Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Former U.S. Navy engineer, wife face judge in submarine espionage case

By Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A former U.S. Navy nuclear engineer and his wife on Tuesday faced their first court hearing on charges they attempted to sell secrets about nuclear submarines to a foreign power in exchange for cryptocurrency.

Wearing orange prison jumpsuits, they briefly appeared at a federal courthouse in Martinsburg, West Virginia, for a formal reading of the criminal charges against them. They have not yet been asked to enter a plea to the charges.

Jonathan Toebbe and his wife, Diana, were arrested on Saturday in Jefferson County, West Virginia, following a yearlong sting operation by undercover FBI agents, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Toebbe, 42, a nuclear engineer with top-secret security clearance, is accused of sending Navy documents to an unnamed foreign entity in 2020, along with instructions for how to obtain additional information.

The Toebbes did not speak other than to briefly answer the judge’s questions, indicating they understood their rights.

The Justice Department did not name the country involved.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Trumble scheduled a court hearing for Friday on the Justice Department’s request that the Toebbes be jailed while they await trial.

The Toebbes will remain in jail while they await Friday’s hearing.

No lawyer was present for the couple at Tuesday’s initial 15-minute court appearance. The judge told them they qualify for court-appointed legal counsel.

Toebbe, with the aid of his 45-year-old wife, allegedly sold secrets to an undercover FBI agent posing as a foreign official over the course of several months, the Justice Department said.

At one point, Toebbe hid a digital memory card containing documents about submarine nuclear reactors in half a peanut butter sandwich at a “dead drop” location in West Virginia while his wife acted as lookout, the Justice Department said.

The memory card contained “militarily sensitive design elements, operating parameters and performance characteristics of Virginia-class submarine reactors,” according to a federal court affidavit.

Another memory card was concealed in a chewing gum package, the Justice Department said.

Toebbe received separate cryptocurrency payments totaling $100,000, according to the Justice Department.

Officials said Toebbe and his wife, who are from Annapolis, Maryland, were arrested after placing another memory card at a drop site in West Virginia. They were charged with conspiracy and “communication of restricted data,” according to a criminal complaint.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Sandra Maler and Jonathan Oatis)

Cyclone Kompasu strikes Philippines, kills 9

MANILA (Reuters) – Nine people have been killed in the Philippines and 11 were missing on Tuesday due to floods and landslides caused by heavy rain from tropical cyclone Kompasu, the national disaster agency said.

Kompasu, with maximum sustained winds of 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour, had absorbed remnants of an earlier cyclone before making landfall in the Philippines on Monday evening. Nearly 1,600 people were evacuated.

The disaster agency said it was verifying information from its regional units that reported four people killed in landslides in northern Benguet province and five killed in flash floods in Palawan, an island province in the country’s southwest.

Authorities were conducting search and rescue operations for 11 people missing mostly after landslides.

The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,600 islands is hit by about 20 storms or typhoons annually, bringing heavy rains that trigger deadly landslides.

President Rodrigo Duterte was monitoring the government’s disaster response, his spokesperson, Harry Roque said on Tuesday.

Rescue personnel were at the scene, while power and water restoration and road clearing was ongoing, he added.

Kompasu, the 13th tropical storm to enter the Philippines, is expected to leave its territory on Tuesday, the state weather agency said.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Martin Petty)

UN demands Libya inquiry into shooting of escaping migrants

GENEVA (Reuters) – Libyan security forces used “unnecessary and disproportionate” force to detain African migrants, shooting dead some of those trying to escape, the U.N. human rights office said on Tuesday as it demanded an inquiry into the violence.

Hundreds of migrants and refugees have waited outside a United Nations centre in Tripoli in recent days to seek help in escaping Libya after what aid groups called a violent crackdown in which thousands were arrested and several shot.

Migrants and asylum seekers, some of whose claims are pending, have been targeted by heavy-handed operations by Libyan security forces, U.N. human rights spokesperson Marta Hurtado told a U.N. briefing in Geneva.

