Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Britain calls for 800 foreign butchers to avoid pig cull

By Guy Faulconbridge

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain will offer six-month emergency visas to 800 foreign butchers to avoid a mass pig cull, it said on Thursday, after farmers complained that an exodus of workers from abattoirs and meat processors had left the pork sector fighting for survival.

A combination of Brexit and COVID-19 has sparked an exodus of east European workers, leaving some 120,000 pigs in barns and fields across the country waiting to be slaughtered, according to the National Pig Association.

Environment Secretary George Eustice said the temporary visas would address the problem which farmers said was putting livelihoods at risk and causing animal welfare issues.

“What we’re going to do is allow butchers in abattoirs and meat processors dealing with pigs, to be able to come in on a temporary basis under the Seasonal Worker scheme for up to six months,” Eustice told reporters.

“That will help us to deal with the backlog of pigs that we currently have on farms to give those meat processors the ability to slaughter more pigs.”

Eustice said around 800 butchers would be needed to clear the backlog and announced private storage aid to help abattoirs store meat.

But he said the government had decided not to ease the English language requirement for skilled visas to allow more butchers to come via that route – a key demand from farmers, who have been calling for weeks for ministers to take action.

“The industry had asked us to look at the language requirement on the skills route,” he said. “We have looked at that but we don’t think that provides an answer to their particular challenge. And that’s why we decided instead to have temporary visas.”

The lack of butchers is just one of a number of areas where Britain is facing acute labor shortages.

Last month, it announced plans to issue temporary visas for 5,000 foreign truck drivers and 5,500 poultry workers, but the government wants businesses to invest in a British workforce rather than rely on cheap foreign labor.

Ministers have also been keen to downplay suggestions that Britain’s exit from the European Union was the main issue hitting labor in the supply chains.

Many workers in the pig industry had gone home during the pandemic and simply not returned, Eustice said.

“It’s a complex picture: there have been lots of market disruptions, problems with access to the Chinese market, maybe some overproduction – here production is up by about 7% – and yes, labor has been an aggravating factor but it’s not been the only factor,” Eustice said.

“The pig industry, and in common with many parts of the food industry, has seen a loss of staff as many of the EU citizens that they relied on left during the pandemic – nothing to do with Brexit.”

As part of the measures to address the problem with the lack of lorry drivers, he said cabotage rules for EU drivers would be relaxed so that they could do as many trips as they liked over a two-week period.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Michael Holden and Nick Macfie)

Celebrity chef’s group feeds the hungry on Spain’s eruption-hit La Palma

By Silvio Castellanos and Sergio Perez

LA PALMA, Spain (Reuters) – Working in close proximity to the red-hot lava flowing from a volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma, emergency workers anxiously await their lunch break – and while any food would do, it tastes better when it comes from a celebrity chef’s kitchen.

Chef Jose Andres’ non-profit World Central Kitchen (WCK) has been delivering hot food, sandwiches and water to thousands of evacuees as well as the emergency workers overseeing residents’ removal from harm’s way.

“Although there are so many of us, it seems like there’s a lack of personnel … including those who come down to give us a sandwich! It seems silly but after eight hours on the ground it’s fundamental,” said Captain Diego Ortiz of the Guardia Civil police force.

Arriving in one of the emptied neighborhoods in a van, WCK volunteer Pablo Pais told Reuters: “The lava’s very close. Until the day before yesterday there were still people in these houses.”

The non-profit started cooking 200 meals a day early in the eruption – which began on Sept. 19 – and is now making 1,400, with the amount growing daily, said Olivier de Belleroche, a 45-year-old chef from Madrid who works for WCK.

After the director of a local hotel suggested using up all the hotel’s food stocks as creeping lava threatening to cut off power lines, WCK and its partners organized a large convoy of food for the military, rescue workers and evacuees, he said.

“It’s very emotional, that sense of constantly being on the alert, so many people losing their homes,” Belleroche mused after pulling a tray packed with dozens of sealed hot meals out of the oven in a bustling kitchen ceded by a supermarket chain.

“You grow more involved with the people – I’ve been doing this for four weeks now,” he added, explaining that initially he had come just for a few days.

WCK head Andres is known for his innovative cooking and credited with popularizing tapas in America in the 1990s.

He has recently partnered with the Archewell charity of Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle to set up a series of community relief centres in disaster-stricken areas around the world.

