas prices are regulated by the government and there have been discussions about liberalising the gas market, a sensitive issue for Russian households. Back in Novy Urengoy, where temperatures fall to as low as almost minus 50 Celsius (minus 58 Fahrenheit), Achimgaz, a joint venture between Gazprom and Germany's Wintershall Dea (WINT.UL), also has offices and the flag of Austrian energy company OMV (OMVV.VI) flaps outside an administrative building. Asked about its presence there, an OMV spokesperson said only the building housed offices of the operator of the Yuzhno-Russkoye field, where the company has a stake. OMV in March scrapped plans to take a stake in a Gazprom gas field project, while Wintershall Dea, in which BASF (BASFn.DE) holds just under 73% percent, said last month it was pulling out of Russia. The Gazprom official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the company will regret that. "We will just have to use more gas for our domestic households instead of exporting it to Europe. China also needs gas," the official said.

NATO allies weigh more arms for Ukraine as Russia gears up offensive

Turkey earthquake rescuers find a few survivors as focus turns to the homeless An 18-year-old man was pulled from the rubble of a building in southern Turkey, the third rescue on Tuesday and some 198 hours after a devastating earthquake as aid workers shifted focus to those across Turkey and Syria left homeless in the bitter cold. Muhammed Cafer, whose rescue was reported by broadcaster CNN Turk, could be seen moving his fingers as he was carried away, after surviving the huge Feb. 6 earthquake and major aftershock hours later. It was one of the deadliest tremors in Turkey's modern history, with the combined death toll in Turkey and neighbouring Syria now exceeding 37,000. A little earlier, rescuers pulled two brothers alive from the ruins of an apartment block in Turkey's Kahramanmaras province, who Anadolu news agency named as 17-year-old Muhammed Enes Yeninar and his brother, 21-year-old Baki Yeninar. They were taken to hospital although their condition was unclear.Rescuers again worked through the night to rescue people clinging to life. But some teams have started scaling back operations as low temperatures reduced the already slim chances of survival. Some Polish rescuers, among many multinational teams that flew in, announcing they would leave on Wednesday. Earlier on Tuesday, a boy and a man were saved in hard-hit Kahramanmaras, while rescuers were still trying to reach a grandmother, mother and daughter from one family who appeared to have survived in the broken masonry of a building. In the shattered Syrian city of Aleppo, U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Monday that rescue phase was "coming to a close", with the focus turning to shelter, food and schooling. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed to allow more U.N. aid to enter from Turkey, diplomats said late on Monday, helping those in devastated northwest Syria, a region that has receive little aid so far.In the southern Turkish city of Antakya, excavators began tearing down heavily damaged buildings and clearing rubble in one devastated residential area. Blue lights from ambulances lit dim streets where there was still no power. The Turkish toll was 31,643 killed, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said on Monday. The total death toll in Syria, a nation ravaged by more than a decade of civil war, has reached 5,714, including those who died in both the rebel enclave and government-held areas. Turkey faces a bill of as much as $84 billion, a business group said. Turkey's Urbanisation Minister Murat Kurum said some 42,000 buildings had either collapsed, were in urgent need of demolition, or severely damaged across 10 cities. Dozens of residents and first responders voiced bewilderment at a lack of water, food, medicine, body bags and cranes in the disaster zone in the first days after the quake, with many criticising what they said was a slow and centralised response by Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD). "People are not dead because of the earthquake, they are dead because of precautions that weren't taken earlier," said Said Qudsi who had travelled to Kahramanmaras from Istanbul and buried his uncle, aunt and their two sons, while their two daughters were still missing. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who faces an election scheduled for June that is expected to be the toughest of his two decades in power, acknowledged problems in the initial response but said the situation was now under control. The earthquake has fanned resentment among some Turks towards the millions of Syrian refugees who have fled their civil war to Turkey. Syrians said they had been accused of looting, kicked out of camps and insulted.

Three killed, 5 injured in Michigan State University shooting, suspect dead A gunman opened fire on Monday night on the main campus of Michigan State University, killing three people and injuring five, before an hours-long manhunt for the suspect ended with his death, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot, police said. The 43-year-old gunman had no known affiliation to the university, and his motive remained a mystery, police said at an early morning news briefing more than five hours after the violence began on the sprawling East Lansing campus, about 90 miles northwest of Detroit.Details about the sequence events remained sketchy, but Chris Rozman, interim deputy chief of the university police, said shots were fired in two locations - an academic building called Berkey Hall and the Michigan State University (MSU) Union building. Police swarming the campus in response to the shooting, which began shortly after 8 p.m. (0100 GMT), found victims at both locations, Rozman told reporters at the televised briefing.Rozman said investigators had no information about the motive, adding that the university was not aware of any threats made to the campus before Monday's bloodshed. Rozman said three victims were killed and five were taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Lansing, the state capital, all of them listed in critical condition. Two of the dead were at Berkey Hall and the other at the MSU Union. Officials declined to provide any details about the victims, some of whose identities and relationship to the university were still being determined, Rozman said. The name and other information about the suspect were not immediately released, and police said they remained baffled by what precipitated the shooting. "We have no idea why he came to campus to do this tonight," Rozman told reporters. The gunman was confirmed dead, from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot roughly four hours after the bloodshed had started, Rozman said. "There is no longer a threat to campus. We believe there to be only one suspect in this incident," he said. Rozman also said the suspect "was contacted by law enforcement off campus" at one point, adding, "that scene is being investigated as a crime scene." It remained unclear whether the gunman was found dead after he was confronted by police, or whether he may have taken his own life during such a encounter.About an hour earlier, MSU police had released two still images of the suspect from surveillance video that showed him walking into a building, then mounting a short flight of stairs, wearing a jacket, a baseball cap and a black mask over his lower face. He was holding what appeared to be a pistol in one hand. Students, faculty and residents in surrounding off-campus neighborhoods of East Lansing had been told by authorities to "shelter in place" during the manhunt. That advisory was lifted once the suspect's death was confirmed. Local television news footage taken during the door-to-door search showed students filing past heavily armed police outside campus buildings in the cold night air, their arms raised above their heads in an "active shooter" evacuation ritual that has become commonplace on U.S. school campuses. MSU officials said Monday night that all classes and school activities would be canceled for 48 hours at the university's flagship East Lansing campus, a public academic center with some 50,000 students, mostly undergraduates. "We will take two days ... to give ourselves time to think and to grieve and to be together," MSU president Teresa Woodruff said early Tuesday. The violence came roughly 14 months after a deadly mass shooting on Nov. 30, 2021, at Oxford High School in Oakland County, Michigan, about 80 miles east of East Lansing, in which a 15-year-old student opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol. Four classmates were killed and six students and a teacher were wounded in that attack, the deadliest U.S. school shooting that year. Authorities said the teenage suspect in the 2021 shooting, who has pleaded not guilty to murder charges, used a gun his parents bought him as a Christmas present despite signs that he was emotionally disturbed. Both parents were charged with involuntary manslaughter in the case. Governor Gretchen Whitmer said on Twitter that she was being briefed on the East Lansing shooting. Alexis Dinkins, an MSU sophomore who was inside Akers Hall, a dormitory on campus, told the Detroit News she heard people barricading doors and shouting, “Go, go, go" as the incident unfolded. As she and other fled the dorm, they encountered police who told them to go to a nearby bus stop. “We don’t feel safe anywhere,” the Detroit News quoted Dinkins as saying as she stood with a group of students on a campus sidewalk after leaving Akers. She described the situation as “terrifying.”

