Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

At least six dead after armed gang attack in Rohingya refugee camp

By Ruma Paul

DHAKA (Reuters) – At least six people were killed in an attack at a Rohingya camp in Bangladesh’s Cox Bazar on Friday, a police official said – the latest incident of violence in the world’s largest refugee settlement.

A gang armed with guns attacked a religious school before dawn in Cox Bazar’s Ukhiya area and killed three teachers, two volunteers and a student, police superintendent Shihab Kaiser Khan said.

“A drive is underway to arrest those responsible for the incident,” Khan told Reuters, adding one Rohingya man with weapons and ammunition had been taken into custody.

More than a million Rohingya live in a cluster of refugee camps in southern Bangladesh, with most having fled neighboring Myanmar during a military crackdown in 2007.

The sprawling settlements have become increasingly violent, residents say, with armed gangs vying for power, kidnapping critics and warning women against breaking conservative Islamic norms.

Late last month, gunmen shot and killed a prominent Rohingya Muslim leader in the camps.

(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Edwina Gibbs)

Four dead as hurricane-force winds batter Poland

WARSAW (Reuters) – Four people were killed and 18 injured in a storm that battered Poland with hurricane-force winds on Thursday night, authorities said, damaging properties and felling trees across western and central areas of the country.

Fire services reported more than 10,000 incidents and 930 buildings were damaged, private broadcaster TVN24 reported, with the western region of Lubuskie and the central Lodzkie region hardest hit.

“The storm was terrible, it broke the sheet metal and took it from one part of the roof to the other side of the house,” Krzysztof Kolczynski, whose house in the village of Maszkowice in central Poland was damaged in the storm, told TVN24.

“It’s good that there were chimneys, otherwise it would have torn off the entire roof.”

In the south-western city of Wroclaw, police said that two people were killed when a tree fell on their car.

“Wroclaw police received a report about a tree that fell on a moving vehicle,” said police officer Pawel Noga. “Unfortunately, it was confirmed on the spot that two people in the car were killed in the incident.”

The Polish meteorological office issued fresh storm warnings for Friday evening, with the north of the country expected to face the strongest winds.

(Writing by Alan Charlish; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Judge imposes harsher sentence than requested on man accused of encouraging U.S. Capitol rioters

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A judge on Thursday imposed a longer prison term than prosecutors requested on a Dallas man accused of posting inflammatory social media messages inciting people to violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 even though he did not himself participate directly in the rioting.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan sentenced Troy Smocks, 58, to 14 months incarceration and three years supervised release after he entered a guilty plea to a charge of making threats in interstate communication.

Smocks, who is Black, told the judge that the Justice Department had treated him differently than white defendants who participated directly in the riot, which followed a speech by then-President Donald Trump, a Republican, at a nearby rally.

Prosecutors said in court papers that Smocks traveled to Washington on Jan. 5 and, using accounts under the name “ColonelTPerez” and “@Colonel007” on the Parler social media network, posted threats on Jan. 6 and 7 regarding the riots.

The Justice Department said Smocks’ threats included claims that he and others would return to the U.S. Capitol the day before Biden’s scheduled inauguration carrying weapons in large numbers and that Smocks “threatened that he and others would ‘hunt these cowards down like the Traitors that each of them are’, including “RINOS, Dems, and Tech Execs.” RINO is pejorative and stands for “Republicans in Name Only.”

Smocks has been held in pre-trial detention since his arrest in January and both federal prosecutor Michael Friedman and defense lawyer John Machado told the judge they believed he now should be released from jail and put on supervised release.

But Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said that while Smocks claimed to have served in the U.S. military, no official record could be found to confirm this, that Smocks had an extensive criminal history, and that he had an apparent “inability to live a law abiding life.”

“He does not appear to have any genuine remorse for his actions,” Chutkan said.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; editing by Grant McCool)

Toronto says police not vaccinated by Nov 30 will be put on unpaid leave

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Members of Toronto’s police, the largest municipal force in Canada, will be placed on unpaid leave if they do not provide proof of complete inoculation against COVID-19 by Nov. 30, officials said on Thursday.

The move is the latest announcement in a crackdown by professional bodies across Canada. The police force said 90% of members had disclosed their vaccine status and of those, 94% had received two shots.

The Toronto Police Service employs over 5,500 officers and more than 2,200 civilian staff.

“Effective on November 30, 2021, any member … who has not disclosed their vaccination status or is not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will have rendered themselves unable to perform their duties. These members will be placed on an indefinite unpaid absence,” it said in a statement.

“The safety of our workplaces and the health of our members is of critical importance to the Service.”

Canada’s federal Liberal government said earlier this month it would place unvaccinated federal employees on unpaid leave if they had not proved their inoculation status by Oct 29.

Public broadcaster Canadian Broadcasting Corp said on Thursday it had set a Dec. 1 deadline for all staff, contractors, producers, vendors and guests to be fully vaccinated.

Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children placed 147 of its employees on unpaid leave on Thursday for failing to submit proof of full inoculation, a spokeswoman said.

