World
Indonesia hikes fuel prices by 30%, cuts energy subsidies
Fuel prices increased by about 30% across Indonesia on Saturday after the government reduced some of the costly subsidies that have kept inflation in Southeast Asia’s largest economy among the world’s lowest.
Indonesians have been fretting for weeks about a looming increase in the price of subsidized Pertalite RON-90 gasoline sold by Pertamina, the state-owned oil and gas company. Long lines of motorbikes and cars snaked around gas stations as motorists waited for hours to fill up their tanks with cheaper gas before the increase took effect on Saturday.
The hike — the first in eight years — raised the price of gasoline from about 51 cents to 67 cents per liter and diesel fuel from 35 cents to 46 cents.
President Joko Widodo said the decision to increase the fuel prices was his last option as the country’s energy subsidy had tripled this year to 502 trillion rupiah ($34 billion) from its original budget, triggered by rising global prices of oil and gas.
“The government has tried its best as I really want fuel prices to remain affordable,” Widodo told a televised address announcing the fuel hike. “The government has to make decisions in difficult situations.”
He said that the flow of subsidies to the public was not well targeted — about 70% of subsidies were benefiting middle and upper classes — and the government decided instead to increase social assistance.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said authorities were monitoring the impact on inflation and economic growth of the rise in fuel price.
Inflation has been relatively modest with the shock being mostly absorbed through a budget bolstered by energy subsidies. Inflation hit 4.6% in August as Bank Indonesia, the central bank, has said it would reassess the inflation outlook in response to the government fuel price policy.
Read: Strong undersea quake causes panic in western Indonesia
Indrawati said in a separate news conference that the government would provide 150,000 rupiah ($10) cash handouts to cushion the impact of the fuel price increase on 20.6 million poor families until the year end. The total cost of the handouts will be 12.4 trillion rupiah, which will be reallocated from the budget for energy subsidies.
She said the government will also spend 9.6 trillion rupiah ($644 million) on salary assistance to about 16 million low paid workers, and 2.17 trillion rupiah ($145 million) will go to subsidizing transport costs, particularly for motorcycle taxi drivers and fishermen.
“We hope this can reduce pressure of rising prices and help reduce poverty,” Indrawati said.
The government has subsidized fuel for decades in Indonesia, the vast archipelago nation of more than 270 million people.
Fuel prices are a politically sensitive issue that could trigger other price hikes and risk student protests. In 1998, an increase in prices sparked riots that helped topple longtime dictator Suharto.
Gorbachev’s marriage, like his politics, broke the mold
When Mikhail Gorbachev is buried Saturday at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery, he will once again be next to his wife, Raisa, with whom he shared the world stage in a visibly close and loving marriage that was unprecedented for a Soviet leader.
“They were a true pair. She was a part of him, almost always at his side,” then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany said at Raisa’s funeral in 1999, where Gorbachev wept openly. “Much of what he achieved is simply unimaginable without his wife.”
Gorbachev’s very public devotion to his family broke the stuffy mold of previous Soviet leaders, just as his openness to political reform did.
“He loved a woman more than his work. I think he wouldn’t have been able to embrace her if his hands were stained with blood,” wrote Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov, editor of Russia’s leading independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. Co-owned by Gorbachev, it was forced to shut under official pressure after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We should always remember,” Muratov continued, “he loved a woman more than his work, he placed human rights above the state and he valued peaceful skies more than personal power.”
Gorbachev’s open attachment to his family also stands in stark contrast to the secrecy that surrounds the private life of Russia’s current leader, President Vladimir Putin.
For her part, Raisa Gorbacheva cut a bold figure for Soviet first ladies — more visible, with a direct way of speaking, a polished manner and fashionable clothes. A sociologist by training, she had met Mikhail at a Moscow university where they both studied.
“One day we took each other by the hand and went for a walk in the evening. And we walked like that for our whole life,” Gorbachev told Vogue magazine in 2013. Raisa accompanied him on his travels, and they discussed policy and politics together.
Her confident demeanor and prominent public role didn’t sit well with many Russians, who had also soured on Gorbachev and blamed his policies for the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union. The couple won sympathy, however, in 1999, when it was revealed that Raisa was dying of leukemia. Her husband spoke daily with television reporters, and the sometimes lofty-sounding politician of old was suddenly seen as an emotional, grieving family man.
For more than two decades after she was gone, Gorbachev kept Raisa’s memory alive and embraced his status as a lonely widower.
He released a CD of seven romantic songs, “Songs for Raisa,” in 2009 on which he sang along with well-known Russian musician and guitarist Andrei Makarevich. Sales went to the charities Raisa had founded. A few years later, he published a book dedicated to her, “Alone with Myself.”
Their marriage even became the subject of a popular play in Moscow in 2021, “Gorbachev.” Its point was one noteworthy for Russia: that the country’s leader was a human being who prioritized family, friends and personal obligations. One scene recounted a key moment in Gorbachev’s career when he returned to Moscow after the failed communist coup against him in 1991. Raisa had had a stroke, and instead of immediately stepping back onto the political stage, he went to the hospital to be with her.
Read: Mikhail Gorbachev, who steered Soviet breakup, dead at 91
“I was not married to the country — Russia or the Soviet Union,” Gorbachev wrote in his memoirs. “I was married to my wife, and that night I went with her to the hospital.”