(Writing by Andrei Khalip; Editing by Clara-Laeila Laudette and Paul Simao)

U.S. working to make charter flights from Afghanistan more routine -State Dept.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States has no plans to resume military-led evacuation flights from Afghanistan, but is working to ensure that the existing charter flights become more frequent, the State Department said on Thursday.

“The idea that we’re restarting evacuation flights, à la what we had prior to Aug. 31, is not accurate,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a briefing. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Washington would restart evacuation flights before the end of the year, citing an unidentified State Department official.

“The charter flights have been routine,” Price said. “Our goal is to make them even more routine to lend a degree of automaticity to these operations so that we can facilitate the departure of Americans, of lawful permanent residents and others.”

The United States’ two decades-long occupation of Afghanistan culminated in a hastily organized airlift in August that saw more than 124,000 civilians including Americans, Afghans and others evacuated as the Taliban took over. But thousands of other U.S.-allied Afghans at risk of Taliban persecution were left behind.

President Joe Biden and others in his administration have vowed to continue efforts to get them out.

A few hundred people have been evacuated on charter flights, organized by groups of veterans, and some facilitated by the United States. Washington has also assisted some people to depart Afghanistan via overland routes.

Price added that since Aug. 31, the United States has facilitated the departure of 129 U.S. citizens and 115 lawful permanent residents.

“Our goal is to see to it that working with our partners that these flights become even more of a regular occurrence,” he said.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis, Susan Heavey and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Peter Graff and Leslie Adler)

U.S. made clear its opposition to settlements, Israeli official says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States during talks this week made clear its opposition to Israel’s building of Jewish settlements on occupied land that the Palestinians want for a future state, a senior Israeli official said on Thursday.

Asked if the U.S. side had raised the issue during the visit of Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who met U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top officials in Washington, the Israeli official told reporters: “Yes.”

“They raised it, and not in a ‘Great job, guys, go ahead'” way, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

President Joe Biden’s administration has emphasized it opposes further expansion of Jewish settlements. Most countries consider such settlements illegal. Israel disputes this.

A senior Biden administration official this month said Israel is well aware of the administration’s view of the need to refrain from actions that could be seen as “provocative” and undermine efforts to achieve a long-elusive two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Will Dunham)

Norway bow-and-arrow attack appears to be ‘act of terror’ – police

By Victoria Klesty

KONGSBERG, Norway (Reuters) – A bow-and-arrow attack in which a Danish convert to Islam is suspected of killing five people in a Norwegian town appears to have been an “act of terror,” police said on Thursday.

Investigators named the suspect as Espen Andersen Braathen, a 37-year-old living in the Kongsberg municipality where the attacks took place on Wednesday evening.

A police attorney told Reuters that Braathen had acknowledged killing the victims. His lawyer confirmed only that Braathen was cooperating with police and giving a detailed statement.

Police had been concerned about signs of radicalization in the suspect before the attacks, carried out with a bow and arrow and other weapons, a senior officer said.

Flags flew at half-mast across Kongsberg after the deaths of four women and a man, all aged between 50 and 70. Three others, including an off-duty police officer, were wounded.

Kongsberg resident Markus Kultima, 23, who works in a beer shop, witnessed parts of the attack.

“I saw a man come walking with an arrow in his back,” Kultima told Reuters. He said it was the off-duty officer who told him to head home.

“I had to walk in the direction where that guy came from, Kultima said, describing doing so as “very heavy.”

Braathen was in custody and was believed to have acted alone, police said. A court will decide on Friday how long police can keep him in custody.

“The events at Kongsberg appear at the moment to be an act of terror,” the PST security police said in a statement, adding the investigation would determine the motive.

Regional police chief Ole Bredrup Saeverud said the suspect had converted to Islam.

“Police have previously been in contact with the man in relation to trouble connected to radicalization. We haven’t registered anything in regards to him in 2021, but previously,” Saeverud told a news conference.

Police attorney Ann Iren Svane Mathiassen told Reuters: “He has told us that he has killed them and he has explained himself in detail about what happened…He admits to the facts of the case but we haven’t asked him yet about the question of guilt.”

She said police wanted a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he is fit to stand trial, and that those killed “appear to be random victims.”

TRIBUTE BY PRIME MINISTER

A relative of the suspect, speaking on condition of anonymity to Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet, described him as mentally ill and said the family had suffered threats for several years.

The death toll was the worst of any attack in Norway since 2011, when far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people, most of them teenagers at a youth camp.

The attacks took place over “a large area” of Kongsberg, a municipality of about 28,000 people in southeastern Norway, 68 km (42 miles) from the capital, Oslo.