Israeli parliament in uproar over Netanyahu justice plans as thousands protest Israeli lawmakers traded insults on Monday over government plans to overhaul the judiciary while tens of thousands of protesters gathered outside parliament, as the president warned the country was on the brink of "constitutional collapse". The plans, which would give right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greater control of appointments to the bench and weaken the Supreme Court's ability to strike down legislation or rule against the executive, have triggered angry protests across Israel for weeks.On Monday, the Knesset Constitution Committee voted to send the first chapter of the plan to the plenum for a first reading, after a rowdy start to the meeting in which several lawmakers were thrown out forcibly, to shouts of "shame, shame". As lawmakers traded calls of "fascist" and "traitor", sang protest folk songs and even cried inside the Knesset, tens of thousands of protesters massed outside.Netanyahu, currently on trial on corruption charges which he denies, says the changes are needed to restore balance in the system and curb activist judges who have overreached their powers to interfere in the political sphere. "I call on the heads of the opposition: Stop it. Stop deliberately dragging the country into anarchy," he said in a statement. "Most Israeli citizens do not want anarchy. They want a substantive discourse and in the end they want unity." But the plans have exposed deep splits within Israeli society, pitting the economic establishment and more liberal sections of the country against supporters of Netanyahu and his right-wing religious and nationalist coalition allies. "I'm protesting for the country my father fought for, my brother fought for, my uncle died for," said protester Hila Morzehavi. "They fought for Israel to be a democracy, not a fascist's country." Critics say the plans risk destroying democratic checks and balances and isolating Israel internationally by weakening the courts, handing unbridled power to the executive and endangering human rights and civil liberties. Israel's public broadcaster Kan published a poll on Sunday which showed 28% of Israelis support the judicial overhaul as it is and 50% oppose it. On Sunday evening, in a rare intervention, President Isaac Herzog made a televised plea for consensus, saying that the bitterness had left Israel on the brink of "constitutional and social collapse" and calling for all sides to come together. The standoff comes at a time of heightened anxiety over security in Israel after two deadly attacks by Palestinians in recent weeks that killed 10 people and piled pressure on Netanyahu's hardline government allies to react. Netanyahu's Likud party and its allies have denounced opponents of the proposals as embittered leftists who refuse to accept the results of last year's election that brought one of the most right-wing governments in Israel's history to power. But as well as the parliamentary opposition, warnings have come from Israel's banks and tech sector that the changes risked undermining the civil institutions that underpin Israel's economic prosperity. U.S. President Joe Biden has urged Netanyahu to build consensus before pushing through far-reaching changes, saying in comments published by the New York Times on Sunday that an independent judiciary was one of the foundations of U.S. and Israeli democracy. Rothman, one of the driving forces behind the proposals, said he welcomed Herzog's calls but the opposition had to compromise. "I urge, again, everyone who wants to negotiate with good faith to come to the president and do it," he told Reuters.

Wall Street rallies as investors eye inflation data Wall Street rallied on Monday as investors awaited inflation data likely to hint at the path of the Federal Reserve's future interest rate hikes, while Meta Platforms gained after a report said the Facebook parent was planning fresh layoffs. Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Nvidia (NVDA.O) climbed more than 3%, while Apple (AAPL.O) and Amazon (AMZN.O) were each up more than 1%. Those four tech-related heavyweights contributed more than any other stocks to the S&P 500's gains for the session.Helping lift Microsoft, Stifel raised its price target on the software company and said it is clearly looking to upend Alphabet's Google search dominance through its integration with ChatGPT. Investors are laser-focused on January inflation data due on Tuesday to reassess their bets on the central bank's monetary policy path. Wall Street's main indexes lost ground last week after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that interest rates may need to move higher than expected in the central bank's battle against inflation.Today is just a natural reaction in the opposite direction after we've seen very heavy selling pressure," said Keith Buchanan, said Keith Buchanan, portfolio manager at GLOBALT Investments in Atlanta. Meta (META.O) rose more than 3% after the Financial Times reported on Sunday that the company was preparing to announce a new round of job cuts, adding to layoffs last November. Of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes, 10 rose, led by information technology (.SPLRCT), up 1.86%, followed by a 1.43% gain in consumer discretionary (.SPLRCD). The energy index (.SPNY) dipped 0.3%. In afternoon trading, the S&P 500 was up 1.05% at 4,133.27 points. The Nasdaq gained 1.48% to 11,891.06 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.99% at 34,205.73 points. Fidelity National Information Services Inc (FIS.N) plunged almost 14% following the banking and payments processing conglomerate's decision to spin off its merchant payments business. As U.S. quarterly earnings reports wind down, 69% of the S&P 500 firms that have reported results so far have exceeded profit expectations, according to Refinitiv data on Friday. Analysts expect fourth-quarter earnings to fall nearly 3% from a year earlier. Advancing issues outnumbered falling ones within the S&P 500 (.AD.SPX) by a 7.5-to-one ratio. The S&P 500 posted four new highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 60 new highs and 50 new lows.

