Events

Consumer goods firms like Nestle, Lindt and Unilever may face increased pressure across Europe to cut prices after being singled out by French retailers and politicians, industry experts say.Ahead of contract talks due to start by next month, supermarket chain Carrefour has slapped price warnings on products to pressure top consumer goods suppliers including Nestle, PepsiCo and Unilever to reduce inflation.France is a crucial country for consumer goods companies, having long outstripped Germany, Italy, Spain and others as the European Union’s biggest market for groceries by supermarket revenues, according to research firm IBISWorld. The French government is considering bringing forward annual price negotiations between food producers and supermarkets, and aims to have secured price cuts by mid-January.Its actions could encourage other countries within the EU to follow suit, industry experts say. Retailers’ bargaining positions are also strengthened by international alliances with each other that increase their clout with suppliers.That means consumer groups will face pressure to rein back prices across the European Union.“It’s not only about the impact on the French market — it’s about the potential ripple effect,” said Laurent Thoumine, Europe lead for consultancy Accenture’s retail industry practice.Thoumine expects price negotiations in France to be the toughest the industry has faced for a decade.“There are some brands that are untouchable – you cannot remove those brands from your shelves,” Thoumine said, naming Ferrero’s Nutella, Pernod Ricard’s Ricard aperitif and Coca-Cola’s sodas as particularly strong.But if a product is not “essential” talks will be difficult, he added, because they can be replaced easily with private label alternatives.French grocer Systeme U is part of Epic Partners, one of several European international purchasing groups. Germany’s Edeka, Switzerland’s Migros, Italy’s Esselunga and Belgium’s Colruyt are also reported to be part of the alliance.Because these supermarkets are in different countries and do not compete with one another, they often combine forces to negotiate with consumer goods makers.That has prompted accusations of collusion, which retailers deny.“We buy as a group, not to evade any law but in order to have sufficient clout against manufacturers,” Philippe Michaud, co-president of supermarket group E. Leclerc, told French lawmakers on Wednesday. E Leclerc is part of Eurelec, another buying alliance.French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire in June urged 75 consumer companies to cut prices. After a new round of meetings last month, Le Maire called out Unilever, Nestle and PepsiCo for not “co-operating.”“I don’t think this is just localised to France,” Richard Saldanha, a portfolio manager at Britain’s Aviva Investors, said. “There is pressure and I think governments are starting to look at this more closely.”Nestle and Unilever did not comment, while Lindt did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The retailers mentioned in this story did not respond to requests for comment, except Systeme U, which confirmed it was part of Epic Partners.Paris is not alone in Europe in its eagerness to bring down the price of food and other staples.Reuters reported in July that Italy’s government is trying to broker a deal with supermarkets and producers to control prices of essential consumer goods in a measure that would be implemented in the final three months of this year.The Greek government said on Wednesday that big supermarkets there will need to share with authorities their price lists for basic foods.Consumer goods makers have for more than two years grappled with sky-rocketing input, supply chain and labour costs that they have either absorbed — taking a hit to margins — or passed on to retailers. Those cost pressures are easing off now, however, and investors have voiced concerns that raising prices will alienate shoppers and hit sales volumes.“What’s going on in France is interesting as you’re starting to see higher costs rollover,” Saldanha said. “The key for us from an investor standpoint is trying to understand: are these price increases justified?”

If the hugely popular 1982 film E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, caught the world’s fancy, and the Men in Black science fiction comedy film series debuting in 1997 approached the topic in a lighter vein, any news about the possibility of finding extraterrestrial life continues to attract attention always. Two separate developments last week prove this. The first incident in Mexico City, saw the alleged bodies of two “non-human beings” presented during a congressional hearing, generating a mixture of surprise, disbelief and ridicule on social media on Wednesday, as reported by AFP. The purported mummified remains were exhibited on Tuesday – the first time the Mexican Congress has officially addressed the issue of possible extraterrestrial life. The alleged corpses, which had a grayish colour and facial features similar to humans, were brought by Jaime Maussan, a controversial Mexican journalist and researcher who reported finding them in Peru in 2017. “They are non-human beings. We don’t want to call them extraterrestrials because we don’t know,” Maussan said during the session called by ruling party lawmaker Sergio Gutierrez, who defended the event as being in the “public interest.” Maussan cited carbon dating analysis by the National Autonomous University of Mexico that he said showed “these beings are around 1,000 years old.” During the hearing, Gutierrez said Maussan requested the session after a US congressional committee in July was told by a former intelligence official that humans were not alone in the universe and American authorities were covering up the evidence. In June, the US space agency Nasa held its first public meeting on the issue, and urged a more rigorous scientific approach to clarify the origin of so-called unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs). The second development was on Thursday when a Nasa panel recommended in a report that the US space agency increase its efforts to gather information on UAP, by the government – and play a larger role in helping the Pentagon detect them, Reuters said. The panel, comprised experts in scientific fields ranging from physics to astrobiology. “Nasa has a variety of existing and planned Earth- and space-observing assets, together with an extensive archive of historic and current data sets, which should be directly leveraged to understand UAP,” the report said. “Although Nasa’s fleet of Earth-observing satellites typically lack the spatial resolution to detect relatively small objects such as UAP, their state-of-the-art sensors can be directly utilised to probe the state of the local earth, oceanic, and atmospheric conditions that are spatially and temporally coincident with UAPs initially detected via other methods. Thus, Nasa’s assets can play a vital role by directly determining whether specific environmental factors are associated with certain reported UAP behaviours or occurrences,” the report said. The US government in the past few years has made several disclosures of information it has gathered regarding a subject that once was met by virtual official silence. The new report called UAPs “one of our planet’s greatest mysteries.” “Despite numerous accounts and visuals, the absence of consistent, detailed, and curated observations means we do not presently have the body of data needed to make definitive, scientific conclusions about UAP,” it added. The US government issued a watershed report in 2021 compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in conjunction with a Navy-led task force encompassing numerous observations, mostly from military personnel of UAP. The report included some UAP cases that previously came to light in the Pentagon’s release of video from naval aviators showing enigmatic aircraft off the US East and West Coasts exhibiting speed and manoeuvrability exceeding known aviation technologies and lacking any visible means of propulsion or flight-control surfaces. The report said defence and intelligence analysts lacked sufficient data to determine the nature of some of the objects.

Ensuring a water-secure future is a critical global challenge. It involves sustainable management, conservation, and equitable distribution of water resources.The current summer is one of extreme weather, with forest fires in Europe and Canada, record temperatures in China, and an unprecedented storm in California and parts of southern Europe including Greece and Turkiye.Yet, one thing that isn’t always considered in the discussion of rising temperatures and climate change is water availability.With levels of water scarcity soaring as annual water use rises by around 3,500bn cubic metres globally over the last century, this deserves as much global attention as climate change, according to the World Economic Forum.And increasing water circularity through global collaboration could have a hugely positive impact, by reducing drought risk, supporting climate goals and advancing social development to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals.The question of how we secure a water positive future is at the heart of ‘Thirst for Change’, a new research from BSI and the NGO Waterwise.As the research makes clear, while water is abundant on Earth, just 0.5% is available as fresh water, and a combination of population growth, climate change, and economic development is driving demand and putting growing, unsustainable pressure on this supply.Crucially, it has been found that water provision and use contribute around 10% of global carbon emissions, while drought could affect as many as 75% of the world’s population by 2050. Ultimately, action now on water could be as beneficial to the planet as tackling the climate crisis – and the two are inextricably linked.Like climate change, water security is an issue relevant to all economies, not just those known for arid landscapes.The BSI Water Security Indicator evaluated availability across 40 locations, with the US, China and India receiving the top rating, meaning they are facing the highest possible water security challenge.As with the race to net zero, there is much the world can do to have a positive impact and meet this challenge, if governments, the water sector and other players, including organisations, collaborate on a large scale, noted Ryan Lynch, Practice Director of BSI’s Sustainability Practice at BSI.There are lots of strategies that can be deployed here, but a key starting point is making it easier for consumers to choose water-saving products, for example, via product labelling. More broadly, it is about embedding a circular economy mindset that sees preserving water as a priority.Many of us have embraced the journey to net zero, and now understand greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction as critical. We can do the same with water and effect change if we step up efforts to prioritise addressing water availability challenges, and encourage a positive water-saving culture amongst individuals, organisations and society, at home and in the workplace, and across different sectors of industry.It is worth noting that achieving water security is a complex, long-term endeavour that requires concerted efforts from individuals, communities, governments, and organisations at local, national, and global levels.In a world where water security is a growing issue, we all have a role to play, undoubtedly!