Police said they received reports of a man carrying a bow and arrow at 1612 GMT on Wednesday. He was first observed by a police unit a few minutes later, fired arrows at the police and was apprehended after a hunt of about 35 minutes.

“It is likely that all the killings took place after the first police sighting of him,” Saeverud said.

Images from one of the crime scenes showed an arrow that appeared to be stuck in the wall of a wood-paneled building.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, on his first day in office after winning an election last month, said his thoughts were with the people of Kongsberg, the victims and “those who live with the shock.”

He told a news conference the attack highlighted shortcomings in Norway’s psychiatric care, he said, with “one in four or one in five” people who are referred for treatment being turned down.

King Harald wrote a letter of condolence to the town’s mayor, saying: “The rest of the nation stands with you.”

Those laying flowers and candles in tribute spoke of their shock in a country where mass killings are rare.

“I want to show my sympathy and empathy to all those affected here in town and across Norway actually because it affects all of us, regardless of who we are – young and old,” Kongsberg resident Line Leirmo said.

(Writing by Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche, additional reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis in Oslo and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Robert Birsel, Peter Graff, Toby Chopra, Alison Williams and Timothy Heritage)

Night crossings: Germany braces as Belarus route swells migrant flows

By Thomas Escritt

EISENHUETTENSTADT, Germany (Reuters) – Zhina ran in the dead of night through a forest near the Belarusian-Polish border. Crucifix clenched in her pocket, she slipped with her mother and younger sister through a hole cut in the wire fence by men she believed were Belarusian police.

Last week, the 17-year-old from Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan arrived at a rapidly swelling refugee camp in eastern Germany, a few km (miles) from the Polish frontier. She was one of more than 100 refugees arriving each day as news of the Belarus corridor to Europe spreads around the Middle East.

Authorities in Brandenburg, the eastern German state that is housing most of the new arrivals, are calling for tougher action against what they see as Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s hybrid war against the European Union – allowing migrants to filter through Belarusian borders into Poland or neighboring Baltic states in retaliation for EU sanctions.

“We are just managing the symptoms here,” said Michael Stuebgen, Brandenburg’s interior minister. “The actual problem is the people smuggling organized by the Belarus regime.”

All Iraqis now know about the Belarusian route to the EU, said Zhina’s mother Nihaya, who paid traffickers $15,000 to arrange the journey for herself and her daughters.

Facing crippling sanctions over his violent crackdown on protests over his disputed re-election victory last year, Lukashenko has opened his country’s borders to much of the Middle East and Africa, knowing that many will use the opportunity to pass through into the EU, starting with Poland.

In August, Stuebgen said, 200 arrived from Belarus at the camp in Eisenhuettenstadt, on Germany’s border with Poland. Now, 100-150 are arriving daily. Many are in a bad way – of 120 who arrived on Wednesday, seven tested positive for COVID-19.

Poland and Lithuania have erected fences along their border with Belarus, but few refugees want to stop in either country.

DESTINATION: GERMANY VIA POLAND

Under EU asylum rules, they have to stay in the first EU country they are registered in – so refugees wanting to live in affluent Germany – the most desirable destination for many EU-bound migrants – to dodge the authorities on the way there.

“Everything happened after midnight: it was too dangerous during the day,” said Zhina, describing how men, whom she believed to be Belarusian policemen, had trucked her and dozens of other migrants to the border and cut a hole through the fence to let them into Poland.

The three sneaked through forest on the Polish side of the border, dodging border guards flashing torches, hitching rides or getting driven by smugglers across Poland, thereby avoiding registration there, before reaching Germany.

The crucifix, a gift from her mother, was safely stowed in her pocket out of fear its chain would snag on a branch.

Her mother dreams of settling in Hamburg, where Zhina wants to study engineering at university. If successful, she and her 12-year-old sister Zhino will join the million or so migrants who settled in Germany in 2015, many of whom are now thriving.

But Brandenburg, which has the headache of settling the hundreds of new arrivals in a former police barracks that it has tripled in size with the aid of heated tents, is calling for firmer action from the German government and the EU.

Stuebgen called for “a landing ban in all of Europe for all airlines that contribute to this human trafficking” – which could include Belarus’s Belavia, which flew Zhina from Istanbul to Minsk, but also Gulf airlines, officials said.

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Deadly shooting rocks Beirut as tensions over blast probe erupt

By Maha El Dahan, Tom Perry and Laila Bassam

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Six Shi’ites were shot dead in Beirut on Thursday, in an attack on supporters of Hezbollah and its ally who were gathering to demand the removal of the judge investigating the explosion that ripped through the city’s port last year.