Georgia judge to release parts of report on Trump's efforts to overturn election Portions of a Georgia special grand jury's report on Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the state's 2020 election should be publicly released, but any recommendations on criminal charges will remain sealed for now, a state judge ruled on Monday. The panel's findings, which have remained sealed since the final report's existence was disclosed in January, could potentially serve as the basis for a prosecution of Trump or his associates who attempted to reverse Democratic President Joe Biden's statewide victory.Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney said three parts of the report will be released on Thursday: the introduction, the conclusion and a section in which the grand jury "discusses its concern that some witnesses may have lied under oath." The report also includes "a roster of who should (or should not) be indicted, and for what, in relation to the conduct (and aftermath) of the 2020 general election in Georgia," the judge said.But those conclusions will remain secret for now, he ruled, citing the due process rights of witnesses or potential defendants who were not afforded a full chance to respond to allegations during the grand jury process. Those concerns are particularly serious for individuals who never appeared before the panel, he said. Trump was not subpoenaed and did not testify to the grand jury. The decision on whether to file criminal charges ultimately lies with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. At a Jan. 25 court hearing, Willis told McBurney that charging decisions were "imminent" and urged him to keep the report under wraps to ensure future defendants cannot cry foul. Willis' investigation could make Trump the first former U.S. president to face criminal prosecution, months after he launched his bid for the Republican presidential nomination to challenge Biden in 2024. Trump has denied wrongdoing and accused Willis, an elected Democrat, of targeting him for political gain. McBurney said he was delaying the report's partial release until Thursday to give prosecutors time to discuss with him whether any further redactions need to be made. A spokesperson for Willis did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Willis launched her investigation shortly after a January 2021 phone call in the waning days of Trump's term, when the president urged Georgia's top election official to "find" enough votes to deliver him the state. Days later, Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol seeking to stop Congress from certifying Biden's victory. Biden's Georgia win, the first for a Democratic presidential candidate in nearly three decades, confirmed the state's emergence as a political battleground, a status that has been underscored by a series of high-profile Senate races that have helped Democrats maintain a majority in the chamber. The special grand jury was convened last year at Willis' request as an investigative tool, in part because it had the authority to subpoena witnesses. The panel did not have the power to issue indictments but could make recommendations; if Willis decides to pursue charges, she would have to seek indictments from a regular grand jury. Over the course of around seven months, the jurors heard testimony from 75 witnesses, including senior Trump advisers such as attorney Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and top Georgia Republicans such as Governor Brian Kemp. In addition to Trump's phone call, the wide-ranging investigation has examined a scheme in which an alternate slate of presidential electors falsely affirmed to Congress that Trump, not Biden, had won the state's electoral votes. The Georgia probe is among numerous civil and criminal investigations threatening Trump, his family and his associates. A special counsel is overseeing U.S. Justice Department investigations into both Trump's retention of classified materials after leaving the White House as well as his actions to Biden the 2020 election. The Democratic attorney general of New York, Letitia James, has sued Trump, his real estate business and his children, accusing them of lying to insurers and banks about the value of their assets. The Manhattan district attorney's office is pursuing its own criminal investigation into Trump's business practices.

U.S.-China balloon dispute widens amid mystery airspace intrusions Washington and Beijing traded accusations about alleged spy balloons on Monday as the United States and Canada scrambled to explain the three other objects the U.S. military shot down over North American airspace during the weekend. China widened its dispute with the United States on Monday, claiming that U.S. high-altitude balloons had flown over its airspace without permission more than 10 times since the beginning of 2022. The White House promptly denied it.The new claim came as American and Canadian officials struggled to explain the origin of three additional objects U.S. fighter jets downed over North American airspace since Feb. 4, when a Chinese balloon was downed off the South Carolina coast after drifting across the United States. Washington called that a surveillance balloon, while China has insisted it was a weather-monitoring craft blown badly off course. The incident prompted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel his scheduled trip to Beijing last week.On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that 10 U.S. balloon flights last year were illegal, but did not describe the balloons as military or for espionage purposes. A White House spokeswoman denied it, and accused China of violating the sovereignty of the United States and more than 40 other countries across five continents with surveillance balloons linked to its military. "This is the latest example of China scrambling to do damage control," White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement. "It has repeatedly and wrongly claimed the surveillance balloon it sent over the United States was a weather balloon and to this day has failed to offer any credible explanations for its intrusion into our airspace and the airspace of others." U.S. military fighter jets on Sunday downed an octagonal object over Lake Huron, the Pentagon said. On Friday, an object was shot down over sea ice near Deadhorse, Alaska, and a third object, cylindrical in shape, was destroyed over Canada's Yukon on Saturday, with investigators still hunting for the wreckage. The U.S. military has not been able to identify what the three most recent objects are, how they stay aloft, or where they are coming from, Air Force General Glen VanHerck, head of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), said on Sunday. They do not resemble balloons, he said.The three objects were flying at altitudes that could have posed a risk to air traffic, officials have said. The device hit on Sunday might have had surveillance capabilities, the Pentagon spokesman said. China said it had no information about any of the three objects. White House spokesman John Kirby said there could be "completely benign and totally explainable reasons" for the three objects, and that corporate or academic research institutions can use devices that reach high altitudes. "We just don't know," he said told MSNBC in an interview Monday morning. In Canada's Yukon province, the search for debris continued Monday, two days after the object discovered in Canadian airspace was shot down, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand said in an interview with CNN. Analysts from Canada's Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation will be involved in the analysis, she said. "We are still in the process of locating the debris and we will move to locate it and analyze it," she said. "We know that it was shot down over central Yukon. We have teams on the ground and in the air making sure that we are able to locate and analyze that debris." Choppy waters on Lake Huron have hampered recovery efforts, U.S. Representative Elissa Slotkin, who represents central Michigan, during a news conference on Monday. "I have no reason to believe that this is an UFO," she said. VanHerck said he would not rule out aliens or any other explanation, but another defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, subsequently said there was no evidence that the objects were extraterrestrial.