1. Consent:A sale is not valid unless there is mutual consent between the two parties. In the Qur’an, Allah Almighty says (what means): {But only [in lawful] business by mutual consent.} [Qur’an 4:29]But, how can the consent condition be met between the two contracting parties?Scholars have three different opinions on how the consent condition is fulfilled in sale. This issue is important, given the new relevant fiqh-related issues in this age. For example, a person can now put coins into a soft drinks machine which, in turn, brings out what he wants. Is there consent here between the seller and the buyer? Also, a person can buy goods via visa card through the Internet. Is there mutual consent here?There are three scholarly opinions regarding this issue:a. Mutual consent can only be expressed by speech, through what is known as ‘offer and acceptance’. This is a problem in this age of ours, for some large financial transactions are run in the stock market without verbal offer or acceptance. Instead, they are run through the computer which is connected to an international web, through means that have the force of verbal offer and acceptance, and even with greater force and better documentation.b. Mutual consent should basically be expressed by speech, and it may also be expressed by action in the things that are frequently contracted. This ruling is issued out of tolerance on the part of some jurists who adopt the first opinion. An example of this is a person who gives money to a baker and he gives him bread while both of them are silent. Also, a person takes a taxi and pays the fare, which is known, while he is silent. Similar to this are the soft drinks machines referred to above. The Islamic jurists call such dealings mu‘atah. They maintain that the sale of such things as frequently contracted in daily life can be made via mu‘atah, without requiring verbal offer and acceptance.c. Mutual consent can be achieved by anything that indicates it, whether by words or deeds. This opinion was held by Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy upon him, who was exceptionally intelligent and was always ahead of events, as if he was living in a later age.Another example is transactions made through the stock exchange, which occur in moments according to a system agreed upon between companies and contractors, which denotes consent. All these transactions are valid and there is nothing wrong with them. Moreover, this ruling – i.e. the validity of sale by mu‘atah through anything that denotes consent whether by words or actions – includes all forms that are not yet known to us and that will emerge in the future.Prior to this, however, there should be an agreement between the companies and between the seller and buyer over a specific system that signifies consent, such as the visa number on the Internet, which represents its holder. If the buyer does not agree to the deal, he will not enter his visa number upon purchase of the commodity. In some other dealings, one may give this number over the phone, indicating his consent, and so on. What is important here is that there should be some means whereby this condition can be fulfilled between the contract’s two parties. It is not necessary that the principle of ‘offer and acceptance’ be expressed verbally.2. Rationality:Scholars exclude, from the condition of rationality, the sale concluded by a discerning child regarding matters that are customarily accepted. For example, if a discerning boy says to his father: “I have sold our house to so-and-so,” this is not valid. However, there is nothing wrong if he sells sweets in his father’s grocery shop. This is valid according to custom.A foolish person does not meet the condition of rationality, so his sale is not valid. A fool is such a person who disposes of his wealth in a way that denotes irrationality, and thus he should be placed under another person’s guardianship. In brief, dealing should be conducted between two rational parties. If a question is posed regarding the dealing with a machine, as to how the condition of rationality can be met in such a deal, the answer is that the deal in such cases is originally with the company that uses the machine, which is a mere method for payment.3. What is sold should be property:Property is everything that is regarded, in Islam, as permissible and whose ownership is lawful. Everything that is declared unlawful in Islam is not accorded any respect and cannot be regarded as property and, thus, may not be contracted. Even if a person breaks or spills something unlawful, he is not held liable for this, according to the Sharia. This is because such a thing is worthless, as is the case with musical instruments. The condition that the sold commodity should be lawful property is of great significance in contemporary dealings.Examples of this include the following:• Selling human organs, which is an active trade nowadays, for which international companies are operating through selling and buying in poor countries. Each commodity has its price. Is that right? In fact, that is not right, as organs are not property, but a gift from Allah Almighty.But, there is an important point here. Namely, the Council of Senior Scholars in Saudi Arabia received a question on buying corpses for learning medicine, which is an urgent necessity. This is one of the important new fiqh-related issues that need Muslim scholars who are well acquainted about two things:First: The general Sharia-rules that form the framework of the Islamic Sharia.Second: Texts.This is because understanding texts in the context of the sharia-rules differs from understanding them separately. The former manner produces a sound understanding, whereas the latter yields an erroneous understanding.The senior scholars replied that it is not permissible to buy the dead body of a Muslim or use it for learning, given the inviolability of the Muslim. But, they said, it is permissible to use the corpse of a disbeliever for learning, in line with the principle of doing the lesser of two evils. This fatwa is correct, for a disbeliever does not enjoy the sanctity of the Muslim.It is also not permissible to sell blood, for it is impure, so it is not property. Likewise, it is not permissible to sell dogs, for they are forbidden, and whatever is forbidden cannot be lawful property. However, some hold that it is permissible to sell dogs in cases where using them is permissible.4. The sold item should be owned by the seller:There has been a very common error as far as this condition is concerned. Many, or even most, people buy their cars and even their houses, among other things, by means of al-murabahah in some Islamic banks.What is meant here is the sale of al-murabahah which does not meet the condition of the seller’s ownership of what he sells. The seller here is the Islamic bank. It is not permissible for it to sell what it does not own.For example, a person comes to you and says that he wants to buy the car of your friend and you say to him “I have sold it to you,” intending thereby to buy the car from your friend and then sell it to that person who would say: “I have bought it.” This contract is invalid, for the owner of the car may refuse to sell it to you. For this reason, the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam (may Allah exalt his mention), is reported to have prohibited such a sale, saying: “Do not sell what you do not possess.” [Ahmad, Abu Dawood, An-Nasa’i, At-Tirmithi and Ibn Majah on the authority of Hakeem ibn Hizam]When some Islamic banks sell cars or the commodities of other companies, do they sell what they do not possess?It is known that when a client comes to the Islamic bank to buy a car, for example, the Islamic bank says to him “I sell to you,” meaning that it sells to him what he chooses from among the cars offered in companies in the market. But, from where does the bank bring it? Does it sell what it possesses?Some jurists tried to get the Islamic bank out of this problem through the following:First: The client should promise the Islamic bank that he will buy the commodity; and the Islamic bank in turn should promise the client that it will sell it to him. Then, both parties sign the written promises. This signed paper means that the bank is yet to sell the commodity, but it has merely promised to do so after buying it, and the client has only promised to buy it from the bank.Second: The bank should make this paper binding. When a person comes to the Islamic bank and signs the written promise of purchase, he becomes committed to completing this process. They should declare that this is not a sale contract to avoid falling into the error of selling what the seller does not possess. Rather, it is only a promise, and the Muslim is obliged to fulfil his promise.Third: After this step, the Islamic bank gives the price of the commodity to the company in cash and then hands the commodity over to the client, by installments at a known profit. Thus, it guarantees that the buyer will not withdraw from the deal and also guarantees its profit from it.Shaykh Muhammad al-Ashqar wrote a treatise on the invalidity of such a dealing and the impermissibility of obliging the client to buy the commodity on account of his promise, for this puts the bank in a position similar to selling what one does not possess. He also said that a promise is not binding. He settled this issue by the question: Is a promise of purchase binding legally or religiously? In other words, if I promised you to buy a commodity, yet I did not, and then you file a complaint against me to the judge, will the judge oblige me to buy it? On the other hand, if I am not obliged by the court, will I be sinful for breaking my promise and thus have to repent?He explained that the promise of purchase here is not binding, and that the Islamic bank is required to buy the commodity from the company and own it through a formal contract, bringing the commodity in its possession, and then it sells it to the client by installments and receives a profit from this. The Islamic bank should not oblige the client to buy the commodity for merely promising to conclude the deal, for this would actually be a sale, albeit in the form of a promise.But some dodged this problem and adopted another method: The Islamic bank does not buy the commodity by a formal contract with the company. Rather, the contract is represented by possessing the commodity; and they only conclude the ‘offer and acceptance’ process over the phone. Then, the bank signs the sale contract with the client and sells it to him by installments. Thereafter, the Islamic bank completes the deal with the company.This method is also not sharia-compliant. It is nothing but circumvention aimed at changing the form only, thereby distinguishing between the dealing of the usurious facilities companies and that of the Islamic banks. In an authentic hadith narrated on the authority of Zayd ibn Thabit, may Allah be pleased with him, the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, forbade selling the goods where they are bought until the tradesmen take them to their houses. [Abu Dawood]This means that a tradesman should have the commodity in his possession, after owning it, before he can resell it. The meaning of possession depends on the thing in question. It does not necessarily mean transferring the commodity to the place of the buyer, for the commodity may be planes, ships, or many cars, which cannot be transferred by the purchaser. What is intended here is that the commodity should become his property and in his possession. This can be done through official documents with a legal force, which prove that the commodity is now in the possession of the bank and registered in its name. In this way, even if the buyer withdraws from the deal, the commodity remains in the full possession of the Islamic bank.We notify here that one of the forms of selling the commodity before possessing it is what sometimes takes place in Tawarruq sale. For example, a person in need of money goes to buy a quantity of cement by installments and signs the sale contract. Then, he immediately sells the cement to a contractor at a lower price in cash – before possessing it. He may even not know where his commodity is situated. Such sale, in which the dealer sells the commodity before he possesses it, is prohibited. However, if the commodity is separated from the buyer and given to the purchaser, who then sells it to a contractor, then this is the issue of Tawarruq over which the scholars are known to have differing opinions. As some scholars deem it impermissible altogether, some others regard it as generally permissible, if the condition of possession is fulfilled. Still, other scholars regard it as permissible after first possessing the commodity, provided that there is a need for this.We all remember that the crisis of Al-Manakh market took place because of the violation of this condition, i.e. possessing the commodity before selling it. Shares of illusory companies were sold on credit, with the purchaser desiring to resell them and receive profits until the fixed time for repaying the debt comes. What happened, however, was that this illusory market collapsed and the debts remained unpaid. As a result, the state shouldered a huge crisis that endured for years.5. The seller should be able to deliver the commodity:This is a fundamental condition, for if the commodity cannot be delivered, the purpose of the sale will not be fulfilled. For example, it is prohibited to sell fish while it is still in the water or birds while they are in the sky, or to sell a commodity that is located in a country at war, which thus cannot be delivered. This is all invalid.6. The price should be known:The price of the commodity should be fixed through seeing or describing.7. The commodity should be known:This happens by seeing it or knowing its description. For example, if a person says to another “I have sold you a car”, and the other replied “I have bought it”. This sale is invalid, for neither the car nor its price has been defined. Similarly, if a person says to another “I have sold you a car for 5,000.” This sale is invalid too, since the currency has not been designated. The price should be fixed clearly. But, there is nothing wrong if it is commonly understood which currency is intended. However, on the internet, for example, the currency should be designated.Seeing the commodity can be done through audio-visual media. This is enough with regard to buying commodities, if the medium is reliable. The buyer remains in a position to accept or reject the commodity if he finds it different in reality.Article source: http://www.islamweb.net/emainpage/

