Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

‘Once in 100 years’ drought seen affecting Argentine grains exports into next year

By Hugh Bronstein

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -A once-a-century drought has lowered the water level of Argentina’s main grains transport river, reducing farm exports and boosting logistics costs in a trend that meteorologists said will likely continue into next year.

The South American grains powerhouse is the world’s No. 3 corn supplier and No. 1 exporter of soymeal livestock feed, used to fatten hogs and poultry from Europe to Southeast Asia. Farm exports are Argentina’s main source of hard currency needed to bolster central bank reserves sapped by a three-year recession.

Southern Brazil, source of the Parana River, has been hit by severe dryness for three years. This has reduced water levels in the Argentine ports hub of Rosario, Santa Fe province, where about 80% of the country’s agricultural exports are loaded.

“This is about a once-in-a-hundred-years event. That’s the type of frequency we are looking at,” said Isaac Hankes, a weather analyst at Refinitiv, financial and risk business of Thomson Reuters.

On Monday the United Nations climate panel’s report found that climate change is making extreme weather events more common. One meteorologist told Reuters the situation could “even get worse after the rainy season” set to start in late September.

Ships sailing from Rosario are loading 18% to 25% less cargo than normal due to the shallow water, said Guillermo Wade, manager of Argentina’s Chamber of Port and Maritime Activities.

Logistics costs are rising as more soy and corn must be trucked to the Atlantic ports of Bahia Blanca and Necochea, in southern Buenos Aires province, where ships make a final stop to be topped off with cargo before heading out to sea.

The Parana at Rosario was at 0.06 meters on Thursday versus a median 2.92 meters over the last 24 years, according to Argentina Coast Guard data. The measurement is a reference used by ship captains rather than an actual gauge of water depth.

GIMME SOME WATER

The drying trend in Brazil started in 2019. The next year was drier and 2021 has been the driest of the three years, Hankes said. The effect on the river is cumulative.

Over the last 12 months the Parana River basin has gotten only 50% to 75% of normal rainfall.

“We would need something like 130% of normal rainfall between now and February to replenish river levels. Anything less than 100% would be bad news for the river basin, and between now and February we expect maybe 80% of normal rainfall,” Hankes said.

“We do expect to see a wetter trend once we get into October-November, which you would typically see in the wet season anyway. But after that our best indications right now are that we could see a similar pattern to last year,” Hankes added.

The usually rainy Southern Hemisphere spring starts in September and ends in December. But the coming increase in water is expected to only temporarily help refresh the Parana.

“It could even get worse after the rainy season,” said German Heinzenknecht, a meteorologist at consultancy Applied Climatology.

“This shallow level of the waterway is historic, and it is hard to predict when it could be reversed,” Heinzenknecht added.

A top Argentine oilseeds executive with an international exporter with major crushing operation in Rosario agreed that the Parana crisis will probably continue next year. The executive asked not to be named, as per company policy.

“The situation will remain critical until October, improving in the late fourth quarter and first quarter. But from April onward, when Argentina’s soy and corn harvest starts, and the biggest number of cargo vessels are expected, the river at Rosario will be back to a scenario similar to 2021,” the executive said.

(Reporting by Hugh Bronstein, additional reporting by Maximilian Heath; Editing by David Gregorio)

U.S. to release census data used for legislative redistricting

By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) – The U.S. Census Bureau will release data on Thursday from the 2020 census that states will use to draw congressional and state legislative districts for the next decade, marking the start of what will be a fierce partisan battle over redistricting.

Demographers also expect the data to show that the country’s white population is declining for the first time in history, with people of color representing virtually all population growth.

The release will arrive months later than originally expected after the census took longer to complete due to the coronavirus pandemic. The delay has forced some states to go to court to postpone their redistricting deadlines.

States use the data to redraw district lines for the U.S. House of Representatives after each decennial census, based on where people now reside.

In April, the bureau published state-level figures, showing that Texas, Florida and North Carolina – all states controlled by Republicans – will gain congressional seats next year based on increased populations.