Turkey finds more survivors as anger grows a week after earthquake Rescuers in Turkey pulled several children alive from collapsed buildings on Monday, a week after the country's worst earthquake in modern history, but hopes of many more survivors were fading and criticism of the authorities grew. In one city, rescuers were digging a tunnel to reach a grandmother, mother and daughter, all from one family, who appeared to have survived the 7.8 magnitude Feb. 6 quake and aftershock that have killed more than 37,000 in Turkey and Syria. But others were bracing for the inevitable scaling down of operations as low temperatures reduced the already slim chances of survival with some Polish rescuers announcing they would leave on Wednesday. In the shattered Syrian city of Aleppo, U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said the rescue phase was "coming to a close", with the focus switching to shelter, food and schooling. In a sign of hope, a 13-year-old was pulled out alive after spending 182 hours under the rubble of a collapsed building in Turkey's southern Hatay province on Monday, his head braced, and covered for warmth, before he was moved into an ambulance.A young girl named Miray was recovered alive in the southeastern Turkish city of Adiyaman, officials said, while state broadcaster TRT Haber said a 10-year-old girl was rescued in the southern Turkish province of Kahramanmaras. At least two other children and three adults were also reported to have been rescued. In one dramatic rescue attempt in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, rescuers said they had contact with a grandmother, mother and baby trapped in a room in the remains of three-storey building. Rescuers were digging a second tunnel to reach them, after a first route was blocked. "I have a very strong feeling we are going to get them," said Burcu Baldauf, head of the Turkish voluntary healthcare team. "It’s already a miracle. After seven days, they are there with no water, no food and in good condition." On the same street, emergency workers covered a body in a black bag. "This is your brother," one grieving woman said, with another wailing. "No, no." The Turkish toll now exceeds the 31,643 killed in a quake in 1939, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said, making it the worst quake in Turkey's modern history. The total death toll in Syria, a nation ravaged by more than a decade of civil war, has reached 5,714, including those who died in a rebel enclave and government-held areas.It is the sixth most deadly natural disaster this century, behind the 2005 tremor that killed at least 73,000 in Pakistan. Turkey faces a bill of up to $84.1 billion, a business group said. "People are not dead because of the earthquake, they are dead because of precautions that weren’t taken earlier," said Said Qudsi, who travelled quake-hit Kahramanmaras from Istanbul and buried his uncle, aunt and their two sons, while their two daughters were still missing. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who faces an election scheduled for June that is expected to be the toughest of his two decades in power, acknowledged problems in the initial response but said the situation was now under control. Dozens of residents and overwhelmed first responders who spoke to Reuters expressed bewilderment at a lack of water, food, medicine, body bags and cranes in the disaster zone, with many criticising an overly slow and centralised response by Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD). "God knows what will happen next," said Ismail Yuvarlak, 42. He said he was living in a tent after his house in Kahramanmaras had been condemned by authorities who in his words had left his family to figure things out on their own.The International Monetary Fund called for an international effort to help Syria, where the rebel-held northwest has received little aid. Only one crossing from Turkey into Syria is now open for U.N. aid, although the United Nations says it hopes to open two more. Aid from government-held regions to areas controlled by hardline opposition groups has been held up. A source from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist group which controls much of the region, told Reuters the group would not let in shipments from government-held areas and aid would come from Turkey. There was growing frustration among aid workers and civilians in Syria's rebel-held areas. "We called from the early days of the catastrophe on the U.N. to intervene immediately," the head of the Turkey-backed opposition coalition Salem al Muslet said. "The U.N. wants to exonerate itself from letting down the liberated areas."

Rescuers dig for three survivors in rubble in Turkey a week after earthquake Rescuers pulled a woman alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in Turkey on Monday and another team was digging a tunnel to reach what was believed to be a trapped grandmother, mother and 30-day-old baby, broadcaster CNN Turk reported. A week after a major earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, the toll of dead rose to nearly 34,000 and looked set to keep increasing as hopes for finding any more survivors faded.But CNN Turk reported that Sibel Kaya, 40, was rescued in southern Gaziantep province, some 170 hours after the first of two major quakes struck the region. Rescue workers in Kahramanmaras had also made contact with three survivors, believed to be a mother, daughter and baby, in the ruins of a building, the broadcaster reported. The toll in both countries rose to nearly 34,000 on Monday. The deadliest quake in Turkey since 1939 has killed 29,605 people there. More than 4,300 people were reported dead and 7,600 injured in northwest Syria as of Sunday, said a U.N. agency.In Kahramamaras, the rescuers hoping to reach the three survivors consisted of a Turkish military team, miners and Spanish firefighters who were first alerted to there being life in the rubble by a search dog, said engineer officer Halil Kaya. A thermal scan signalled that there were people alive, about five metres within the building, and then a muffled sound was detected, Kaya told the broadcaster.The miners have excavated around three metres through a neighbouring building that is still standing, putting up support beams as they go. "When we said knock on the wall if you can hear us, we heard faint tapping," he said. "Our colleagues are all here working for 24 hours without sleeping ... We will all be here until we get those people out of there." On Sunday, rescue teams from Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus pulled a man alive from a collapsed building in Turkey, about 160 hours after the quake struck, Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations said.In a central district of one of the worst hit cities, Antakya in southern Turkey, business owners emptied their shops on Sunday to prevent merchandise from being stolen by looters. Residents and aid workers who came from other cities cited worsening security conditions, with widespread accounts of businesses and collapsed homes being robbed. Amid concerns about hygiene and the spread of infection in the region, Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said at the weekend that rabies and tetanus vaccine had been sent to the quake zone and that mobile pharmacies had started to operate there.Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said the government will deal firmly with looters, as he faces questions over his response to the earthquake ahead of an election scheduled for June that is expected to be the toughest of his two decades in power. The quake is now the sixth most deadly natural disaster this century, behind the 2005 tremor that killed at least 73,000 in Pakistan. A father and daughter, a toddler and a 10-year-old girl were among other survivors pulled from the ruins of collapsed buildings in Turkey on Sunday, but such scenes are becoming rare as the number of dead climbed relentlessly. At a funeral near Reyhanli, veiled women wailed and beat their chests as bodies were unloaded from lorries - some in closed wood coffins, others in uncovered coffins, and still others just wrapped in blankets. Some residents sought to retrieve what they could from the destruction. In Elbistan, epicentre of an aftershock almost as powerful as Monday's initial 7.8 magnitude quake, 32-year-old mobile shop owner Mustafa Bahcivan said he had come into town almost daily since then. On Sunday, he sifted through rubble searching for any of his phones that might still be intact and sellable.This used to be one of the busiest streets. Now it's completely gone," he said. In Syria, the disaster hit hardest in the rebel-held northwest, leaving homeless yet again many people who had already been displaced several times by a decade-old civil war. The region has received little aid compared with government-held areas. "We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria," United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Twitter from the Turkey-Syria border, where only a single crossing is open for U.N. aid supplies. They rightly feel abandoned," Griffiths said, adding that he was focused on addressing that swiftly. The United States called on the Syrian government and all other parties to immediately grant humanitarian access to all those in need. Earthquake aid from government-held regions into territory controlled by hardline opposition groups has been held up by approval issues with Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) which controls much of the region, a U.N. spokesperson said.An HTS source in Idlib told Reuters the group would not allow any shipments from government-held areas and that aid would be coming in from Turkey to the north. The United Nations is hoping to ramp up cross-border operations by opening an additional two border points between Turkey and opposition-held Syria for aid deliveries, spokesperson Jens Laerke said. U.N. Syria envoy Geir Pedersen said in Damascus the United Nations was mobilising funding to support Syria. "We're trying to tell everyone: Put politics aside, this is a time to unite behind a common effort to support the Syrian people," he said. Turkey said on Sunday about 80,000 people were in hospital, and more than 1 million in temporary shelters.