Some coal producers are having to set aside tens of millions of dollars to cover their own risks as they are cut adrift by insurers, making it more difficult and costly to do business amid a surge in demand for the fossil fuel.Dozens of insurers have announced restrictions on their cover for the coal industry, particularly for new projects, in response to pressure from shareholders, governments and environmental groups who want to limit coal’s contribution to global warming. This follows similar moves by banks to restrict their coal financing activities.Coal miners need extensive insurance including for operations, property, equipment, and environmental liability. Three insurance brokers said it can now take months and dozens of enquiries to find such coverage for a coal client.Reuters spoke to five coal mining executives who said that the industry is increasingly moving towards self-insurance and self-finance, as the difficulty of securing coverage from insurers makes loans more expensive or unavailable.Some miners, including South Africa’s Seriti Resources and Thungela Resources, are already setting aside capital to self-insure and only buying insurance to protect against larger and less frequent losses.While Seriti has said it is not struggling to get funding from banks, securing insurance cover has become more challenging, according to its chief financial officer Doug Gain.“In recognition of ESG and related factors shrinking the availability of thermal coal insurance capacity globally, Seriti has embarked on a journey toward increased self-insurance,” Gain told Reuters via email.He did not elaborate on the cost for Seriti, which supplies many of South Africa’s coal power stations.Many coal producers are finding workarounds and production continues to rise. The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts 2023 global supplies will surpass last year’s record of 8.6bn tonnes, after the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced many countries to use coal to keep the lights on.But the need to earmark funds for self-insurance ties up money on the balance sheets of coal companies and could leave them vulnerable to large costs when something goes wrong, industry analysts say.Three analysts told Reuters that coal companies have been able to absorb any increase in costs due to record profits last year, but may find it harder in leaner times, as the issues with insurance ultimately push up the cost of production.“Financing becomes impossible without insurance,” said Liberum equity analyst Ben Davis.“For existing producers at the moment, this is not a massive issue because they can still set funds aside, given sustained coal prices. But there are going to be tougher times ahead for the ones that don’t set the money aside,” he added.The dwindling supply of insurance for coal producers has led to premiums rising nearly three times as much as an industry benchmark, data from brokerage Willis Towers Watson shows.Thermal coal insurance rates rose more than 20% last year, it said, above the 7.3% rise in the benchmark Marsh Global Insurance Market Index.Whitehaven Coal, Australia’s top independent coal miner, has seen its insurance costs roughly double over the last two years, a person familiar with the company who asked not to be identified because the information is financially sensitive, told Reuters.Whitehaven declined to comment.Seriti has a combination of self-insurance to cover damage to some assets, while retaining some cover from the insurance industry such as flood damage or underground fire damage, a spokesperson said.To reduce the cost of insurance cover, Seriti is increasing the retention of capital in its own insurance unit so that only excess layers of risk need to be insured by third parties.“We expect the availability of insurance capacity for thermal coal assets to continue to shrink over time and the capacity will likely be extremely limited by circa 2030,” Gain said.In the case of Thungela — a company spun off from Anglo American — it set aside R1.2bn ($67mn) to self-insure some of its risk last year, while still sourcing its catastrophic risk cover, including events like mine collapses or natural disasters, from the insurance market.Thungela told Reuters it intends to become fully self-insured in future, without specifying the timeframe.Forty-five insurance companies have introduced restrictions now on cover for the coal industry, including Allianz, Swiss Re and Munich Re, according to the Insure Our Future environmental pressure group.Some insurers still have relatively large fossil fuel businesses, with Bermuda’s AEGIS, China’s PICC, Russia’s SOGAZ, Switzerland’s Chubb and Germany’s Allianz the top five by gross premiums in 2022, according to data exclusively provided to Reuters by Insuramore, which produces insurance rankings and analysis.AEGIS said in an email that its coal business represents a small portion of its total and was decreasing, while Allianz said it will phase out coal-based business by 2040.Chubb, which says it does not insure new risks for miners generating more than 30% of their revenue from coal, declined to comment. China’s PICC and Russia’s SOGAZ did not respond to a request for comment.Some coal producers have set up their own separate company to deal with their insurance - called a captive - which can be covered by a combination of their own funds, individual insurance companies, and a group of insurance companies working together to share the risk with so-called reinsurance.Insurance companies can be active in both primary insurance and reinsurance and have differing commitments on ESG for different parts of their business.“The majority of the reinsurance market remains open to the ongoing operations of coal companies but not their new projects,” said Insure Our Future coordinator Peter Bosshard.In Australia, coal companies have explored setting up a mutual insurance fund that they would all pay into as a form of self-insurance, but talks have stalled with a lack of government support, people familiar with the matter said.“Establishing a mutual fund for the coal industry is a matter for the coal industry,” a spokesperson for the Australian Department of Treasury said. “Any financial support or guarantee for a mutual fund would involve a decision of government.”The spokesperson did not say whether the government had been approached by companies about the fund.Nombasa Tsengwa, Chief Executive Officer at South African coal miner Exxaro Resources, said that insurers in some countries and regions, including in Asia, were more willing to do business than elsewhere.“What we have also noticed is that there are other jurisdictions that are interested in absorbing the risk of coal businesses,” Tsengwa said, referring to more stringent regulations in Europe.“I’m talking about going beyond your normal UK-based markets and looking into Asia for funders and insurance cover,” she added.Coal prices hit record highs in September last year as European countries scrambled to replace Russian gas, sending coal miners’ profits soaring.But prices have since fallen and analysts say the need by producers to meet more of their own financing and insurance requirements could exacerbate the impact of weaker prices on profits.Thungela and Exxaro saw their profits fall by 75% and 29% respectively in the first half on weaker prices. Major diversified miner Glencore said its industrial assets’ profit fell by 51% in the first half due to lower prices, particularly in coal, and inflationary costs.