“These have resulted in killings and serious injuries, a rise in detentions in appalling conditions, as well as expulsions of individuals to countries in sub-Saharan Africa without due process,” Hurtado said.

Libya’s Government of National Unity has said it is “dealing with a complex issue in the illegal migration file, as it represents a human tragedy in addition to the social, political and legal consequences locally and internationally”.

Libya has become a major transit point for migrants seeking to reach Europe in search of a better life. Some have been returned there by the Libyan Coast Guard after setting out in rickety boats.

Ministry of Interior officials first raided an informal settlement of hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers in Gergaresh west of Tripoli on Oct 1, handcuffing, arresting, and shooting or beating those who resisted, Hurtado said.

Some 500 migrants managed to escape from the Gheriyan detention center in Tripoli on Oct. 6 and “were chased by guards who opened fire using live ammunition,” killing at least four and wounding others, she said.

Two days later, another mass escape took place from the al-Mabani center, with migrants chased by security officers who shot and killed an unknown number, she said. The head of the U.N. migration agency IOM in Libya said at least six people had been killed.

“We call on the authorities to establish prompt, thorough, impartial and independent investigations into the claims of unnecessary and disproportionate use of force including the allegations of killings by the security forces and affiliated armed groups, with a view to holding those responsible accountable,” Hurtado said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Angus McDowall and Giles Elgood)

‘Desperate for tires’ Components shortage roils U.S. harvest

By P.J. Huffstutter and Mark Weinraub

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Dale Hadden cannot find any spare tires for his combine harvester. So the Illinois farmer told his harvest crew to avoid driving on the sides of roads this autumn to avoid metal scraps that could shred tires.

New Ag Supply in Kansas is pleading with customers to order parts now for spring planting. And in Iowa, farmer Cordt Holub is locking up his machinery inside his barn each night, after thieves stole hard-to-find tractor parts from a local Deere & Co dealership.

“You try to baby your equipment, but we’re all at the mercy of luck right now,” said Holub, a fourth-generation corn and soybean farmer in Buckingham, Iowa.

Manufacturing meltdowns are hitting the U.S. heartland, as the semiconductor shortages that have plagued equipment makers for months expand into other components. Supply chain woes now pose a threat to the U.S. food supply and farmers’ ability to get crops out of fields.

Farmers say they are scrambling to find workarounds when their machinery breaks, tracking down local welders and mechanics. Growers looking to buy tractors and combines online are asking for close-up photos of the machine’s tires, because replacements are expensive and difficult to find, said Greg Peterson, founder of the Machinery Pete website which hosts farm equipment auctions.

“As harvest ends, we will see farmers at equipment auctions not for the machinery – but for parts,” Peterson said. “We’re already hearing from guys talking about buying a second planter or sprayer, just for parts.”

For some farmers, the shortages are forcing them to reuse – or repair – old parts.

At their small welding shop in western Washington, Rami and Bob Warburton can barely keep up with all the orders from farmers needing something repaired from fittings for irrigation systems to a cracked bulldozer bucket.

“We were in the middle of a drought up here,” Rami Warburton said. “At that time, they couldn’t wait to water their fields for a month. The crops will be dead by then.”

‘TYLENOL MOMENTS’

Kinks in the supply chain due to COVID-19 shutdowns in manufacturing hubs in the United States and Asia, a container shortage snarling major ports, and a dearth of workers prevent equipment manufacturers from fully cashing in on a lucrative moment, when grain prices have soared to the highest in nearly a decade.

The Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer, a monthly measure of farmer economic sentiment, fell 10% to its lowest level since July 2020 in early October. Supply concerns are weighing heavily on growers, with 55% of farmers surveyed saying that low inventories have affected their plans to buy machinery.

Access to steel, plastic, rubber and other raw materials has been scarce during the pandemic, and manufacturers are preparing for even more shocks after power shortages forced several Chinese smelters to cut production in recent weeks.