Earthquake death toll tops 33,000, Turkey starts legal action Rescuers pulled more survivors from the rubble on Sunday, nearly a week after one of the worst earthquakes to hit Turkey and Syria, as Turkish authorities sought to maintain order across the disaster zone and began legal action over building collapses. With chances of finding more survivors growing more remote, the toll in both countries from Monday's earthquake and major aftershocks rose above 33,000 and looked set to keep growing. It was the deadliest quake in Turkey since 1939. In a central district of one of the worst hit cities, Antakya in southern Turkey, business owners emptied their shops on Sunday to prevent merchandise from being stolen by looters. Residents and aid workers who came from other cities cited worsening security conditions, with widespread accounts of businesses and collapsed homes being robbed. Facing questions over his response to the earthquake as he prepares for a national election that is expected to be the toughest of his two decades in power, President Tayyip Erdogan has said the government will deal firmly with looters.In Syria, the disaster hit hardest in the rebel-held northwest, leaving homeless yet again many people who had already been displaced several times by a decade-old civil war. The region has received little aid compared to government-held areas. "We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria," United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths tweeted from the Turkey-Syria border, where only a single crossing is open for U.N. aid supplies. They rightly feel abandoned," Griffiths said, adding that he was focused on addressing that swiftly. Washington called on the Syrian government and all other parties in the country to immediately grant humanitarian access to all those in need. More than six days after the first quake struck, emergency workers still found a handful of people clinging to life in the wreckage of homes that had become tombs for many thousands. A team of Chinese rescuers and Turkish firefighters saved 54-year-old Syrian Malik Milandi after he survived 156 hours in the rubble in Antakya. On the main road into the city the few buildings left standing had large cracks or caved-in facades. Traffic occasionally halted as rescuers called for silence to detect signs of remaining life under the ruins. A father and daughter, a toddler and a 10-year-old girl were among other survivors pulled from the ruins of collapsed buildings Sunday, but such scenes were becoming rare as the number of dead climbed relentlessly.At a funeral near Reyhanli, veiled women wailed and beat their chests as bodies were unloaded from lorries - some in closed wood coffins, others in uncovered coffins, and still others just wrapped in blankets. Some residents sought to retrieve what they could from the destruction. In Elbistan, epicentre of an aftershock almost as powerful as Monday's initial 7.8 magnitude quake, 32-year-old mobile shop owner Mustafa Bahcivan said he had come into town almost daily since then. On Sunday he sifted through the rubble searching for any of his phones that might be still be intact and sellable.Building quality in a country that lies on several seismic fault lines has come into sharp focus in the aftermath of the quake. Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said 131 suspects had so far been identified as responsible for the collapse of some of the thousands of buildings flattened in the 10 affected provinces. "We will follow this up meticulously until the necessary judicial process is concluded, especially for buildings that suffered heavy damage and buildings that caused deaths and injuries," he said. The earthquake hit as Erdogan faces presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for June. Even before the disaster, his popularity had been falling due to soaring inflation and a slumping Turkish currency. Some affected by the quake and opposition politicians have accused the government of slow and inadequate relief efforts early on, and critics have questioned why the army, which played a key role after a 1999 earthquake, was not brought in sooner. Erdogan has acknowledged problems, such as the challenge of delivering aid despite damaged transport links, but said the situation had been brought under control. In Syria, the hostilities that have fractured the country during 12 years of civil war are now hindering relief work. Earthquake aid from government-held regions into territory controlled by hardline opposition groups has been held up by approval issues with Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) which controls much of the region, a U.N. spokesperson said. An HTS source in Idlib told Reuters the group would not allow any shipments from government-held areas and that aid would be coming in from Turkey to the north. The U.N. is hoping to ramp up cross-border operations by opening an additional two border points between Turkey and opposition-held Syria for aid deliveries, spokesperson Jens Laerke said. The foreign minister of U.S. ally the United Arab Emirates met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday in the first high-level visit by an Arab official since the quake.Several Arab countries have provided support to Assad in the quake's aftermath. Western countries, which sought to isolate Assad after his crackdown on protests in 2011 and the outbreak of civil war, are major contributors to U.N. relief efforts across Syria but have provided little direct aid to Damascus during the civil war. The first shipment of European earthquake aid to government-held parts of Syria also arrived in Damascus on Sunday. U.N Syria envoy Geir Pedersen said in Damascus the United Nations was mobilising funding to support Syria. "We're trying to tell everyone: Put politics aside, this is a time to unite behind a common effort to support the Syrian people," he said. The quake ranks as the world's sixth deadliest natural disaster this century, its death toll exceeding the 31,000 from a quake in neighbouring Iran in 2003. It has killed 29,605 people in Turkey and more than 3,500 in Syria, where tolls have not been updated for two days. Turkey said about 80,000 people were in hospital, and more than 1 million in temporary shelters.