The shooting, which took place on a frontline of Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war and evoked scenes reminiscent of that conflict, marks the deadliest civil violence in Beirut since 2008.

It also highlights a deepening crisis over the probe into the catastrophic August 2020 explosion that is undermining government efforts to tackle one of the most dramatic economic meltdowns in history.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah and its ally, the Shi’ite Amal Movement, accused the Lebanese Forces (LF), a Christian party that has close ties to Saudi Arabia, of mounting the attack.

Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said snipers had opened fire and aimed at people’s heads.

The LF denied any involvement and condemned the violence, which it blamed on Hezbollah “incitement” against Judge Tarek Bitar, the lead investigator into the port blast, which killed 200 people, wounded thousands and devastated swathes of Beirut.

Coming after repeated warnings from Hezbollah and its allies that continuing Bitar’s probe would split the country, the violence may create a pretext to shut down or shelve further investigation into the explosion.

LF leader Samir Geagea, whose group had a powerful militia in the war, said earlier that the shooting was the result of uncontrolled weapons in society, saying civil peace must be preserved.

During the attack, local television stations broadcast footage of bullets bouncing off buildings and people running for cover. One of the dead was a woman who was struck by a bullet while in her home, a military source said.

At a nearby school, teachers instructed infant children to lie face down on the ground with their hands on their heads, a Reuters witness said. A lifeless body was dragged from the street by bystanders in footage broadcast by al-Jadeed TV.

The army said in a statement the gunfire had targeted protesters as they passed through the Teyouneh traffic circle located in an area dividing Christian and Shi’ite Muslim neighborhoods.

The shooting began from the Christian neighborhood of Ain el-Remmaneh, from where the civil war was set off, before spiraling into an exchange of fire, a military source said.

Interior Minister Mawlawi said all the dead were from one side, meaning Shi’ites.

Hezbollah and the Amal Movement said groups had fired at protesters from rooftops, aiming at their heads in an attack they said aimed to drag Lebanon into conflict.

As Prime Minister Najib Mikati called for calm, the army deployed heavily in the area around Teyouneh and said it would open fire against any armed person on the road.

Bursts of gunfire were heard for hours.

U.S., FRANCE URGE IMPARTIAL PROBE

The United States and France said the Lebanese judiciary needed to allowed to investigate the port explosion in an independent and impartial manner.

“The Lebanese people deserve no less and the victims and families of those lost in the port blast deserve no less,” U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said during a visit to Beirut.

“Today’s unacceptable violence makes clear what the stakes are,” said Nuland, in comments echoed by the French Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Judge Bitar has sought to question a number of senior politicians and security officials, including Hezbollah allies, suspected of negligence that led to the port explosion, caused by a huge quantity of ammonium nitrate and one of the biggest non-nuclear blasts on record.

All have denied wrongdoing.

Hezbollah has led calls for Bitar’s removal, accusing him of bias.

On Wednesday, Geagea rejected what he described as any submission to “intimidation” by Hezbollah over Bitar, calling on Lebanese to be ready for peaceful strike action if the “other side” tried to impose its will by force.

The standoff over Bitar’s investigation is diverting the newly formed government’s attention away from addressing a deepening economic crisis, which has plunged more than three quarters of Lebanese into poverty.

Though none of its members have been targeted by the probe, Hezbollah has accused Bitar of conducting a politicized investigation only focused on certain people.

These include some of its closest allies, among them senior figures in the Shi’ite Amal Movement who occupied ministerial posts, including former finance minister Ali Hassan Khalil who told al-Mayadeen TV this week the path of the probe threatened to push Lebanon “towards civil strife”.

A court earlier on Thursday dismissed a legal complaint against Bitar, documents showed, allowing him to resume his investigation.

The violence is the worst since 2008 when followers of the Sunni-led government fought battles in Beirut with gunmen loyal to Hezbollah which took the streets until the government rescinded decisions affecting Hezbollah, including taking steps against a telecommunications network operated by the group.

(Reporting By Maha El Dahan, Alaa Kanaan, Laila Bassam, Mohamed Azakir, Tom Perry; Writing By Tom Perry; Editing by John Stonestreet and Samia Nakhoul)

Planes, fire crews tackling wildfire near Reagan ranch in California

By Brad Brooks

(Reuters) -California firefighters took advantage of a break in strong winds on Wednesday to get aircraft aloft and dump retardant on a fast-moving wildfire that was within a half mile of former President Ronald Reagan’s ranch, officials said.