When executives from farm machinery maker AGCO Corp visited Midwest suppliers this summer, they found some companies were operating at only 60% staffing levels, said Greg Toornman, who oversees AGCO’s global supply chain management.

Toornman said staff levels are dropping at some suppliers in the Dakotas, Nebraska and Texas, as workers object to President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate, drop out of the workforce for fear of getting COVID-19 or move to other jobs.

“It’s the perfect storm of Tylenol moments,” Toornman said. “It’s one headache after another.”

The supply squeeze has put particular pressure on equipment dealerships, who typically see their service business boom during the traditional September through November harvest season.

This year, some have resorted to sifting through decade-old inventory for solutions. One pain point for dealerships is an industry-wide shortage of GPS receivers, which are used to run tractor guidance and data systems.

At Ag-Pro, the largest privately-owned Deere & Co dealership in North America, staff in Ohio have been digging out GPS units that date back to 2004. Until now, they were essentially worthless.

But producers can still use them to record a digital harvest map of their farms – something many need when talking to their bankers, landlords and crop insurance agents.

COMPONENTS TRIAGE

Equipment manufacturers are faced with a painful choice this harvest season: Send parts to factories to build new tractors and combines to sell to farmers or redirect those parts into the field to repair broken equipment for existing customers?

For AGCO and rival manufacturer CNH Industrial N.V., the answer is the latter.

“You can’t afford not to support those customers in the field,” AGCO’s Toornman said. “When you’re harvesting, timing is everything.”

CNH estimates that supply chain constraints ranging from increases in freight to higher raw materials prices have cost the company $1 billion.

That lag has forced the company to turn some factory parking lots into storage lots. At CNH’s combine plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, hundreds of unfinished combines sit outside, waiting for parts.

Meanwhile, CNH is redirecting components that can be used on its Case IH and New Holland equipment to customers in the field, a company representative said.

CNH has been signaling to dealers that supply chain problems and parts shortages for Case IH farm equipment are ongoing, according to Reuters interviews with six dealers. The manufacturer said in a statement it is meeting customer needs “the best we can given these unprecedented challenges.”

Deere said it is reorganizing shipping containers to make more room for goods, leasing extra cranes to expedite unloading ships at ports, and expanding its trucking fleet.

But component shortages are “particularly challenging for farmers facing what is already a short window of time to harvest,” said Luke Gakstatter, senior vice president of Deere’s aftermarket and customer support.

In some cases, the company has delivered unfinished machinery to customers. Missouri farmer Andy Kapp’s brand new combine rolled off the assembly line missing some of the high-tech cameras that help provide the very efficiency he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for.

But he is using it anyway, and even has stocked up on some extra parts, in case the combine breaks down.

“As you get toward the end of harvest, machinery and people get more tired,” Kapp said. “It’s a new machine. It won’t surprise us if there are a few loose bolts.”

(Reporting By P.J. Huffstutter and Mark Weinraub in Chicago; additional reporting by Dane Rhys in Monroeville, Ohio; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Marguerita Choy)

Delaware state auditor indicted on misconduct, felony theft charges -state AG

By Tyler Clifford

(Reuters) -Delaware state Auditor Kathy McGuiness has been indicted on criminal and other charges including felony theft, felony witness intimidation and official misconduct, state attorney general Kathy Jennings said on Monday.

McGuiness, who was the first woman to hold the office after being elected in November 2018, is accused of price-fixing state contracts and staffing her daughter as a ghost employee in late 2020 while she enrolled in college.

Attorneys also allege McGuiness structured a contract and manipulated invoices to avoid scrutiny, surveilled employees’ emails and intimidated whistleblowers.

As state auditor, McGuiness’ office is responsible for overseeing state government spending to catch fraud, waste and abuse of funds, according to its website.

Jennings said she has not spoken to McGuinness, but expects that she will be turning herself in.