The death of mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in a fiery plane crash leaves Russian President Vladimir Putin stronger in the short term, removing a powerful figure who had defied his authority and threatened to make him look weak.But it also deprives him of a forceful and astute player who had proved his utility to the Kremlin by sending his fighters into some of the bloodiest battles of the Ukraine war and advancing Russian interests across Africa.After 24 hours of silence, Putin paid “sincere condolences” to the families of all 10 people on the plane that crashed north of Moscow, and praised Prigozhin as a “talented businessman”. It is not yet clear what caused the plane to drop from the sky.He promised a full investigation, but its outcome is unlikely to shake a widespread belief that Prigozhin was killed as an act of vengeance for staging a mutiny in late June.The United States is looking at a number of theories over what brought down the plane, including a surface-to-air missile hitting it, US officials told Reuters.Analysts said the assumption of Kremlin involvement may actually suit Putin’s purpose.“Whatever the reasons for the plane crash, everyone will see it as an act of retribution and reprisal, and the Kremlin will not particularly interfere with this,” Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the R.Politik consultancy, said.“From the point of view of Putin, as well as many among the security forces and the military, Prigozhin’s death should be a lesson to any potential followers.”Wrong assumptionThe crash came two months to the day after Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries staged a mutiny in which they took control of a southern city and advanced towards Moscow, shooting down a number of Russian air force planes and killing their pilots.Putin, who has spoken in the past of his hatred of traitors, described it at the time as a “stab in the back”.Since the mutiny, Prigozhin had halted a running feud with the defence establishment but otherwise continued his operations, appearing to move freely in and out of Russia despite a deal with the Kremlin under which he was meant to leave for Belarus.Abbas Gallyamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter now designated a “foreign agent” by Russia, said Prigozhin had wrongly assumed he was indispensable to Putin because of the scale and importance of his activities.These included extensive operations in Africa, where Wagner has expanded its mercenary services in countries such as Mali and the Central African Republic in exchange for gold- and diamond-mining concessions.While portraying it as a purely private commercial operation, the Kremlin has used Wagner to expand Russian influence on the continent in competition with Western powers such as France and the United States.Prigozhin “assumed that Putin would not want to risk all this”, Gallyamov said. “(He) underestimated how important it was for Putin to send a signal to all potential rebels: guys, don’t think you can do this and then remain alive.”Game of ThronesBut the death of Prigozhin is not without cost to Putin.Analysts said it opens up the prospect of a messy struggle for control of Wagner’s huge business empire, and a possible split between pragmatists willing to integrate with the defence ministry and an aggrieved ultranationalist faction which is already venting its anger on social media channels.“I think it’s possible that in many ways it will become kind of a headless Game of Thrones or Sopranos type of environment where we have competing smaller factions and smaller splinters of Wagner,” said Andrew Borene, executive director of threat intelligence firm Flashpoint and a former US intelligence official.“In the long-term I think it’s a strategic loss (to Russia),” he said.Samuel Ramani, an analyst at London’s RUSI think-tank and author of the book Russia in Africa said the loss of Prigozhin’s extensive network would be a downside for Putin.“He loses many of the personal contacts that Prigozhin has managed to cultivate on that continent, including the kind of contacts that would be necessary to export gold and diamonds out of sanctioned countries such as Mali and the Central African Republic,” Ramani said in a telephone interview.The plane crash happened on the same day that Russian state media reported the removal of Sergei Surovikin, the former commander of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, as head of the Russian air force. Widespread but unconfirmed reports said Surovikin had been placed under investigation for possible complicity in Prigozhin’s mutiny.The downfall of both men — widely seen as two of Russia’s most effective operators in a war where it has seen many embarrassing failures — could hamper Moscow’s ability to mount sustainable offensive operations in the next year, Ramani said.If Putin was responsible for Prigozhin’s death, he said, it demonstrated he was willing to engage in brutal repression of any kind of dissent.“But it also shows a vulnerability too because he needs to use force now to repress these ultranationalists who he previously was able to co-opt and pacify by including them in his coalition. And that doesn’t speak well to Putin’s sustainability beyond 2024.”Robert Horvath, a Russia specialist at La Trobe University in Melbourne, said Putin’s position remained fragile.“The problem with killing Prigozhin is that it risks provoking acts of revenge from the tens of thousands of Wagner mercenaries — some battle-hardened veterans, some convicted criminals — who have fought under the Wagner banner,” he said.“It also risks drawing fresh attention to Prigozhin’s populist campaign, his condemnation of the regime’s justification for the war, and of the vast gulf separating the frivolous children of the ruling elite from those of ordinary people, who were returning from Ukraine in coffins.” — Reuters

Donald Trump leads Ron DeSantis by nearly 40 percentage points in the race for the Republican presidential nomination even after declining to debate the Florida governor and other rivals, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Friday.The survey found that half of Republican respondents who followed the party’s first debate on Wednesday were more open to DeSantis’s bid – good news for a campaign banking on the event boosting his profile after a summer slide in opinion polls.However, it showed DeSantis remained stuck in distant second place with 13% of support of Republican respondents while Trump, the former president, had 52%, marginally higher than the 47% he received in a Reuters/Ipsos poll in early August.The two-day poll gathered online responses from 1,004 US adults, including 347 Republicans across the country, and had a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about six percentage points in either direction for Republicans.DeSantis and seven other Republican hopefuls took part in the Milwaukee debate while a pre-recorded Trump interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson posted simultaneously on X, formerly known as Twitter, aimed to siphon away viewers.Trump said before the debate he saw no political benefit to taking part given his enormous lead in opinion polls, despite his indictments in four separate criminal cases.The results of the Reuters/Ipsos poll appear to have borne that out.While DeSantis stood centre stage in the debate, he was overshadowed for much of the raucous two-hour event by tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who clashed with former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and other candidates.Still, about half of Republican respondents said they were more likely to support DeSantis based on what they had heard about the debate.About four in 10 Republicans said they were more likely to back Ramaswamy or Haley based on the debate.Many had not warmed to Ramaswamy and Haley enough, however, to say they were now backing their bids.Only 5% of Republicans said they outright backed Ramaswamy while only 4% supported Haley, similar shares to what they had before the debate.Former vice-president Mike Pence had 6% support from Republicans, but only one in five Republicans who followed the debate said they were now more open to supporting him.Some 59% of the Republicans polled had followed the debate, with 19% saying they watched it live and the rest saying they had watched some clips or saw news coverage.Forty-one per cent said they hadn’t seen or heard anything about it.In a hypothetical match-up between President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Trump, the larger pool of respondents, including Democrats and independents, were asked who they would pick “if the election for president were held today”.Trump had 38% to Biden’s 32%. The rest said they weren’t sure, wouldn’t vote or would pick someone else.On Thursday, Trump’s mugshot was released after he was booked at an Atlanta jail as part of a wide-ranging criminal case stemming from his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia.

Fierce storms closed schools yesterday in Saudi Arabia’s Makkah region, home to Islam’s holiest site, the Grand Mosque, which was lashed by heavy rains and wind overnight, witnesses said.As pilgrims tried to circumambulate the Ka’aba, a bolt of lightning struck the iconic Fairmont Makkah Clock Royal Tower hotel, illuminating the night sky late Tuesday.The storm brought gale force winds exceeding 80km per hour, Hussein al-Qahtani, spokesman for the National Centre for Meteorology, told AFP.The conditions were similar to a 2015 storm that felled a crane at the Grand Mosque, killing more than 100 people and injuring hundreds more, Qahtani said. No casualties were reported in Tuesday’s storm.Makkah resident Abu Mayyada told AFP he was out buying petrol when “everything went black in front of me” as the worst of the storm hit. “Suddenly I lost control over the vehicle. I couldn’t see anything so I started listening to the Qur’an on the radio. I didn’t understand what was happening,” he said.The Makkah neighbourhood of Al Kakkiyah recorded 45mm (1.8 inches) of rain within 24 hours, the meteorology centre shared in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Footage shared with AFP by Makkah residents showed pilgrims outside the Grand Mosque who were toppled over by the wind, which also sent crowd barriers sliding across the rain-slicked floor. “The scene was very scary,” said Makkah resident Mohamed, who was grocery shopping at the height of the storm.“Everything happened within a few minutes, when it started raining in a crazy way.”Another resident, Yusuf, said August usually brought strong winds to Makkah but Tuesday’s storm was “the worst” he could remember. Flash flooding had mostly dissipated by yesterday morning, said the residents.Nevertheless the Makkah regional government said on X that schools would be closed in parts of Makkah, with classes conducted on an e-learning platform, “in the interest of everyone’s safety”.The meteorology centre warned of further storms yesterday bringing rain, wind and thunder to the Makkah region and elsewhere in western Saudi Arabia.