A crew of roughly 1,500 firefighters have so far successfully steered the Alisal fire away from the Reagan ranch, where the former U.S. leader hosted the likes of Queen Elizabeth and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, said Andrew Madsen, a spokesman for Los Padres National Forest, where the blaze is centered.

“There are forecasts of high winds tonight, and we’re trying to get as much as we can done before then,” Madsen said.

The crews are also working to keep the fire away from a shuttered Exxon Mobil facility in Las Flores canyon, he added. The company said in an emailed statement that it was closely monitoring the fire and there were no injuries at the facilities or damages to the facilities, which have been shut since 2015.

The fire, which broke out on Monday about 20 miles (32 km) northwest of Santa Barbara in a sparsely populated corner of southern California, has grown to 15,500 acres (6,272 hectares) and remains just 5% contained, Madsen said.

Firefighters had hoped to take advantage of the lack of high winds to increase the containment line, Madsen said, but by evening they had not made any ground on the percentage.

The Alisal fire quickly grew on Tuesday amid strong winds, shutting down a section of a major highway and commuter train lines. California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday the state had secured federal funds to reimburse 75% of local and state costs related to fighting the blaze.

California is on pace to suffer more burnt acreage this year than last, the worst fire season on record when 4.2 million acres went up in flames – an area the size of Hawaii.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Additional reporting by Sabrina Valle in Houston; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Leslie Adler)

UK minister failed to ‘expeditiously’ provide N. Irish abortion services

By Amanda Ferguson

BELFAST (Reuters) -The United Kingdom’s Northern Ireland Secretary failed to comply with his duties to “expeditiously” provide women in the region with access to high quality abortion and post-abortion services, a judge in the British-run province ruled on Thursday.

Mr. Justice Colton declined, however, to issue an order compelling Secretary of State Brandon Lewis to set out a timetable for the provision of the services, and dismissed a claim for a judicial review against the jurisdiction’s minister of health and the Executive Committee.

The High Court ruling came after the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission launched a judicial review challenge to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Executive and its Department of Health over the failure to commission and fund abortion services.

Responding to the ruling on Twitter, Lewis said he believed “women from Northern Ireland should be entitled to the same reproductive rights as women across the rest of the UK” and he was “profoundly disappointed by the court’s verdict.”

He said in July he directed the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, the Health and Social Care Board, and the Minister of Health for Northern Ireland to commission and make abortion services available by March next year.

“I am hugely disappointed that the Executive and Department of Health are continuing to seem to willfully neglect the welfare and rights of women and girls in NI.”

Chief Commissioner Alyson Kilpatrick said the commission brought the case because of the unacceptable delay in the provision of adequate services and she welcomed the High Court judgment.

“This was an important case for the Commission to take to uphold the human rights of women and girls in Northern Ireland,” she said.

“Abortion was legalized in Northern Ireland in 2019. Yet in 2021 women and girls continue to have to travel to England to access abortion services, are forced to continue a pregnancy against their wishes or take unregulated abortion pills.”

A new legal framework for abortion services took effect in March 2020, but devolved government services have not yet been properly introduced and funded because of disagreements between anti-abortion and pro-choice politicians.

The High Court found that between April 2020 and March 2021, Lewis failed to comply with the 2019 Act in that he failed to ensure expeditiously that the state provide women in Northern Ireland with access to high quality abortion and post-abortion care in all public health facilities.

The court noted that the situation is a fluid one with ongoing developments.

(Reporting by Graham Fahy; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Giles Elgood)

Price pinch: global economy caught in perfect storm

By Guy Faulconbridge, Andrew MacAskill, Daniel Leussink and Leika Kihara

LONDON/TOKYO (Reuters) -From beef bowls in Tokyo to fried chicken in London, consumers are beginning to feel the pinch from the surge in costs coursing through the global economy.

The rebound in economic activity as coronavirus restrictions are eased has exposed shortages across supply chains, with companies scrambling to find workers, ships and even fuel to power factories, threatening the recovery.

Britain’s biggest chicken producer warned that the country’s 20-year cheap food binge is coming to an end and said food price inflation could hit double digits.

“The days when you could feed a family of four with a 3 pound ($4) chicken are coming to an end,” Ranjit Singh Boparan, owner of the 2 Sisters Group, said.

An acute shortage of warehouse workers, truckers and butchers as the world’s fifth-largest economy deals with Brexit as well as COVID-19 is exacerbating strains which are being felt globally by international business.