Electoral analysts have said Republicans could potentially erase the Democrats’ thin advantage in the House through redistricting alone.

Thursday’s more detailed data will show how and where the country’s white, Black, Hispanic and Asian communities grew.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by David Gregorio)

U.S. to reduce Kabul embassy to core staff, add 3,000 troops to help

By Idrees Ali and Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States will reduce staff at the embassy in Kabul to a “core diplomatic presence” and send about 3,000 troops temporarily to the airport to assist as the Taliban made rapid gains in Afghanistan, officials said on Thursday.

The news of the embassy drawdown, first reported by Reuters, is one of the most significant signs of concern in President Joe Biden’s administration about the security situation and the failure of the Afghan government to protect key cities.

“We’ve been evaluating the security situation every day to determine how best to keep those serving at the embassy safe,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

“Accordingly we are further reducing our civilian footprints in Kabul in light of the evolving security situation,” Price said.

“We expect to draw down to a core diplomatic presence in Afghanistan in the coming weeks,” he said, adding that the embassy was not closed.

The Pentagon said that it would send about 3,000 additional U.S. troops temporarily to Afghanistan to help secure the drawdown of personnel.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the first deployment would occur in the next 24 and 48 hours to the airport in Kabul.

About 3,500 additional U.S. troops would be sent to the region to be on standby if the situation worsened, as well as 1,000 personnel to help process Afghans going through a special immigration process.

It is common for the U.S. military to send in large number of troops to evacuate personnel in combat zones.

There are thought to be about 1,400 staff remaining at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the reduction in staff was “significant.”

The military mission in Afghanistan is set to end on Aug. 31, and roughly 650 troops remain in the country to protect the airport and embassy.

A source familiar with the situation said that the United Kingdom was expected to make a similar announcement about relocating staff.

Afghanistan’s third-largest city, Herat, was on the verge of falling to the Taliban on Thursday amid heavy fighting, as the militant group also established a bridgehead within 150 km (95 miles) of Kabul.

The spiraling violence and the militants’ swift advances prompted the United States and Germany to urge their citizens to leave the country immediately.

A U.S intelligence assessment this week said the Taliban could isolate Kabul within 30 days and take it over in 90.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Jonathan Landay. Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Humeyra Pamuk, Arshad Mohammed, Simon Lewis; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Rosalba O’Brien)

One month after Cuba protests, hundreds remain behind bars

By Sarah Marsh

HAVANA (Reuters) – Hundreds of people, including dozens of dissident artists and opposition activists, remain detained in Communist-run Cuba a month after unprecedented anti-government protests, according to rights groups.

Thousands took to the streets nationwide on July 11 to protest a dire economic crisis and curbs on civil rights. The government said the unrest was fomented by counter-revolutionaries exploiting hardship caused largely by U.S. sanctions.

Rights group Cubalex has recorded around 800 detentions, a number that has risen daily as relatives come forward. Many are still too afraid to report the arrest of family members, said Cubalex director Laritza Diversent.

While 249 people have been released, many to house arrest, most remain in “preventative jail,” she said. The whereabouts of 10 people is unknown.

Dozens have already been sentenced to up to a year in prison or correctional work in summary trials, with simplified procedures and often without the chance of hiring a defense lawyer on time, said Diversent.

“The government’s aim is to make an example of those who protested, to stop others from doing the same,” she said.

The government did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Cuban authorities have not given a figure for the total number of detained in the recent unrest but say they have so far carried out trials for 62 people, 22 of which had hired a lawyer. All but one have been deemed guilty of crimes including public disorder, resisting arrest, and vandalism, they said.

The protests were largely peaceful, although state media showed some demonstrators looting and throwing stones at police. One person died and several people, including government supporters, were injured, authorities have confirmed.

Several of those sentenced were not protesting, but were caught up in the unrest, according to their relatives.

Yaquelin Salas, 35, says her husband intervened peacefully in the arrest of a woman, calling on police agents to not treat her so aggressively. Now he is serving a 10-month prison sentence on charges of public disorder after a collective trial in which just two of the 12 detained had lawyers.