The five Brics nations are open to expanding the club to new members, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said yesterday, as it pursues greater clout in shaping the world order.Calls to enlarge the Brics – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – has dominated the agenda at its three-day summit in Johannesburg and exposed rifts between its members. China is seeking to rapidly grow the Brics amid rising competition with the United States but the bloc’s other major power, India, is wary of the intentions of its geopolitical rival.Nearly two dozen countries have formally applied to join the Brics, officials say, which accounts for 40% of the world’s population and a quarter of the global economy.Some 50 heads of state and government have joined Brics leaders in Johannesburg.The Brics are a disparate mix of big and small economies, democratic and authoritarian states, but share a collective desire to challenge the Western-led global order they say does not serve their interests or rising clout.The group operates on consensus and officials said the Brics leaders were deliberating criteria for admitting new members. On Wednesday, Ramaphosa told the summit that support for expansion “has been articulated by all Brics members”.Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he supported opening the door to new members and “welcomes moving forward with consensus”. “We stand at the cusp of expanding the Brics family,” said Ramaphosa, who added that he hoped for a “clear solution to this matter” by the summit’s close today.Chinese President Xi Jinping, on just his second trip abroad this year, said expanding the bloc would “pool our strength (and) pool our wisdom to make global governance more just and equitable.” “We gather at a time when the world is undergoing major shifts, divisions, and regrouping. It has entered a new period of turbulence and transformation,” said Xi, whose nation represents about 70% of the Brics total GDP.US officials have played down the likelihood of Brics emerging as a geopolitical rival, describing the bloc as a “very diverse collection of countries” containing both friends and rivals.The summit has underlined divisions with the West over the war in Ukraine, and the support Russia enjoys from its other Brics partners at a time of global isolation.South Africa, China and India have not condemned Russia’s invasion while Brazil has refused to join Western nations in sending arms to Ukraine or imposing sanctions on Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who faces an international arrest warrant over alleged war crimes in Ukraine, was the only Brics leader not to attend in person, and addressed the summit via video link where he railed against sanctions.Russia was “desperate for friends and partners so it’s not surprising that they are so keen to have an expansion,” said Gustavo de Carvalho, senior researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs.Analysts said that in considering new members, Brazil, South Africa and India would have to balance a desire for good ties with China and Russia against the risk of estranging the United States, a major trading partner.Like the Brics themselves, the countries applying vary greatly, from G20 giants like Indonesia and Saudi Arabia to states like Iran that are openly hostile to the United States and its allies. Brics leaders say the level of interest was proof its message resonated deeply in the “Global South” – a broad term referring to nations outside the West.Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has championed the Brics development bank as an alternative to the Washington DC-based lending institutions, said he supported the entry of Argentina. But the South American powerhouse feared “diluting” the influence of Brics should it expand too quickly, said Carvalho. “There is definitely a divide on Brics members at the moment,” he said.

Eighteen burned bodies, possibly migrants, were found yesterday in a rural area in northern Greece where wildfires were burning out of control for a fourth day, authorities said, as gale force winds fanned blazes across the country.In the nearby port town of Alexandroupolis, dozens of hospital patients were evacuated onto a ferry earlier yesterday, while a blaze on the foothills of Mount Parnitha on the outskirts of Athens sent thick clouds of smoke over the capital.The bodies were found near the sprawling Dadia forest in the northeastern Evros region, a popular route for migrants from the Middle East and Asia crossing the river from Turkiye into the European Union. An uptick in crossings was reported this month.The fire brigade said authorities were investigating the possibility that the bodies were of migrants who entered the country illegally because no residents in the area had been reported missing.The government expressed its “deepest sorrow” over the deaths, its spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said. “Unfortunately, their stay in the forest of Dadia proved fatal,” he said.Another body thought to belong to a migrant was found on Monday in a rural area some 40km away.In the nearby village of Avantas, fires swept through a number of homes overnight.“It has reached the entire village,” said Alexandros Chrisoulidis, a 19-year-old Avantas resident. “Our own house up there, where the fire started, has completely burned down. There is nothing.”A 23-year-old resident who gave his name as Nikos said: “The situation is tragic. All that is needed right now are prayers and rain.”A satellite image shown on state television showed that smoke from the Evros fires had drifted across the country to the Ionian islands in the northwest, not far from Italy.Fires near Athens in the southeast burned homes and cars on Tuesday and forced residents to flee on foot, some covering their faces with their clothes as smoke thickened the air.Volunteers loaded sheep in the trunks of cars to save them from the flames, while another man tried to rescue a horse.“The winds are very strong ... It is a very difficult firefighting task. God help us,” said Sotiris Masouris, a 50-year-old resident of Hasia, west of Athens.In the industrial town of Aspropyrgos near Athens, factories were destroyed as a blaze that broke out early yesterday continued to burn unabated.The wildfires come as Southern Europe has been hit by a new heatwave with temperatures reaching or exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in some parts. Fires were also burning in Spain, Italy and Portugal.Summer wildfires in Greece are common but have been made worse in recent years by unusually hot, dry and windy conditions that scientists have linked to climate change.More than 20,000 foreign tourists had to be evacuated from resorts on the Aegean holiday island of Rhodes in July as wildfires burned for a week, destroying homes and hotels.Earlier yesterday, dozens of hospital patients, including newborn babies, were evacuated onto a ferry as hundreds of firefighters struggled to contain the blaze that broke out on Saturday near Alexandroupolis.It spread quickly, fanned by high winds, sending plumes of smoke above the port city and turning the night sky red.By early yesterday, authorities said 65 patients at the University Hospital of Alexandroupolis had been evacuated as a precaution onto a ferry in the port.The ferry was turned into a makeshift hospital. Elderly patients lay on mattresses on the cafeteria floor, paramedics attended to others on stretchers and a woman held a man resting on a sofa, an IV drip attached to his hand.“I’ve been working for 27 years, I’ve never seen anything like this,” said nurse Nikos Gioktsidis. “Stretchers everywhere, patients here, IV drips there ... it was like a war, like a bomb had exploded.”The ferry later sailed to the nearby port of Kavala, state broadcaster ERT said.Overnight, as flames approached another clinic at the premises of the Alexandroupolis Metropolitan Church Foundation, staff carried a man on a wheelchair to an ambulance, while others were evacuated on stretchers.Father Christodoulos Karathanasis, director of the Holy Metropolis of Alexandroupolis, said 200 patients from both facilities had been evacuated in just over four hours.Fire brigade spokesperson Ioanis Artopios said the risk of fire remained high in the coming days.Fifty-six firefighters arrived in Greece from Romania yesterday and Athens was expecting further assistance from the Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany and Sweden with 64 more firefighters, 19 fire engines, seven planes and one helicopter, the fire brigade said.