earthquake Turkey

Huge earthquake kills 3,000 in Turkey

Huge earthquake kills 3,000 in Turkey

Huge earthquake kills 3,000 in Turkey

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Middle East Huge earthquake kills 3,000 in Turkey and Syria, bad weather worsens plight

Middle East Huge earthquake kills 3,000 in Turkey and Syria, bad weather worsens plight A huge earthquake killed more than 3,000 people across a swathe of Turkey and northwest Syria on Monday, with freezing winter weather adding to the plight of the thousands left injured or homeless and hampering efforts to find survivors. The magnitude 7.8 quake brought down whole apartment blocks in Turkish cities and piled more devastation on millions of Syrians displaced by years of war. It struck before sunrise in harsh weather and was followed in the early afternoon by another large quake.In Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey, a woman speaking next to the wreckage of the seven-storey block where she lived said: "We were shaken like a cradle. There were nine of us at home. Two sons of mine are still in the rubble, I'm waiting for them." She was nursing a broken arm and had injuries to her face. "It was like the apocalypse," said Abdul Salam al-Mahmoud, a Syrian in the northern town of Atareb. "It's bitterly cold and there's heavy rain, and people need saving."The earthquake was the biggest recorded worldwide by the U.S. Geological Survey since a tremor in the remote South Atlantic in August 2021. Monday's casualties already mark the highest death toll from an earthquake in Turkey since 1999, when a tremor of similar magnitude devastated the heavily populated eastern Marmara Sea region near Istanbul, killing more than 17,000.In Turkey, the death toll stood at 1,762, Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said, and 12,068 people were recorded as injured. At least 1,293 people were killed in Syria, according to figures from the Damascus government and rescue workers in the northwestern region controlled by insurgents.Poor internet connections and damaged roads between some of the worst-hit cities in Turkey's south, homes to millions of people, hindered efforts to assess and address the impact. Temperatures in some areas were expected to fall to near freezing overnight, worsening conditions for people trapped under rubble or left homeless. Rain fell on Monday after snowstorms swept the country at the weekend. In the Turkish city of Iskenderun, rescuers climbed an enormous pile of debris that was once part of a state hospital's intensive care unit in search of survivors. Health workers did what they could to tend to the new rush of injured patients.We have a patient who was taken into surgery but we don't know what happened," said Tulin, a woman in her 30s, standing outside the hospital, wiping away tears and praying. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, preparing for a tough election in May, called Monday's quake a historic disaster and the worst earthquake to hit the country since 1939, but said authorities were doing all they could. "Everyone is putting their heart and soul into efforts although the winter season, cold weather and the earthquake happening during the night makes things more difficult," he said.The second quake was big enough to bring down more buildings and, like the first, was felt across the region, endangering rescuers struggling to pull casualties from the rubble.In Syria, already wrecked by more than 11 years of civil war, the health ministry said 593 people had been killed and more than 1,326 injured. In the Syrian rebel-held northwest emergency workers said more than 700 people had died. The United Nations says 4.1 million people, many of them displaced by the conflict and living in camps, depend already on cross-border humanitarian aid in northwest Syria and international support efforts are stretched and underfunded.Syrian communities are simultaneously hit with an ongoing cholera outbreak and harsh winter events including heavy rain and snow over the weekend," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York. In the government-controlled city of Aleppo, footage on Twitter showed two neighbouring buildings collapsing one after the other, filling streets with billowing dust. Two residents of the city, which has been heavily damaged in the war, said the buildings had fallen in the hours after the quake, which was felt as far away as Cyprus and Lebanon.In the Syrian government-held city of Hama, a Reuters journalist saw an apparently lifeless child carried from the ruins of a building. In the rebel-held town of Jandaris in Aleppo province, a mound of concrete, steel rods and bundles of clothes lay where a multi-storey building once stood. "There were 12 families under there. Not a single one came out. Not one," said a thin young man, his eyes wide open in shock and his hand bandaged.Raed al-Saleh of the Syrian White Helmets, a rescue service in rebel-held territory known for pulling people from the ruins of buildings destroyed by air strikes, said they were in "a race against time to save the lives of those under the rubble". Syrian state television showed rescue teams searching for survivors in heavy rain and sleet. President Bashar al-Assad held an emergency cabinet meeting to review the damage and discuss next steps, his office said.In the Turkish city of Diyarbakir, Reuters journalists saw dozens of rescue workers searching through a mound of debris, all that was left of a big building, and hauling off bits of wreckage as they looked for survivors. Occasionally they raised their hands and called for quiet, listening for sounds of life. Erdogan said 45 countries had offered to help the search and rescue efforts in Turkey. The earthquake also halted operations at Turkey's major oil export hub in Ceyhan and stopped crude oil flows from Iraq and Azerbaijan. Authorities said the port of Iskenderun also suffered damage.Turkey's lira hit a record low of 18.85 , in early trade and the country's stocks tumbled around 5%, although both pared losses later with the currency ending the day flat and equity indexes closing 1.3%-2.2% lower. In the Turkish city of Malatya, a rescue worker crawled into a collapsed building, trying to identify a survivor trapped under the wreckage, in footage released by emergency agency AFAD. "What colour are you wearing? Are you wearing pink? Please take care of yourself for the moment, I cannot see anything else," the rescue worker could be heard saying.

Worker Rights Amazon illegally threatened NYC workers ahead of union votes, judge finds Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) illegally threatened to withhold raises and benefits from workers at two New York City warehouses if they voted to unionize, a judge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled. In a decision issued on Monday, Administrative Law Judge Benjamin Green said Amazon supervisors told workers that they would miss out on regularly scheduled raises and improved benefits if the company was forced into lengthy union negotiations. U.S. labor law prohibits employers from making threats or promises in order to discourage unionizing. Workers at Amazon's JFK8 fulfillment center in Staten Island voted to join the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) last April, a first for the company in the United States. In May, employees at a smaller nearby storage facility rejected a union campaign. Green said Amazon also violated federal labor law in 2021 by removing a post from an internal message board asking workers to sign a union-backed petition to make Juneteenth a paid holiday.Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nor did the ALU. The board's general counsel, which acts as a prosecutor, is trying to use the case to convince the five-member board to ban mandatory anti-union meetings. So-called "captive audience" meetings have for decades been a common tool used by employers to discourage unionizing. Green did not rule on that issue because administrative judges cannot make new legal precedent. But the board will likely take up the issue if Amazon appeals. Amazon has faced dozens of complaints from workers and the ALU as the union attempts to organize warehouses across the country. The company has generally denied wrongdoing. Earlier this month, an NLRB official rejected Amazon's bid to overturn the results of the JFK8 election. The company said it intends to appeal that ruling to the board.