“What they are doing is totally unfair,” said Salas.

Since Cuba’s 1959 revolution, authorities have tightly controlled public spaces, saying unity is key to resisting coup attempts by the United States, which has long openly sought to force political change through sanctions and democracy initiatives. The White House has said it will do what it can to support Cuban protesters.

FAMILIES ‘SILENCED’

Gabriela Zequeira, 17, one of several minors detained in the protests, said she was sentenced to house arrest for eight months after being arrested while walking home from the hairdressers on July 11.

Upon her admission to jail, where she was kept 10 days incommunicado, she said she was required to put a finger in her vagina to show she was concealing nothing as part of a strip search. Officers kept interrupting her attempts to sleep and one officer made sexual taunts, she said in an interview.

The Cuban government initially said no minors had been detained, a statement later contradicted by state prosecutors.

Some relatives of those detained said authorities were pressuring them to stop speaking out.

“My family has been silenced,” said emigre Milagros Beirut from her home in Spain. She said four of her relatives in Havana and the eastern city of Guantanamo remained behind bars for protesting peacefully. “They’ve been told those detained will receive a stricter sentence if they say anything.”

Dozens of political activists and dissident artists were among the detained, including some who did not participate in the protests but appeared to have been arrested pre-emptively, said Diversent from Cubalex.

Jose Daniel Ferrer, the leader of Cuba’s largest opposition group, and Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, head of a dissident artists collective, were both arrested on their way to the protests before even arriving, according to their supporters.

Ferrer’s sister Ana Belkis Ferrer said the family had not been able to speak to or see him, a complaint of many relatives of those detained.

“We don’t know if he’s being beaten, if he’s well or not, whether or not he’s doing a hunger strike,” she said.

Another detained activist, Félix Navarro, 68, president of the Party for Democracy, was in hospital with COVID-19, said Diversent. Several of those detained have denounced unsanitary conditions in jail amid one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/coronavirus-surge-pushes-cubas-healthcare-system-brink-2021-08-11 in the world.

(Reporting by Sarah Marsh and Reuters TV in Havana, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Flash floods sweep through northern Turkey in new natural disaster

ISTANBUL (Reuters) -Seventeen people were killed in flash floods in Turkey’s Black Sea region on Thursday that sent water and debris cascading through streets, damaged bridges and ripped up roads in the second natural disaster to strike the country this month.

The floodwaters brought chaos to northern provinces just as authorities were declaring that some of the wildfires that had raged through southern coastal regions for two weeks had been brought under control.

The floods and the fires, which killed eight people and devastated tens of thousands of hectares of forest, struck in the same week that a U.N. panel said global warming is dangerously close to spiraling out of control.

Fifteen people were killed in the floods in Kastamonu province and two people died in Sinop, authorities said, adding that search and rescue operations were continuing.

More than 1,400 people were evacuated from the areas affected, some with the help of helicopters and boats, and about 740 people were being housed in student dormitories, the Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD) said.

Helicopters lowered coast guard personnel onto the roofs of buildings to rescue people who were stranded as flood water swept through the streets, footage shared by the Interior Ministry showed.

The deluge damaged power infrastructure, leaving about 330 villages without electricity. Five bridges had collapsed and many others were damaged, leading to road closures, AFAD added. Parts of the roads were also swept away.

Television footage showed the floods dragging dozens of cars and heaps of debris along the streets. The heavy rainfall in the region was expected to ease on Thursday evening, AFAD said.

Authorities said that 299 forest fires which had burnt across southwestern provinces for the last two weeks had been brought under control.

President Tayyip Erdogan said they were the worst fires Turkey had faced in its history. Thousands of Turks and tourists were evacuated as the flames spread through Aegean and Mediterranean coastal regions, fanned by hot, dry weather and strong winds.

(Reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun and Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by Dominic Evans, Angus MacSwan and Sonya Hepinstall)

Waist-deep flood hits Cameroon’s commercial capital after torrential rains

DOUALA (Reuters) – Residents of several neighborhoods in Cameroon’s commercial capital Douala woke up to waist-deep flood water on Thursday after torrential rains battered the city for over 24 hours.

One of the worst floods the city has seen in recent years left the ground floors of hundreds of homes under water, and cut off main roads, causing massive traffic jams as the downpour overwhelmed the drainage system.

“No one slept, from midnight we were upstairs,” said resident Nguefack Désiré.

On a major intersection in downtown Douala, the deluge overflowed culverts, causing traffic chaos as cars, trucks, motorbikes and pedestrians struggled to find high ground.

Some abandoned any hope of making it to work.

“I got up and went out at 6:30 a.m. but there was so much water I decided to go back home,” said taxi driver Moise Mbappe. “I came out again at midday and water had taken over everything. I went back to sleep.”

Floods are common during the March-to-October rainy season, when poor drainage systems mean greater destruction. Several countries in West and Central Africa have recorded severe floods in the past week.

On Wednesday, authorities in Niger said floods in the capital Niamey had killed five people. Since the start of the rainy season, 52 people have been killed and hundreds displaced across the country by floods, they said.

Julie Belanger, West and Central Africa director for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told Reuters on Monday that the agency was closely watching the floods across the region.

“Last year was devastating. The forecasts for this year are slightly more positive, but in West and Central Africa the floods have doubled between 2015 and 2020 – so there’s no decrease,” Belanger said.

(Reporting by Josiane Kouagheu and Joel Kouam in Douala; Additional reporting by Boureima Balima in Niamey and Alessandra Prentice in Dakar; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Israel, Morocco to upgrade ties and open embassies, Israeli FM says

RABAT (Reuters) – Israel and Morocco plan to upgrade their restored diplomatic relations and open embassies within several months, Israel’s foreign minister said during a visit to the North African kingdom on Thursday.

Morocco was one of four Arab countries – along with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan – to move towards normalizing relations with Israel last year under U.S.-engineered accords.

Those agreements also saw Washington recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, in a diplomatic boon for Rabat.

“We are going to upgrade from liaison offices to embassies,” Yair Lapid told a news conference.

In similar comments to Israeli reporters accompanying him on a two-day trip that began on Wednesday, Lapid was quoted as saying that he had agreed with his Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita that the embassies would open in two months’ time.

There was no immediate confirmation of Lapid’s remarks by Morocco.

Lapid’s visit was the first by an Israeli foreign minister to Morocco since 2003, after the two countries agreed in December to resume diplomatic relations under a U.S.-brokered deal.

Earlier on Thursday, Lapid inaugurated Israel’s liaison office in Rabat and visited a synagogue in Casablanca.

The deals between Israel and the four Arab states angered Palestinians, who have long relied on Arab support in their quest for statehood in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Until last year, only two Arab states – Egypt and Jordan – had forged full ties with Israel.

Morocco cooled mid-level relations with Israel in 2000 in solidarity with the Palestinians, who launched an uprising that year.

(Reporting by Ahmed Eljechtimi; Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Germany tells its citizens to leave Afghanistan

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany urged its citizens on Thursday to leave Afghanistan on scheduled flights as soon as they can due to the deteriorating security situation.

Taliban fighters captured the strategic city of Ghazni on Thursday, taking them to within 150 km (90 miles) of Kabul following days of fierce clashes as the Islamist group ruled out sharing power with the government based there.

The speed and violence of the Taliban advance has sparked anger among many Afghans over U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops and leave the government to fight alone.

“German nationals on the ground are strongly urged to take opportunities to leave the country on scheduled flights as soon as possible,” the Foreign Ministry said on its website.

The defense minister on Monday rejected calls for Berlin to send soldiers back to Afghanistan after the insurgents took Kunduz, the city where German troops were deployed for a decade.

Germany had the second largest military contingent in Afghanistan after the United States, and lost more troops in combat in Kunduz than anywhere else since World War Two.

(Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

U.S. health secretary mandates COVID-19 shots for health care staff

(Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has mandated its health care workforce to get vaccinated against COVID-19, Health Secretary Xavier Becerra announced on Thursday.

Staff at the Indian Health Service (IHS), focused on American Indians, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) will be impacted by this decision, according to an HHS statement.

Those affected include over 25,000 employees, contractors, trainees, and volunteers whose duties put them in contact or potential contact with patients at an HHS medical or clinical research facility.

“Our number one goal is the health and safety of the American public, including our federal workforce,” Becerra said.

U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps will also be immediately required to get vaccinated, the statement said.

HHS is the latest federal department to make COVID-19 vaccination compulsory.

Earlier this week, the Pentagon said it will seek U.S. President Joe Biden’s approval by mid-September to require 1.3 million military members to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs also announced a similar move last month.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is examining what authority businesses have to mandate vaccines as it considers what more steps can be done to halt the spread of COVID-19.

United Airlines Inc Chief Executive Scott Kirby said he believes more U.S. companies and organizations will begin requiring COVID-19 vaccinations, after a meeting with Biden on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Sydney to tighten COVID-19 curbs, Australian capital to enter lockdown

By Renju Jose

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Extra Australian military personnel may be called in to ensure compliance with lockdown rules in Sydney, the New South Wales state government said on Thursday, as the highly infectious Delta coronavirus variant spreads into regional areas.

The move comes as Australia’s capital city, Canberra, 260 km (160 miles) southwest of Sydney, announced a snap one-week lockdown from Thursday evening after reporting its first locally acquired case of COVID-19 in more than a year. Authorities later confirmed an additional three cases, all close contacts of the first case, an unnamed man.

Australia is battling to get on top of the fast-moving Delta strain that has plunged its two largest cities – Sydney and Melbourne – into hard lockdowns.

“We are making sure that we do not leave any stone unturned in relation to extra (military) resources,” New South Wales (NSW) state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said at a media conference in Sydney, the state capital.

Some 580 unarmed army personnel are already helping police enforce home-quarantine orders on affected households in the worst-affected suburbs of Sydney, Australia’s most populous city.

Several regional towns scattered across NSW have also been forced into snap lockdowns after fresh cases, raising fears the virus is spreading out of control.

Despite seven weeks of lockdown in Sydney, daily infections continue to hover near record highs. NSW on Thursday reported 345 new locally acquired cases, most of them in Sydney, up from 344 a day earlier.

Lockdown rules were tightened in three more local council areas in Sydney, limiting the movement of people to within 5 km (3 miles) of their homes.

Joe Awada, the mayor of Bayside Council, one of the areas placed under additional restrictions, questioned why more targeted curbs were not introduced.

“I mean to lockdown 200,000 residents because of three suburbs is not acceptable to me,” Awada told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Officials also reported the deaths of two men in their 90s, taking the total deaths in the latest outbreak to 36. A total of 374 cases are in hospitals, with 62 in intensive care, 29 of whom require ventilation.

In Canberra, authorities said the one-week lockdown was needed as they were unsure how the man is his 20s acquired COVID-19.

Canberra has largely escaped any COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, and confirmation of a Delta variant saw panic buying at the supermarkets and long lines at testing sites.

Neighboring Victoria state on Thursday reported 21 new locally acquired cases, up from 20 a day earlier, as 5 million residents of Melbourne, the state capital, prepare to enter a second week of lockdown.

Of the new cases, six spent time outdoors while infectious, a number which authorities have said must return to near zero before restrictions can be eased.

Australia has largely avoided the high coronavirus numbers seen in many other countries, with just over 37,700 cases and 946 deaths, and several states remain almost COVID-free despite the outbreaks in Sydney and Melbourne.

But the rapid spread of the Delta variant in New South Wales and a slow vaccine rollout has left the country vulnerable to a new wave of infections.

Only around 24% of people above 16 years of age are fully vaccinated.

(Reporting by Renju Jose; additional reporting by Colin Packham in Canberra, Editing by Stephen Coates, Richard Pullin and Sam Holmes)