IKEA is leasing more ships, buying containers and re-routing goods between warehouses as the world’s largest furniture brand seeks to mitigate a “perfect storm” of global supply chain disruptions.

Jon Abrahamsson, chief executive at Inter IKEA, told Reuters he expects the crisis to extend into 2022, with the biggest challenge getting goods out of China, where around a quarter of IKEA products are made.

IKEA said stores in North America have been hardest hit by product shortages, followed by Europe.

In the United States, President Joe Biden on Wednesday urged the private sector to help ease supply chain blockages that are threatening to disrupt the U.S. holiday season.

Biden said the Port of Los Angeles would join the Port of Long Beach in working round-the-clock to unload about 500,000 containers, while Walmart, Target and other big retailers would expand overnight operations to help out.

Even in Japan, where weak growth has meant that prices of many things – as well as wages – haven’t risen much in decades, consumers and businesses are facing a price shock for basics such as coffee and beef bowls.

Japan’s core consumer inflation only stopped falling in August, snapping a 12-month deflationary spell. Economists and policymakers expect to see recent price rises reflected in official data in the coming months.

With central bankers on high alert and inflation in Spain, Ireland and Sweden hitting 13-year highs, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde repeated that the upswing in Europe is seen as temporary and said there were no signs that the recent surge is becoming embedded in wages.

“The impact of these factors should fade out … in the course of next year, dampening annual inflation,” Lagarde said.

Euro zone inflation is expected to hit 4% before the end of the year, twice the ECB’s target, and a growing number of economists see it remaining above target throughout 2022.

COLD FRONT

Dwindling power supplies suggest a bleak winter outlook in some parts of the world.

As northern China chills, coal prices held near record highs, with power plants stocking up to ease an energy crunch that sent factory gate inflation in the world’s second-largest economy to an at-least 25 year high in September.

Meanwhile, Coal India, the world’s biggest coal miner, said it had temporarily stopped supplying non-power users as India battles one of its worst ever power supply deficits.

China’s power crisis, caused by shortages of coal, high fuel prices and booming post-pandemic industrial demand has halted production at numerous factories, including many supplying big brands such as Apple.

Weak demand is capping consumer inflation, however, forcing policymakers to walk a tightrope between supporting the economy and further stoking producer prices.

There are few signs of any reprieve in energy costs, with Brent crude oil futures above $84 a barrel on expectations that soaring natural gas prices will drive a switch to oil to meet winter heating needs.

The International Energy Agency said the crunch could boost oil demand by half a million barrels per day (bpd).

“Higher energy prices are also adding to inflationary pressures that, along with power outages, could lead to lower industrial activity and a slowdown in the economic recovery,” the IEA said in its monthly oil report.

Top economic institutes cut their joint forecast for 2021 growth in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, to 2.4% from 3.7% as supply bottlenecks hamper output, confirming a Reuters story.

In response to the crisis, the White House has been speaking with U.S. oil and gas producers about helping to bring down fuel costs, two sources familiar with the matter said.

The average U.S. retail cost of a gallon of gasoline is at a seven-year high, and the U.S. Energy Department expects winter fuel costs to surge. Oil and gas production remains below the nation’s peak reached in 2019.

CHIPS STILL DOWN

Dutch navigation and digital mapping company TomTom warned that supply chain problems in the auto sector could last well into 2022.

“Collectively we have underestimated how big the supply chain issues, and especially for semiconductor shortages, have been or have become”, TomTom Chief Financial Officer Taco Titulaer told Reuters.

A global semiconductor chip shortage has forced carmakers still recovering from coronavirus disruptions to halt production again.

Italian-American vehicle maker CNH Industrial said on Wednesday it will temporarily shut several European agricultural, commercial vehicle and powertrain manufacturing plants because of problems procuring components.

Soaring demand is, however, proving a boon for some.

Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, reported a nearly 14% jump in third quarter profit.

TSMC and Taiwan have become central to efforts to resolve the global chip shortage, which has also hit manufacturers of smartphones, laptops and consumer appliances.

Some companies, such as Toyota Motor Corp are intensifying efforts to restart production. The Japanese carmaker hopes to do so in December with a rebound in shipments from pandemic-hit suppliers, three sources told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Muyu Xu, Shivani Singh, David Stanway, Noah Browning, James Davey, Liangping Gao, Stella Qiu and Ryan Woo; Writing by Alexander Smith; Editing by Carmel Crimmins and Catherine Evans)