Ecuadoreans were voting on Sunday to choose a president and legislature they hope will lead the country out of a spiral of violence and economic troubles after a campaign darkened by bloodshed.Candidates have pledged to fight sharp increases in crime, which the current government blames on drug gangs, and improve the struggling economy, whose woes have caused an uptick in unemployment and migration.Security has taken centre stage in the contest since the August 9 murder of anti-corruption candidate Fernando Villavicencio, a former investigative journalist and lawmaker who was gunned down while leaving a campaign event.Six suspects, all Colombians police say belong to criminal gangs, were charged with Villavicencio’s murder and are being held.Another suspect died from wounds sustained in a shootout with authorities.Other candidates have reported attacks against them, although in several cases police have said that the violence was not directed at the hopefuls themselves.Voters at the polls in Quito and Guayaquil said security is their major focus.“First is security, and then the economy and jobs. Without security there isn’t investment, there aren’t companies, there aren’t jobs,” said public employee Patricia Simbaña, who voted at an elementary school in the capital where Cristian Zurita, Villavicencio’s replacement, cast his ballot amid a scrum of journalists and heavily armed soldiers.Simbaña said she was voting for pro-market candidate Otto Sonnenholzner, who has hardened his discourse since the murder, repeatedly promising that criminals who use violence will be shot by police under his government.“It’s time now to act with a firm hand,” she said.In coastal Guayaquil, where crime has spiked in recent years, hometown law-and-order candidate Jan Topic – who says that he was a member of the French Foreign Legion and has pledged to solve security problems first – was attracting support.“Without security we can’t live, we can’t do anything at all,” said 24-year-old psychology student Maria Jose Cabrera, who also cited the need for jobs for young people and a fight against corruption.Luisa Gonzalez, a protégé of former president Rafael Correa, led polling before Villavicencio’s killing with about 30% of voting intention.She voted in Manabi province and predicted that the contest would not go to a second round.A candidate needs 50% of the vote, or 40% if they are 10 points ahead of their nearest rival, to win in a first round. Otherwise, a second round is held, which would occur on October 15.Gonzalez has promised to free up $2.5bn from international reserves to bolster Ecuador’s economy as well as bring back social programmes implemented by Correa – who has since been convicted of corruption – during his decade in power.Her Citizens’ Revolution party said on X, the social network previously known as Twitter, that Ecuadoreans voting from abroad were having trouble with the online system set up for them.Zurita, Villavicencio’s replacement for the Construye party, has promised to better equip the police and enshrine intelligence protocols to fight crime, using international loans to shore up social programmes.Villavicencio’s name and photo will appear on the ballots, which were printed before his murder.Environmentalist Indigenous candidate Yaku Perez has said he would revise mining concessions that do not comply with environmental and social rules and ask creditors for breathing room, while Daniel Noboa, son of prominent banana businessman and former candidate Alvaro Noboa, has centred his campaign on job creation.Also on Sunday’s ballot are two environmental referendums – both expected to pass – that could block mining in a forest near Quito and development of an oil block in the Amazon.The 13mn-strong electorate will also choose 137 members of the national assembly.

Chocolate makers like Hershey and Mondelez face tougher trading conditions over the next year as they attempt to pass on soaring cocoa costs to cash-strapped consumers who are cutting back.The industry has enjoyed bumper profits over the past couple of years as demand for chocolate held up despite price hikes, but data seen by Reuters shows this trend may be breaking just as prices for cocoa hit 46-year-highs and sugar prices are near their highest in more than a decade.Consumers in Europe and North America have already seen price increases of about 20% over the past two years and are starting to cut back on the amount of chocolate they buy, data pulled for Reuters by market researchers Nielsen shows.Consumers are “shopping around more, hoping to find deals,” Mondelez CEO Dirk Van de Put said last month.Cadbury-maker Mondelez expects inflation in cocoa and sugar to continue. In response, the company said it is ensuring it is significantly hedged and continuing to drive productivity.“The increase in sugar and cocoa specifically is material,” Mondelez CFO Luca Zaramella said in July. “We are talking about most likely a 30-plus percent (increase) if you look at the last 12 months, or even more, particularly in cocoa.”But after more than two years of higher prices, retailers are pushing back, analysts said, resulting in a battle that puts chocolatiers’ margins and profitability at risk.One such battle resulted in Mondelez previously pulling Cadbury and Milka bars from Belgian supermarket chain Colruyt’s shelves after failing to agree on prices.“I don’t know if it’s going to be as clear cut as being able to take pricing wherever they want,” Barclays analyst Patrick Folan said.Chocolate makers are banking on the traditional resilience of their product to price increases. Mondelez raised its annual revenue growth forecasts last month while Hershey hiked its profit forecast.“Now that pricing is 100% secured, we expect volume and revenue growth, as well as margin improvement for Europe,” Zaramella said, after Mondelez resolved its spat with Colruyt.However, Mondelez’ chocolate sales volume growth has weakened substantially this year — from 14.8% in the 4 weeks to February 25 to 3.2% in the 4 weeks to July 15 year-on-year — even as it kept its price rises in the low double digits, according to a Bernstein analysis of Nielsen data seen by Reuters.The data showed Hershey’s sales volumes increasingly declined during the period as the company hiked prices.“We are seeing consumers starting to react more than before, I’d be very cautious with price increases,” said Dan Sadler, a candy expert at US-based market researcher IRI. “We’re seeing consumers starting to trade down.”Barry Callebaut, the world’s biggest chocolate maker supplying most major brands including Nestle, doesn’t expect any growth in sales volumes this year. It reported last month that volumes fell 2.7% in the nine months ended May 31.Meanwhile, lower priced ‘private label’ chocolate continues to pick up market share.In the US, private label sales volumes grew nearly 9% in the year to mid-June despite near double-digit price rises, IRI data shows.Hershey’s already-announced price hikes for the rest of 2023 are in the “high single digits,” while those for next year are “low single digits,” CEO Michele Buck said in July.Pennsylvania-based Hershey, is hoping that as it eases off the rate of price hikes, its sales volumes will reverse their current downtrend. It is planning to lean on automation to keep its costs of production down, it said.Rabobank says those cost pressures could continue into next year due to the El Nino weather event in West Africa and the lack of alternate producers who can ramp up output quickly.Top cocoa producers Ivory Coast and Ghana have faced drought, excess rains and disease for the past two years. They produce two thirds of the world’s cocoa and officials are struggling to help farmers cope with climate conditions. A 2019 ‘living income’ scheme has been largely ineffective. — Reuters