The Ottawa Hospital, one of the biggest in Canada, has told 318 staff they will be put on unpaid leave unless they get fully vaccinated by Nov. 1, a spokesman told CTV news on Thursday.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Syria executes 24 people over deadly forest fires

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syria executed 24 people it said had set fires that swept swathes of forests mainly in the coastal province of Latakia, the ancestral home of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, the justice ministry said on Thursday .

Those executed on Wednesday were charged with committing “terrorist acts that led to death and damage to state infrastructure, public and private property,” the ministry said.

It said 11 others were sentenced to life in prison on the same charges from dozens arrested at the end of last year who confessed to igniting the fires that began in September 2020 and lasted until mid-October.

Although executions are common in the tightly run country with a powerful security apparatus, it is rare to publicize such a large number of executions on a single day.

The justice ministry statement said tens of fires swept forests and farmland and burnt homes in dozens of villages and towns in Latakia and Tartous provinces and also the central province of Hama.

No details were provided on where and how the executions took place in a country where international human rights groups says many detainees are executed without trial and where security prisons have tens of thousands of detainees.

Assad visited the devastated rural areas near his ancestral home of Qardaha in Latakia, inhabited mainly by his minority Alawite sect that dominates the higher echelons of power in the security forces and army.

The huge fires caused tens of millions of dollars of losses in cultivated plots of mainly citrus, apples and olive trees that many poor Alawite farmers rely on to supplement meager low paid state jobs.

It also damaged a main part of the state-owned tobacco company that is a mainstay of the coastal area’s economy.

State television showed alleged confessions of some of the culprits who said they were paid to set the deliberate fires.

The authorities had at the time blamed Syria’s foreign and internal enemies for igniting the fires as part of what it said was economic warfare. The country’s decade-old war has led to tens of thousands of deaths, displaced millions, and led to a refugee crisis.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

U.S. appeals court rules against nursing homes over COVID-19 lawsuits

By Tom Hals

(Reuters) – In a setback to nursing-home operators facing hundreds of COVID-19 negligence and wrongful-death lawsuits, a federal appeals court on Wednesday said cases against two New Jersey facilities should proceed in state courts.

The nursing homes had argued that the suits against them belonged in federal court, citing an emergency U.S. law known as the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, which shields those fighting the pandemic from lawsuits.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia affirmed a lower court ruling and rejected the nursing homes’ argument that the PREP Act was so far reaching that families’ state-law negligence claims were really federal claims that belonged in federal court.

The families “asserted only garden-variety state-law claims, so state court is where these cases belong,” the court said.

Neil Lapinski, a Gordon, Fournaris & Mammarella attorney who represented the families, said “the court has provided a clear roadmap for litigants” that was consistent with lower court rulings.

The cases were filed in state court in April 2020 by families of four residents who died of COVID-19. They sued two nursing homes operating as Andover Subacute & Rehabilitation I & II, alleging the facilities failed to take precautions to contain the spread of the virus.

The cases were among the first against nursing homes, where more than 100,000 people died during the pandemic. Like hundreds of similar wrongful death claims against care facilities, the cases stalled over which court should hear the lawsuit.

The operator said it was shielded by the PREP Act and the cases belonged in federal court. A lower federal court, however, said the case should be heard in state court, and the nursing home operator appealed.

The 2005 PREP Act is meant to jumpstart U.S. defenses against an outbreak like COVID-19 by shielding from lawsuits makers of critical products, from diagnostic tests to vaccines, as well as doctors and drug distributors. Nursing homes have said the law should shield them from liability because they were on the front line of the outbreak.

Wednesday’s ruling could help get cases moving, said Adam Pulver of Public Citizen Litigation Group, a consumer advocacy group that filed an amicus brief with the appeals court.

“By being the first appeals court to weigh in, the 3rd Circuit signaled to judges around the country that these appeals are unlikely to succeed and there is no reason to stop cases from moving forward while the nursing homes appeal,” he said.

The 3rd Circuit’s ruling said determining whether the PREP Act shields nursing homes from pandemic-related lawsuits should be determined by a state court, although other federal appeals courts are expected to address that question in the coming months.

Lann McIntyre, a Lewis Brisbois attorney who represented the nursing homes, declined to comment.

The appeal was heard by three Republican appointees – Michael Chagares, Jane Roth and David Porter, who was appointed by President Donald Trump and who wrote the opinion.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Bill Berkrot)

World Bank sees ‘significant’ inflation risk from high energy prices

By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Energy prices are expected to inch up in 2022 after surging more than 80% in 2021, fueling significant near-term risks to global inflation in many developing countries, the World Bank said in its latest Commodity Markets Outlook on Thursday.

The multilateral development bank said energy prices should start to decline in the second half of 2022 as supply constraints ease, with non-energy prices such as agriculture and metals also expected to ease after strong gains in 2021.

“The surge in energy prices poses significant near-term risks to global inflation and, if sustained, could also weigh on growth in energy-importing countries,” said Ayhan Kose, chief economist and director of the World Bank’s Prospects Group, which produces the Outlook report.

“The sharp rebound in commodity prices is turning out to be more pronounced than previously projected. Recent volatility in prices may complicate policy choices as countries recover from last year’s global recession.”