“The investigation has confirmed a clear and a disturbing pattern of behavior that was not only unethical but it was against the law,” Jennings said. “I want to stress this investigation remains ongoing, but today the division of civil rights and public trusts sought and obtained an indictment against the defendant Kathy McGuiness.”

McGuinness could face up to 13 years in prison if convicted, added Jennings, a fellow Democrat.

The offices of Governor John Carney and state auditor were not immediately available for comment.

The daughter, now a college student, was hired when she was a high school senior as a public information officer during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Prosecutors allege she did very minimal work in the first months of employment and did not work at all when she left for college between August and December 2020.

The daughter, who is now listed as an “intern” in the system, was paid out almost $20,000 during state employment, more than $2,300 of which was disbursed during her first semester in college, the indictment said. Paychecks were distributed to a bank account in McGuinness’ name, the document said.

McGuinness was also charged with a felony for allegedly manipulating contracts by awarding a political campaign consultancy with two contracts in 2019 worth less than $50,000, court records said. Attorneys allege McGuinness structured the contracts and invoices to avoid scrutiny. About a dozen whistleblowers came forward over time, Jennings added.

(Reporting by Tyler Clifford in New York; Writing by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Chris Reese, Cynthia Osterman and Aurora Ellis)

Accused Colorado supermarket shooter deemed mentally incompetent

By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) -Psychologists who evaluated a 22-year-old man accused of fatally shooting 10 people at a Colorado grocery store in March have found him incompetent to stand trial, but prosecutors are seeking a second mental health evaluation, court records showed on Monday.

Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa is charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder, and dozens of attempted murder and related charges stemming from the March 22 rampage at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, about 28 miles northwest of Denver.

Prosecutors allege Alissa stormed the supermarket and opened fire with a Ruger AR-556 semi-automatic pistol that he had legally purchased six days before the rampage.

Among those killed was a responding Boulder policeman.

Alissa has been held without bond since his arrest, and last month a judge ordered that he undergo a competency evaluation.

The report by the two court-appointed psychologists has not been released, but their conclusions were set out in a motion filed by prosecutors for a second examination, to which defense lawyers object.

In their motion, prosecutors argued that the initial evaluation showed Alissa is aware of his legal predicament.

“Defendant indicates an understanding of his charges, the potential sentence, the roles of the judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney,” the prosecution motion said.

In objecting to the prosecution request, defense attorneys said Alissa mistakenly believes he could be executed if found guilty.

“The death penalty is not a potential sentence in this case, and the report reflects his (Alissa’s) fixation on that as a sentence,” the defense motion said.

Under Colorado law, a judge is required to conduct a competency hearing before ruling on whether a defendant is mentally fit to stand trial.

The judge has not ruled on the prosecution request, though the issue will likely be argued during an Oct. 14 competency review hearing.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Dan Grebler and Alistair Bell)

Afghan minister wants good relations, needs more time on girls’ education

DOHA (Reuters) -Afghanistan’s foreign minister appealed to the world for good relations on Monday but avoided making firm commitments on girls’ education despite international demands to allow all Afghan children to go back to school.

Almost two months after the former Western-backed government collapsed and insurgent forces swept into Kabul, the new Taliban administration has pushed to build relations with other countries to help stave off a catastrophic economic crisis.

“The international community need to start cooperating with us,” acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said at an event organized by the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. “With this we will be able to stop insecurity and at the same time with this we will be able to engage positively with the world.”

But the Taliban have so far refused to give ground on allowing girls to return to high school, one of the key demands of the international community after a decision last month that schools above the sixth grade would only reopen for boys.

Muttaqi said the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate government was moving carefully but had only been in power for a few weeks and could not be expected to complete reforms the international community had not been able to implement in 20 years.

“They had a lot of financial resources and they had a strong international backing and support but at the same time you are asking us to do all the reforms in two months?” he said.