Russia launched its first moon-landing spacecraft in 47 years yesterday in a bid to be the first nation to make a soft landing on the lunar south pole, a region believed to hold coveted pockets of water ice.The Russian lunar mission, the first since 1976, is racing against India, which launched its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander last month, and more broadly with the United States and China, both of which have advanced lunar exploration programmes targeting the lunar south pole.A Soyuz 2.1 rocket carrying the Luna-25 craft blasted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome, 3,450 miles (5,550km) east of Moscow, at 2.11am yesterday Moscow time (1111 GMT on Thursday).The lander was boosted out of Earth’s orbit toward the moon over an hour later, at which point mission control took command of the craft, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said.Following the launch, the rocket’s boosters fell as expected 28km from the village of Shakhtinsky in the far-eastern region of Khabarovsk, regional governor Mikhail Degtiariov said on Telegram.Residents of the village had been evacuated in advance of the launch and Degtiariov said they had since been able to return.The lander is expected to touch down on the moon on August 21, Russia’s space chief Yuri Borisov told state television, though the space agency previously pegged August 23 as the landing date.“Now we will wait for the 21st. I hope that a highly precise soft landing on the moon will take place,” Borisov told workers at the Vostochny cosmodrome after the launch. “We hope to be first.”Luna-25, roughly the size of a small car, will aim to operate for a year on the moon’s south pole, where scientists at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) and other space agencies in recent years have detected traces of water ice in the region’s shadowed craters.There is much riding on the Luna-25 mission, as the Kremlin says the West’s sanctions over the Ukraine war, many of which have targeted Moscow’s aerospace sector, have failed to cripple the Russian economy.The moonshot, which Russia has been planning for decades, will also test the nation’s growing independence in space after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine severed nearly all of Moscow’s space ties with the West, besides its role on the International Space Station.The European Space Agency (ESA) had planned to test its Pilot-D navigation camera by attaching it to Luna-25, but severed its ties to the project after Russia invaded Ukraine.“Russia’s aspirations towards the moon are mixed up in a lot of different things. I think first and foremost, it’s an expression of national power on the global stage,” Asif Siddiqi, professor of history at Fordham University, told Reuters.US astronaut Neil Armstrong gained renown in 1969 for being the first person to walk on the moon, but the Soviet Union’s Luna-2 mission was the first spacecraft to reach the moon’s surface in 1959, and the Luna-9 mission in 1966 was the first to make a soft landing there.Moscow then focused on exploring Mars and since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has not sent scientific probes beyond earth orbit.For centuries, astronomers have wondered about water on the moon, which is 100 times drier than the Sahara. Nasa maps in 2018 showed water ice in shadowed parts of the moon, and in 2020 Nasa confirmed water also existed in sunlit areas.Major powers such as the United States, China, India, Japan and the European Union have all been probing the moon in recent years. A Japanese lunar landing failed last year and an Israeli mission failed in 2019.No country has made a soft landing on the south pole: an Indian mission, Chandrayaan-2, failed in 2019.Rough terrain makes a landing there difficult, but the prize of discovering water ice could be historic. It could be used for fuel and oxygen, as well as for drinking water.Maxim Litvak, head of the planning group for the Luna-25 scientific equipment, said the most important task is to land where no one else had landed – and to find water.“There are signs of ice in the soil of the Luna-25 landing area,” he said, adding that Luna-25 would work on the moon for at least an earth year, taking samples.Roscosmos said that it would take five days to fly to the moon. The craft will spend 5-7 days in lunar orbit before descending to one of three possible landing sites near the pole – a timetable that implies it could match or narrowly beat its Indian rival to the moon’s surface.Chandrayaan-3 is due to run experiments for two weeks.With a mass of 1.8 tonnes and carrying 31kg (68 pounds) of scientific equipment, Luna-25 will use a scoop to take rock samples from a depth of up to 15cm (6”) to test for the presence of frozen waterAccording to Russian space expert Vitali Iegorov, the mission is the first time that post-Soviet Russia has attempted to place a device on a celestial body.“The biggest question will be: can it land?” he told AFP, stressing that this mission is “of great importance” for Russia.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has escalated its investigation into President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, naming a special counsel amid allegations that he engaged in illicit business deals overseas.Attorney-General Merrick Garland appointed Delaware federal prosecutor David Weiss, who recently investigated Hunter Biden on tax and gun charges in a case that remains open.Weiss, who opened his probe in 2019, recently revealed that he was investigating Biden along other lines, and Garland said Weiss had requested special counsel status to be able to pursue his probe more widely.“Upon considering his request, as well as the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint him as special counsel,” Garland said.Weiss was originally appointed to his position as US Attorney for Delaware by then-president Donald Trump. He was allowed to stay on during the Biden administration.Hunter Biden has come under investigation in Congress over business deals he did in China, Ukraine and elsewhere during and after his father’s 2009-2017 term as vice-president.A former business associate told Congress recently that Hunter had gotten his father involved in telephone calls with his foreign partners several times.Republicans allege Joe Biden used his political position to help his son – a claim the president denies – and have threatened an impeachment inquiry into unproven claims that Biden benefited from his son’s business ventures.The move comes as Joe Biden is running for re-election, possibly in a rematch with Trump, himself accused of felony crimes in the investigation by another Justice Department special counsel, Jack Smith.Garland gave no hint on the subject matter of Weiss’s expanded probe, saying that his elevation to special counsel “reaffirms” the independence and authority of his investigation.Weiss will produce a report when his work is done, Garland said, and the Justice Department will make as much of it public as is possible.“The appointment of Mr. Weiss reinforces for the American people the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters,” Garland said.He did not take questions at the press conference.Last month, the 53-year-old Hunter aborted a plea deal with Weiss over gun and tax charges after a judge pointed out inconsistencies in the agreement.The deal would have seen Biden avoid prison: he would have been sentenced to probation on two tax avoidance counts, and be forced into a counselling and rehabilitation programme for the firearms charge.However, the deal fell apart after Judge Maryellen Noreika queried why the gun charge was included in a tax case, and whether the agreement protected Biden from charges that might arise from a wider investigation of his business dealings.Biden then entered a not guilty plea, and the two sides were expected to work out a new agreement.However, in a filing in Delaware court yesterday, Weiss said those talks had reached an impasse and withdrew the offer of a plea deal.Instead, he indicated that the tax charges could be expanded to other venues.There was no comment from the White House on Weiss’s elevation to special counsel.In a social media post, a Trump spokesperson alleged that the Biden family had been “protected by the Justice Department for decades”.“There is overwhelming evidence and credible testimony detailing their wrongdoing of lying to the American people and selling out the country to foreign enemies for the Biden Cartel’s own financial gain,” the spokesperson said, without offering evidence.Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy indicated that the Congressional probe of Hunter Biden will continue.“This action by Biden’s DOJ cannot be used to obstruct congressional investigations or whitewash the Biden family corruption,” he said on social media.A June Reuters/Ipsos poll found half of Americans – 75% of Republicans and 33% of Democrats – believed the younger Biden received preferential treatment from Weiss.However, most said that would not affect their vote next year.

Floods and landslides caused by monsoon rains have killed five people and forced the evacuation of around 40,000 others in Myanmar, officials said on Friday.Footage from Rakhine state, which was ravaged in May by cyclone Mocha, showed large areas of villages and farmland submerged by murky, yellow-brown waters.Myanmar is hit by heavy rains every year around this time, but extreme weather events have struck around the globe in recent weeks, events scientists say are made worse by climate change.In Bago, northeast of Yangon, some residents evacuated early while others were caught off guard by the rapidly rising water.“There are floods every year in Bago but this one is the worst. Normally, the water is around knee- or thigh-deep during the rainy season,” Bago resident Soe Min Aung, 23, said, adding that his family had scrambled to buy a boat. “Some families moved to a monastery but others stayed because they didn’t think the water would be too high. In some quarters, the water level is higher than two times my height.”More than 870 people were crammed into a Bago monastery on Friday night and were receiving food from monks and donated supplies.“We arranged spaces for them to stay,” said local official Khin Maung.Min Thaw, 66, said the ground floor of his two-storey house was inundated with water and the family had chosen to stay upstairs.

Lebanese army vehicles deployed in a Christian village that was the scene of a deadly shootout between members of the Hezbollah and residents, as the military sought to contain tensions yesterday. A Hezbollah member and a Christian resident were killed in Wednesday’s exchange of fire in the village of Kahaleh, near Beirut, in an incident that began when a Hezbollah truck carrying ammunition turned over while driving through the area. It was the deadliest confrontation between the Hezbollah and Lebanese who oppose it since clashes in Beirut two years ago, further weighing on the stability of a country already suffering deep political and economic crises. On Thursday, around 10 army vehicles were deployed around Kahaleh, including at the town’s main roundabout near a large church whose bell had been tolling through the night after the clash. The army was leading efforts to calm the situation, according to representatives of Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces (LF), a Christian faction that is staunchly opposed to Hezbollah and has a political presence in Kahaleh area. “Tensions were very high last night and they’re still high today,” said Nazih Matta, an LF lawmaker for the Aley region. “The army leadership in particular has been leading efforts to calm things down. “Residents aren’t scrambling to have an armed reaction to what happened – but... you start to think: how many trucks like that passed on that same road on the same day? Or the previous day? Or the week before? We’re sitting on a ticking time bomb.” In recent years, Lebanon has been living through a financial collapse that has marked its most destabilising episode since a 1975-90 civil war. It was caused by decades of corruption and profligate spending by ruling politicians. Hezbollah is Lebanon’s most powerful group. Its arsenal has long been a point of conflict in Lebanon, where its opponents accuse the group of undermining the state. The sides have accused each other of starting Wednesday’s shootout, which erupted after people gathered around the truck which turned over on a tight bend on a major highway linking Beirut to the Bekaa Valley and Syria. Hezbollah accused “militias” in the area of attacking the truck’s crew, prompting an exchange of fire. It said a man protecting the vehicle was wounded and later died. The local office of the LF accused gunmen who were accompanying the vehicle of firing at civilians, leading to the death of the local man. Mohamed Afif, head of Hezbollah’s media office, said the army “played a big role in calming things down”. The army, which recruits from across Lebanon’s sectarian divides, said in a statement the truck was carrying ammunition that had been transferred to a military site. Hezbollah’s Afif said the ammunition was in army custody.