The International Monetary Fund, in a separate blog, said it expected energy prices to revert to “more normal levels” early next year when heating demand ebbs and supplies adjust. But it warned that uncertainty remained high and small demand shocks could trigger fresh price spikes.

The World Bank noted that some commodity prices rose to or exceeded levels in 2021 not seen since a spike a decade earlier.

Natural gas and coal prices, for instance, reached record highs amid supply constraints and rebounding demand for electricity, although they are expected to decline in 2022 as demand eases and supply improves, the bank said.

It warned that further price spikes could occur in the near-term given current low inventories and persistent supply bottlenecks. Other risk factors included extreme weather events, the uneven COVID-19 recovery and the threat of more outbreaks, along with supply-chain disruptions and environmental policies.

Higher food prices were also driving up food-price inflation and raising questions about food security in several developing countries, it said.

The bank projected crude oil prices would reach $74/bbl in 2022, buoyed by strengthening demand from a projected $70/bbl in 2021, before easing to $65/bbl in 2023.

The use of crude oil as a substitute for natural gas presented a major upside risk to the demand outlook, although higher energy prices may start to weigh on global growth.

The bank forecast a 5% drop in metals prices in 2022 after a 48% increase in 2021. It said agricultural prices were expected to decline modestly next year after jumping 22% this year.

It warned that changing weather patterns due to climate change also posed a growing risk to energy markets, potentially affecting both demand and supply.

It said countries could benefit by accelerating installation of renewable energy sources and by cutting their dependency on fossil fuels.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; editing by Diane Craft)

NOAA expects U.S. Southwest drought to continue or worsen this winter

By Karl Plume

(Reuters) – A harsh drought is expected to continue or worsen across parts of the U.S. West and northern Plains this winter, including in central and southern California, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) winter outlook.

NOAA, however, expects the drought to lessen in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and northern California amid an emerging La Nina phenomenon, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said on Thursday.

A drought spanning much of western North America has damaged crops from apples to wheat, and has cooked cattle grazing pastures, weakened bee colonies and fueled concerns about rising food prices.

Nearly the entire U.S. West is in some level of drought, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center, with almost half of major agricultural state California under exceptional drought, the most severe category.

“A major region of concern this winter remains the Southwest, where drought conditions remain persistent in most areas,” said Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

“The Pacific Northwest, northern California, the upper Midwest and Hawaii are likely to experience drought improvement,” he said during a webinar highlighting NOAA’s December-to-February outlook.

The conditions are expected to be fueled by an emerging La Nina pattern and its colder-than-normal Pacific Ocean surface water temperatures for a second straight winter.

(Reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago; Editing by David Gregorio)

Pakistan foreign minister makes first trip to Kabul since Taliban takeover

By Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam

KABUL (Reuters) -Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi visited the Afghan capital Kabul on Thursday for the first time since the Taliban victory in August, following weeks of tension over transport links between the neighboring countries.

The visit comes after prolonged problems at the Chaman border crossing, one of the main trade transit points between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has been closed for more than two weeks, causing severe problems for truckers and exporters.

Qureshi said Pakistan was determined to help Afghanistan avoid a collapse of its economy and had agreed measures to ease some border restrictions and facilitate trade, including on-arrival visas for Afghan business travelers.

“We have taken steps that will benefit Afghanistan financially,” he told reporters.

Imports of fresh fruit and vegetables from Afghanistan would also be allowed duty free, Qureshi said, in a move aimed at helping Afghan fruit producers hurt by the border closures.

Farmers near the southern city of Kandahar have been forced to leave pomegranates and other export produce to rot because trucks cannot get through to their markets across the border.

But there was no agreement to restart flights by Pakistan International Airlines, which suspended operations from Kabul last week after it accused Taliban officials of interference.

The airline has faced local anger after it raised the price of a one-way ticket to as much as $2,500, citing the cost of the premiums it was forced to pay for operating in what insurers consider a war zone.

Qureshi’s delegation on Thursday included the head of the ISI intelligence service, Faiz Hameed, who had also visited Kabul in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the city.

Before the meeting, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Qureshi would focus in his talks with Muttaqi and other Taliban leaders “on ways and means to deepen cooperation in diverse areas”.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie in Islamabad and Gibran Peshimam in Kabul; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Texas urges U.S. Supreme Court to maintain state’s abortion ban

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) – Texas on Thursday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to keep in place a state law that imposes a near-total ban on abortion while it defends the Republican-backed measure against a legal challenge brought by President Joe Biden’s administration.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton responded in a legal filing to the U.S. Justice Department’s request that the Supreme Court quickly block the state law while the court battle over its legality goes forward.

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, previously allowed the law to be enforced in a separate challenge brought by abortion providers. In that 5-4 decision on Sept. 1, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts expressed skepticism about how the law is enforced.

The Texas measure, one of a series of restrictive abortion laws passed at the state level in recent years, bans the procedure after about six weeks of pregnancy, a point when many women do not yet realize they are pregnant. It makes an exception for a documented medical emergency but not for cases of rape or incest.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)