The new administration has come under sustained criticism for its approach to girls’ education, considered one of the limited number of unambiguously positive gains from the West’s two decades of involvement in Afghanistan.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the Taliban had broken promises on guaranteeing rights for women and girls and there was no way the economy could be fixed if women were barred from work.

Muttaqi repeated calls for the United States to lift a block on more than $9 billion of Afghan central bank reserves held outside the country but said the government had revenues of its own from taxes, customs tariffs and agriculture if the funds remain frozen.

He said Taliban forces had full control of the country and were able to control the threat from Islamic State militants who have claimed a series of deadly attacks in recent weeks, including last week’s bombing at a Shi’ite mosque in the northern city of Kunduz.

“The Daesh issue has been controlled by the Islamic Emirate very well so far,” he said using a derogatory term for the radical Sunni group but adding that international pressure on the government was helping Islamic State’s morale.

“Instead of pressure the world should cooperate with us.”

(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell, Andrew Mills, James Mackenzie; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Giles Elgood)

Exclusive: Major coffee buyers face losses as Colombia farmers fail to deliver

By Maytaal Angel

LONDON (Reuters) – Coffee farmers in Colombia, the world’s No. 2 arabica producer, have failed to deliver up to 1 million bags of beans this year or nearly 10% of the country’s crop, leaving exporters, traders and roasters facing steep losses, industry sources told Reuters.

World coffee prices have soared 55% this year, mainly due to adverse weather in top producer Brazil, prompting Colombian farmers to default on sales clinched when prices were much lower in order to re-sell the coffee at higher rates.

“Traders are getting defaulted on, it’s a mess. If drought continues (in Brazil), 300 cents (per lb. of coffee) is possible. It’s going to be mayhem,” said a dealer at a global agricultural commodities trade house.

He said leading global roasters are planning to change the branding on their ‘single origin Colombia’ coffees due to sourcing problems.

Delivery defaults in a major producer like Colombia can exacerbate price spikes on world markets, although these would be temporary because the coffee ultimately exists and will weigh on markets once it is re-sold.

Colombian farmers say they will deliver the coffee later this year or next but buyers are unconvinced.

Many are opting to see losses now and write the purchases off as defaults rather than wait and risk even bigger losses if farmers still don’t deliver next year and prices rise further, according to a senior trader at another global trade house.

He said several global trade houses are looking at losses of $8-10 million each on undelivered coffee, while Colombia’s coffee growers federation FNC, which represents farmers but also accounts for 20% of the country’s 12.5 million bags of annual coffee exports, faces higher losses.

TAKING THE HIT

“There was easily 1 million bags of forward (Colombian coffee sales) done before the market started rallying mid-May,” said the senior trader. “If you work for a multinational (trade house) your boss will say come on, we have to take the hit.”

Delivery defaults in a rallying coffee market are a huge issue for commodity exporters and traders who often hedge physical purchases by taking short positions in the futures market, causing them to sustain steep losses as prices rise.

Usually, traders would be able to sell the physical coffee they are owed at current lofty rates in order to offset their futures market loss, but in the case of a default, they can’t.

Defaults can also force traders to purchase supplies pre-sold to roasters at a loss in the pricey spot market.

FNC head Roberto Velez confirmed to Reuters that Colombia is facing widespread defaults.

“I can tell you there are few Colombian exporters not suffering (from defaults). All the major trade houses and also the federation as a major exporter, we’re all suffering (losses),” he said.

“When a grower doesn’t deliver, the whole chain gets stuck losing money,” he added.

Traders told Reuters the federation has given Colombian farmers at least another year to deliver the coffee – a move that could force the industry body to approach the government for bail-out funds if the farmers still don’t deliver in time.

MOUNTING LOSSES

A senior Columbia-based coffee trader with Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) left the company in the wake of losses, two sources with knowledge of the matter said.

LDC said it does not comment on organizational changes except in relation to executives.

“Companies will be in trouble with (the scale of the losses), big guys will change their team, but smaller guys will go bankrupt,” said a senior trader.