United States U.S. Rep. Santos to recuse himself from committee assignments

United States Biden White House, McCarthy dig in ahead of debt meeting U.S. President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy won't come to their first meeting over raising the debt ceiling with any specific proposals to stave off a possible default, both sides indicated on Tuesday. The Wednesday meeting between Biden and McCarthy is likely to serve as the opening bell for months of back-and-forth maneuvering over raising the United States' $31.4 billion borrowing cap.However, neither side is showing signs they're willing to negotiate on anything just yet. Failure to reach agreement could lead to a possible default on U.S. debt as early as June. Biden will call on McCarthy to release a budget plan in the meeting and to commit to support the nation's debt obligations, according to a White House memo seen by Reuters. "Raising the debt ceiling is not a negotiation; it is an obligation of this country and its leaders to avoid economic chaos," economic adviser Brian Deese and director of the Office of Management and Budget Shalanda Young wrote.McCarthy, for his part, said Biden needs to be willing to make concessions in order to get a debt-ceiling hike though Congress. "The first thing they should do, especially as the President of the United States, (is) say he's willing to sit down and find a common ground and negotiate together," McCarthy told reporters in the U.S. Capitol. Republicans in the House of Representatives have said any debt-ceiling hike should be paired with steep spending cuts, but have yet to outline specifics. McCarthy has ruled out cuts to Social Security and Medicare, the two largest government benefit programs.The White House says it will only discuss future spending cuts after the debt ceiling is raised. Asked what his message will be for McCarthy, Biden told reporters on Monday: "Show me your budget, I’ll show you mine." Detailed proposals may not emerge for several weeks. The White House has said it would release its budget proposal on March 9. House Republicans, meanwhile, will aim to produce their budget proposal in April, said House Republican Leader Steve Scalise.I hope the president meets his deadline just like we're going to work to meet our deadline," Scalise said at a news conference. The White House has seized on the lack of consensus to highlight fringe proposals from some Republicans, including one that abolishes the Internal Revenue Service in favor of a higher sales tax and one that trims Social Security retirement benefits. Unlike most other developed countries, the United States puts a hard limit on how much it can borrow, and Congress must periodically raise that cap because the U.S. government spends more than it takes in.The debt ceiling increase is usually voted in on a bipartisan basis, but Republicans have used their leverage previously to win spending cuts. A 2011 showdown between Democratic President Barack Obama and House Republicans took the country to the brink of default and prompted a first-ever downgrade of the country's top-notch credit rating. Veterans of that battle warn that the politics and math are tougher this time around, making it more difficult to find a resolution until the government is about to run out of money - or after it has I think that the possibility of miscalculation runs higher today than it did in 2011," said Neil Bradley, a former House Republican leadership aide who is now a top official at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The showdown over the growing U.S. debt threatens to roil the global economy if the United States defaults. The Treasury Department has already started taking "extraordinary measures" to stave off a default until summer after hitting the U.S. government's $31.4 trillion borrowing limit earlier in January.

Markets IMF lifts 2023 growth forecast on China reopening, strength in U.S., Europe The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday raised its 2023 global growth outlook slightly due to "surprisingly resilient" demand in the United States and Europe, an easing of energy costs and the reopening of China's economy after Beijing abandoned its strict COVID-19 restrictions. The IMF said global growth would still fall to 2.9% in 2023 from 3.4% in 2022, but its latest World Economic Outlook forecasts mark an improvement over an October prediction of 2.7% growth this year with warnings that the world could easily tip into recession.For 2024, the IMF said global growth would accelerate slightly to 3.1%, but this is a tenth of a percentage point below the October forecast as the full impact of steeper central bank interest rate hikes slows demand. IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said recession risks had subsided and central banks are making progress in controlling inflation, but more work was needed to curb prices and new disruptions could come from further escalation of the war in Ukraine and China's battle against COVID-19.We have to sort of be prepared to expect the unexpected, but it could well represent a turning point, with growth bottoming out and then inflation declining," Gourinchas told reporters of the 2023 outlook. In its 2023 GDP forecasts, the IMF said it now expected U.S. GDP growth of 1.4%, up from 1.0% predicted in October and following 2.0% growth in 2022. It cited stronger-than-expected consumption and investment in the third quarter of 2022, a robust labor market and strong consumer balance sheets.It said the euro zone had made similar gains, with 2023 growth for the bloc now forecast at 0.7%, versus 0.5% in the October outlook, following 3.5% growth in 2022. The IMF said Europe had adapted to higher energy costs more quickly than expected, and an easing of energy prices had helped the region. Britain was the only major advanced economy the IMF predicted to be in recession this year, with a 0.6% fall in GDP as households struggle with rising living costs, including for energy and mortgages.The IMF revised China's growth outlook sharply higher for 2023, to 5.2% from 4.4% in the October forecast after "zero-COVID" lockdown policies in 2022 slashed China's growth rate to 3.0% - a pace below the global average for the first time in more than 40 years. But the boost from renewed mobility for Chinese people will be short-lived. The Fund added that China's growth will "fall to 4.5% in 2024 before settling at below 4% over the medium term amid declining business dynamism and slow progress on structural reforms."At the same time, India's outlook remains robust, with unchanged forecasts for a dip in 2023 growth to 6.1% but a rebound to 6.8% in 2024, matching its 2022 performance. Gourinchas said together, the two Asian powerhouse economies will supply over 50% of global growth in 2023. He acknowledged that China's reopening would put some upward pressure on commodity prices, but "on balance, I think we view the reopening of China as a benefit to the global economy" as it will help ease production bottlenecks that have worsened inflation and by creating more demand from Chinese households.Even with China's reopening, the IMF is predicting that oil prices will fall in both 2023 and 2024 due to lower global growth compared to 2022. The IMF said there were both upside and downside risks to the outlook with built-up savings creating the possibility of sustained demand growth, particularly for tourism, and an easing of labor market pressures in some advanced economies helping to cool inflation, lessening the need for aggressive rate hikes.But it enumerated more and larger downside risks, including more widespread COVID-19 outbreaks in China and a worsening of the country's real estate turmoil. An escalation of the war in Ukraine could further spike energy and food prices, as would a cold winter next year as Europe struggles to refill gas storage and competes with China for liquefied natural gas supplies, the Fund said. Although headline inflation has come down in many countries, a premature easing of financial conditions leaves markets vulnerable to sudden repricings if core inflation readings fail to come down.Gourinchas said core inflation may have peaked in some countries such as the United States, but central banks need to stay vigilant and be more certain that inflation is on a downward path, particularly in countries where real interest rates remain low, such as in Europe. "So we're just saying, look, bring monetary policy slightly above neutral at the very least and hold it there. And then assess what's going on with price dynamics and how the economy is responding, and there will be plenty of time to adjust course, so that we avoid having overtightening," Gourinchas said.