When war in Sudan’s capital forced Sarah al-Sharif and her family to flee, the 19-year-old information technology student left her books and computer behind. Now in Sennar, 30km southeast of Khartoum, she lacks a stable Internet connection or passport to travel abroad and like many others sees no way of continuing her studies while fighting between rival military factions rages. The conflict, which began in mid-April, has pushed Sudan’s faltering education system into a state of collapse, with many schools shut down or repurposed to host displaced people, and most national end-of-year exams cancelled. “This war has spelled the end of education in Sudan, and things have turned from bad to impossible,” said Sharif. The conflict has brought daily battles to the streets of Khartoum, a revival of ethnically-targeted attacks in Darfur, and the displacement of more than 4mn people within Sudan and across its borders. According to Simone Vis of Unicef in Sudan, there are “an alarming number of reports that both boys and girls are being recruited by armed groups”. At least 89 schools across seven states are being used as shelters for the displaced, according the United Nations, raising fears that many children will have no access to schools in the new academic year and could be exposed to child labour and abuse. On Wednesday, the education minister cancelled most end of year school exams in war-affected areas. “In the current circumstances, anyone would see that it is impossible to have a new academic year,” said Sahar Abdullah, a displaced teacher from Khartoum also seeking refuge in Sennar. Even before the war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Save The Children ranked Sudan as one of the top four countries globally where education was at extreme risk. Now the number of children out of school has risen to 9mn from 6.9mn, more than one million school-aged children have been displaced and at least 10,400 schools have been closed since fighting started, according to the charity. While Khartoum has a proud intellectual tradition, the schooling system had been run down by underinvestment, political interference and a grinding economic crisis. It was then disrupted by street protests before and after the 2019 ousting of former leader Omar al-Bashir, by unusually heavy floods in 2020 and by the coronavirus pandemic. Due to overcrowded school classrooms, “some of the students would bring chairs with them to class. There weren’t enough textbooks to help teachers do their job,” said Abdullah, the displaced teacher. State-employed teachers staged a three-month strike over pay and working conditions just before the war broke out. As many as 300,000 teachers have not been paid since March, a senior member of the Sudanese Teachers’ Committee said. “I haven’t been paid a salary in four months, and I have no idea when I’ll return to work,” said Fatima Mohamed, a displaced teacher who fled Khartoum to Gedaraf state after her school was overtaken by the RSF. Despite the interruptions in recent years, Rabab Nasreldeen had managed to get to the third year of law studies at the University of Khartoum when the war broke out. Then she too had to flee, abandoning educational certificates and papers that might allow her to continue studying elsewhere. “The only option we have is to wait and hope for the best,” she said. Aid workers are trying to help alleviate the crisis, setting up safe learning spaces and providing children with psychosocial support. Education Cannot Wait, the UN global fund dedicated to education in emergencies, has raised $12.5mn and aims to provide educational services for 120,000 children in Sudan and neighbouring countries. During the Covid-19 pandemic, parents in wealthy countries “didn’t want the children to wait a year or a month for their education,” said Yasmine Sherif, the fund’s executive director. “So why should we expect them (in Sudan) to wait for education until the conflict is over?” Some of those who have fled Sudan are seeking entry to schools and universities outside its borders, including in Egypt. But in Chad, where more than 377,000 refugees have arrived, there are no such options. “I cannot go back to continue my education and I lost contact with my family,” Khalifa Adam, a displaced student who escaped to Adre, Chad from Darfur, told Reuters. “I was told I can continue studying online but the internet connection here in Adre is very bad.”

Qatar Museums (QM) will celebrate the International Youth Day on August 12. This year, it is being held under the slogan “The importance of developing youth skills suitable for the green economy in achieving a sustainable world.”The Museum of Islamic Art library will host the event, which will be titled 'Library Games and Puzzles'. Through this initiative, young people will enhance their knowledge and refine their culture, reported local Arabic daily 'Arrayah'.In this context, Qatar Museums has worked to make the event attractive to young people in the best way. Registration is not required to attend this event, which will be held free of charge. It will be an opportunity for young people to play an active role in building the artistic and cultural scene in the country.Accordingly, the museum had previously announced its launch at the Youth Council. Qatar Museums invited young people between the ages of 12 and 18 to prepare youth-led activities by themselves. This program provides an opportunity for exclusive access to events organized by Qatar Museums (opening nights, visits to artist exhibitions, panel discussions, etc.).As well as for young people the platform will provide the opportunity to present new ideas and advice on upcoming artists and exhibitions. Knowing that this council has been prepared to play a fundamental role in building and shaping society, and to communicate the voices of youth throughout Qatar.In general, the State of Qatar works to empower youth and prepare them to make a full contribution to society, development and peace in order to achieve sustainable human development, and urge them to innovate and achieve leadership.Since youth are the future, and they are the hope and basis for building a human society in which everyone lives happily and safely. Qatar also encourages young people to participate in decision-making and motivate their role in achieving human development and presenting challenges, in addition to reducing the gap between young people and officials by expanding the scope of dialogue and spaces of mutual understanding.On International Youth Day, the world remembers what has been achieved and what has not in the youth’s march to obtain their rights in education, health, economy, politics, decision-making and public life.The green economy will create about 8.4mn jobs for youth by 2030. Youth need to develop appropriate skills and adapt to this changing environment.

July was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, the European Union’s climate observatory confirmed yesterday, warning of dire consequences.Marked by heatwaves and fires all around the world, the previous month was 0.33 degrees Celsius higher than the record set in July 2019 when the average temperature was 16.63C (32 Fahrenheit), it said.“It has not been this warm, combining observational records and paleoclimate records, for the last 120,000 years,” said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.“The global average temperature for July 2023 is confirmed to be the highest on record for any month — the month is estimated to have been around 1.5 degrees warmer than the average for 1850 to 1900,” said Burgess.The service stated that this July was 0.72C warmer than the 1991-2020 average for the month.About 1.2 degrees Celsius of global warming since the late 1800s, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, has made heatwaves hotter, longer and more frequent, as well as intensifying other weather extremes like storms and floods.“Heatwaves were experienced in multiple regions of the Northern Hemisphere, including southern Europe. Well-above average temperatures occurred over several South American countries and around much of Antarctica,” according to the observatory.“The global mean for 2023 is the third highest on record, at 0.43C relative to 1991-2020, compared with 0.49C for 2016 and 0.48C for 2020. The gap between 2023 and 2016 is expected to narrow in the coming months, as the latter months of 2016 were relatively cool... while the remainder of 2023 is expected to be relatively warm as the current El Nino event develops.”Scientists had warned that July could hit a new record.The world’s oceans also set a new temperature record, raising concerns about knock-on effects on the planet’s climate, marine life and coastal communities.The temperature of the oceans’ surface rose to 20.96 degrees Celsius (69.7 degrees Fahrenheit) on July 30, according to European Union climate observatory data.The previous record was 20.95C in March 2016, a spokeswoman for Copernicus Climate Change Service earlier told AFP.The samples tested excluded polar regions.“We just witnessed global air temperatures and global ocean surface temperatures set new all-time records in July. These records have dire consequences for both people and the planet exposed to ever more frequent and intense extreme events,” said Burgess.“2023 is currently the third warmest year to date at 0.43C above the recent average, with the average global temperature in July at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.“Even if this is only temporary, it shows the urgency for ambitious efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, which are the main driver behind these records,” she said.Forest fires have ravaged swathes of Greece and burnt 30mn acres in Canada, while southern Europe, parts of North Africa, southern United States and pockets of China have been reeling under a punishing heatwave.Deadly rains that pummelled China’s capital Beijing in recent days were the heaviest since records began 140 years ago.Carlo Buontempo, Director of Copernicus, had earlier said the temperatures in the period had been “remarkable”.Beyond these official records, he said proxy data for the climate going back further — like tree rings or ice cores — suggests the temperatures seen in the period could be “unprecedented in our history in the last few thousand years”.Possibly even longer “on the order of 100,000 years” he said.“This extreme heat shouldn’t come as a surprise,” said Chris Hewitt, World Meteorological Organisation Director of Climate Services.(“It) really is consistent with what scientists have been predicting for years,” said Hewitt, saying the coming year would unlikely bring any respite.UN chief Antonio Guterres recently put out an SOS call.“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning,” said Guterres, urging immediate and bold action to cut planet-heating emissions.“The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”

Russia carried out several waves of attacks on Ukraine overnight, while Kyiv hit bridges in occupied territories yesterday.The Ukrainian air force said yesterday that it shot down 30 out of the 40 cruise missiles and all Shahed drones launched by Russia.“In total, the enemy used 70 air attack weapons in several waves” in the night from Saturday to yesterday.It added that Russia launched three Kinzhal hypersonic missiles but did not say if they had been destroyed.The Ukrainian armed forces did not specify which sites were hit by the missiles that got through air defences.The Russian army however said it struck “Ukrainian armed forces airbases around the settlements of Starokostiantyniv in the Khmelnytskyi region and Dubno in the Rivne region”.Home to a major airbase, the western Khmelnytskyi region, located hundreds of kilometres from the front lines of the fighting, has been repeatedly targeted during the war.“Since yesterday evening, the Khmelnytskyi region has been attacked three times... most missiles were shot down,” said local official Sergiy Tyurin.Several buildings and the bus station were damaged, he said on Telegram.He also posted pictures of a crumbling building engulfed in flames, saying a corn waste warehouse had caught fire.Meanwhile in the Rivne region that Russia said it hit, “only a few private households were damaged”, according to regional head Vitaliy Koval.