He added major local Colombian exporter La Meseta has been hard hit by farmer defaults and is struggling to make good on its supply deals with international roasters, leaving them exposed to losses.

La Meseta did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Selling coffee forward in Colombia has become popular in the last few years, but up until this year, the move had mostly worked out in favor of farmers as world prices drifted lower so farmers received better prices for their coffee on delivery, not worse.

About 550,000 Colombian families make their living growing coffee and the Andean country is the largest producer of the washed arabica grade on which benchmark futures contracts on the ICE exchange are based.

(Reporting by Maytaal Angel in London; Additional reporting by Oliver Griffin and Julia Symmes Cobb; in Bogota; Editing by David Gaffen, Veronica Brown and Susan Fenton)

Energy from bogs: Estonian scientists use peat to make batteries

By Janis Laizans and Andrius Sytas

TARTU, Estonia (Reuters) – Peat, plentiful in bogs in northern Europe, could be used to make sodium-ion batteries cheaply for use in electric vehicles, scientists at an Estonian university say.

Sodium-ion batteries, which do not contain relatively costly lithium, cobalt or nickel, are one of the new technologies that battery makers are looking at as they seek alternatives to the dominant lithium-ion model.

Scientists at Estonia’s Tartu University say they have found a way to use peat in sodium-ion batteries, which reduces the overall cost, although the technology is still in its infancy.

“Peat is a very cheap raw material – it doesn’t cost anything, really,” says Enn Lust, head of the Institute of Chemistry at the university.

The process includes heating decomposed peat to a high temperature in a furnace for 2-3 hours. The university expects the government to fund a small-scale factory in Estonia to try out the technology.

Distillers in Scotland dry malt over peat fires to flavor whisky, and some northern European countries use peat to fuel factories and households, or as fertilizer.

As bogs are drained to mine peat, they release trapped carbon dioxide, raising environmental concerns. But the Estonian scientists say they are using decomposed peat, a waste product of traditional extraction methods that is usually discarded.

Sodium-ion batteries using peat will need to prove they are commercially viable and can be scaled up, Lukasz Bednarski, a market analyst and the author of a book on batteries, told Reuters.

China’s CATL in July became the first major automotive battery maker to unveil a sodium-ion battery.

“I think that companies will increasingly try to commercialize the sodium-ion battery, especially after the CATL announcement,” said Bednarski.

Less powerful sodium-ion batteries are likely to be used together with lithium-ion technology to bring down the overall cost of a battery pack, he said.

(Reporting by Janis Laizans in Tartu, Andrius Sytas in Vilnius and Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm; Writing by Andrius Sytas; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Merck seeks first U.S. authorization for COVID-19 pill

(Reuters) -Merck & Co Inc said on Monday it has applied for U.S. emergency use authorization for its drug to treat mild-to-moderate patients of COVID-19, putting it on course to become the first oral antiviral medication for the disease.

An authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could help change clinical management of COVID-19 as the pill can be taken at home.

The treatment, molnupiravir, cut the rate of hospitalization and death by 50% in a trial of mild-to-moderately ill patients who had at least one risk factor for the disease, according to data released earlier this month.

The interim efficacy data on the drug, developed with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, had heavily dented the shares of COVID-19 vaccine makers and set off a scramble among nations, including Malaysia, South Korea and Singapore, to sign a supply deal with Merck.

The drugmaker has a U.S. government contract to supply 1.7 million courses at a price of $700 per course. Merck expects to produce 10 million courses of the treatment by the end of 2021.

It has also agreed to license the drug to several India-based generic drugmakers, which are expected to supply the treatment to more than 100 low- and middle-income countries.

Gilead Sciences Inc’s infused antiviral remdesivir is generally given only once a patient is hospitalized.

Monoclonal antibody drugs from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc and Eli Lilly, which are typically infused as well, have so far seen only limited use due to the difficulty in administering them.

Merck’s shares opened roughly 1% higher before paring some gains to trade at $81.32.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra and Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)