Western allies differ over jets for Ukraine as Russia claims gains Ukraine's defence minister is expected in Paris on Tuesday to meet President Emmanuel Macron amid a debate among Kyiv's allies over whether to provide fighter jets for its war against Russia, after U.S. President Joe Biden ruled out giving F-16s. Ukraine planned to push for Western fourth-generation fighters like F-16s after securing supplies of main battle tanks last week, an adviser to Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Friday.Asked at the White House on Monday if the United States would provide F-16s, Biden told reporters: "No." But France and Poland appear to be willing to entertain any such request from Ukraine, with Macron telling reporters in The Hague on Monday that "by definition, nothing is excluded" when it comes to military assistance. In remarks carried on French television before Biden spoke in Washington, Macron stressed any such move would depend on several factors including the need to avoid escalation and assurances that the aircraft would not "touch Russian soil." He said Reznikov would also meet his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu in Paris on Tuesday.In Poland Monday, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also did not rule out a possible supply of F-16s to neighbouring Ukraine, in response to a question from a reporter before Biden spoke. Morawiecki said in remarks posted on his website that any such transfer would take place "in complete coordination" with NATO countries. Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukraine president's office, noted "positive signals" from Poland and said France "does not exclude" such a move in separate posts on his Telegram channel.Biden's comment came shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had begun exacting its revenge for Ukraine's resistance to its invasion with relentless attacks in the east. Zelenskiy has warned for weeks that Moscow aims to step up its assault after about two months of virtual stalemate along the front line that stretches across the south and east. Ukraine won a huge boost last week when Germany and the United States announced plans to provide heavy tanks, ending weeks of diplomatic deadlock on the issue.While there was no sign of a broader new Russian offensive, the administrator of Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk province, Denis Pushilin, said Russian troops had secured a foothold in Vuhledar, a coal-mining town whose ruins have been a Ukrainian bastion since the outset of the war. Pushilin said Ukrainian forces were continuing to throw reinforcements at Bakhmut, Maryinka and Vuhledar, three towns running from north to south just west of Donetsk city. The Russian state news agency TASS quoted him as saying Russian forces were making advances there, but "not clear-cut, that is, here there is a battle for literally every meter."Ukraine still controls Maryinka and Vuhledar, where Russian attacks were less intense on Monday, according to Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov. Pushilin's adviser, Yan Gagin, said fighters from Russian mercenary force Wagner had taken partial control of a supply road leading to Bakhmut, a city that has been Moscow's focus for months. A day earlier, the head of Wagner said his fighters had secured Blahodatne, a village just north of Bakhmut.Kyiv said it had repelled assaults on Blahodatne and Vuhledar, and Reuters could not independently verify the situations there. But the locations of the reported fighting indicated clear, though gradual, Russian gains. In central Zaporizhzhia region and in southern Kherson region, Russian forces shelled more than 40 settlements, Ukraine's General Staff said. Targets included the city of Kherson, where there were casualties.The Russians also launched four rocket attacks on Ochakiv in southern Mykolaiv, the army said, on the day Zelenskiy met the Danish prime minister in Mykolaiv city, to the northeast. Most of the hundreds of modern tanks and armoured vehicles pledged to Ukraine by Western countries in recent weeks are months away from delivery. British Defence Minister Ben Wallace said the 14 Challenger tanks donated by Britain would be on the front line around April or May, without giving an exact timetable.Zelenskiy is urging the West to hasten delivery of its promised weapons so Ukraine can go on the offensive. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Western countries supplying arms leads "to NATO countries more and more becoming directly involved in the conflict - but it doesn't have the potential to change the course of events and will not do so." The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War think-tank said "the West's failure to provide the necessary materiel" last year was the main reason Kyiv's advances had halted since November. The researchers said in a report that Ukraine could still recapture territory once the promised weapons arrive. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow justifies as necessary to protect itself from its neighbour's ties with the West, has killed tens of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes.

N.Y.case against Trump over hush money to porn star goes to grand jury Monday A grand jury is hearing evidence in New York over former President Donald Trump's role in hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. A grand jury could lay the groundwork for possible criminal charges against the former president by the Manhattan district attorney's office. Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified before the grand jury, one source told Reuters. Pecker was seen entering the lower Manhattan building where the grand jury is empaneled, according to the New York Times, which first reported on the grand jury on Monday. Pecker could not immediately be reached for comment.The publisher had offered to help Trump by buying rights to unflattering stories and never publishing them. The moves are an indication that the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, is closer to a decision on whether to charge Trump. Bragg's office declined to comment on the Times report. Daniels said she had a sexual liaison with Trump and received $130,000 before the 2016 presidential election in exchange for not discussing her encounter with Trump, who denies it happened and in 2018 told reporters he knew nothing about a payment to Daniels.Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was sentenced to three years in prison in federal court in New York for orchestrating hush payments to Daniels and another woman, former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said she had a months-long affair with Trump before he took office. McDougal has said she sold her story for $150,000 to American Media Inc (AMI), but it was never published. The incident involved a practice known as "catch and kill" to prevent a potentially damaging article from being published. Pecker, AMI’s former chief executive officer and a longtime friend of Trump and Cohen, told prosecutors of their hush-money deals with McDougal and Daniels before the 2016 U.S. election won by Trump, the Wall Street Journal reported in 2018.

Blinken reaffirms two-state solution ahead of lsraeli-Palestinian visit