At the Moscow cemetery, a life-size statue of Raisa has stood for many years now over the grave intended for them both.
The Gorbachevs had a daughter, Irina, two granddaughters and a great-granddaughter. Despite his attachment to family, Gorbachev lived out his life in Russia while they live in Germany.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a businessman in the early post-Soviet days who now lives in exile in London, tweeted this week that one of Gorbachev’s great strengths was his ability to wash away “awe of the person on the throne,” and that his attention to family was part of that.
“With this he changed my life. And also by his attitude toward Raisa Maximovna — a second important lesson,” Khodorkovsky said, using Gorbacheva’s patronymic. “He went to her. Rest in peace.”
Global food prices dip for fifth month
Global food prices dropped for a fifth straight month in August, but were still eight percent higher than a year ago, according to the UN food and agriculture agency.
The cost of food has been one of the biggest contributors to inflation around the world.
FAO's latest global food price index, published Friday, shows that the prices of five commodities – cereals, vegetable oil, dairy, meat and sugar – were lower in August than in July.
The index, which measures the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, averaged 138.0 points last month, down nearly two percent from July, though 7.9 percent above the value a year before.
The decline in cereal prices reflected improved production prospects in North America and Russia and the resumption of exports from Black Sea ports in Ukraine.
A landmark agreement to unblock Ukraine's grain exports amid the ongoing war was signed in July by the country, Russia, Türkiye and the UN.
Read: UN food price index dropped in July for fourth month
Rice prices on average held steady during August, while quotations for coarse grains, such as maize, rose marginally.
Vegetable oil prices fell 3.3 percent, which is slightly below the August 2021 level. The FAO attributed this to the increased availability of palm oil from Indonesia, due to lower export taxes, and the resumption of sunflower oil shipments from Ukraine.
Although dairy prices saw a two percent drop, they remained 23.5 percent higher than in August 2021.
The price of cheese increased for the tenth consecutive month, though milk prices eased following expectations of increased supplies from New Zealand, even amid projections of lower production in Western Europe and the US.
The price of meat dropped by 1.5 percent but remained just over eight percent higher than the value last August.
International quotations for poultry fell amid elevated export availability, and bovine meat prices declined due to weak domestic demand in some top exporting countries while pig meat quotations rose.
Sugar prices also hit their lowest level since July 2021, largely due to high export caps in India and lower ethanol prices in Brazil.
The FAO also issued its global cereal production forecast for this year, which projects a decline of nearly 40 million tonnes or 1.4 percent from the previous year.
The bulk of this decline mainly concerns coarse grains, with maize yields in Europe expected to drop 16 percent below their five-year average level due to the exceptionally hot and dry weather conditions affecting the continent.
However, the UN agency expects there will be a negligible drop in worldwide wheat production resulting from expected record harvests in Russia and conducive weather conditions in North America.
Global rice production is also expected to decline by 2.1 percent from the all-time high reached in 2021.
India: 4 killed, 24 hurt in bus-truck collision
Four people were killed and at least 24 others injured when a speedy truck crashed into a commuter bus parked along a busy highway in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday.
The accident occurred near Mahungupur village in Uttar Pradesh's Barabanki district, some 30 kms from state capital Lucknow, this morning.
"The double-decker bus carrying 60 migrant workers from Nepal to the western Indian state of Goa was parked along the highway following a tyre puncture. Unable to spot the bus, the truck driver hit the vehicle from behind," a police officer told the local media.
The impact of the crash left the bus driver, who was replacing the punctured tyre, and three passengers dead on the spot. "The 24 other injured occupants of the bus have been hospitalised," the officer said.
Local TV channels reported, quoting health officials, that six of the injured passengers were shifted to a government hospital in Lucknow after their condition at Barabanki district hospital worsened.
"A probe has been ordered into the accident," the police officer said.
Road accidents are common in India, with one taking place every four minutes. These accidents are often blamed on poor roads, rash driving and scant regard for traffic laws.
Also read: Two killed, 15 hurt in Bagerhat bus accident
The Indian government's implementation of stricter traffic laws in recent years has failed to rein in accidents, which claim over 100,000 lives every year.
Border Patrol: 8 migrants found dead in Rio Grande at Texas
At least eight migrants were found dead in the Rio Grande after dozens attempted a hazardous crossing near Eagle Pass, Texas, officials said Friday.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Mexican officials made the discovery Thursday while responding to a large group of people crossing the river following days of heavy rains that had resulted in particularly swift currents. U.S. officials recovered six bodies, while Mexican teams recovered two others, according to a CBP statement.
The agency said U.S. crews rescued 37 others from the river and detained 16 more, while Mexican officials took 39 migrants into custody. Officials on both sides of the border continue searching for any possible victims, the CBP said.
CPD did not say what country or countries the migrants were from and did not provide any additional information on the rescue or search. Local agencies in Texas that were involved did not immediately respond to requests for additional information.
Also read: Gunman fatally shoots 2, wounds 3 Texas cops, takes own life
The Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector, which includes Eagle Pass, is fast becoming the busiest corridor for illegal crossings. Agents stopped migrants nearly 50,000 times in the sector in July, with Rio Grande Valley a distant second at about 35,000.
The area draws migrants from dozens of countries, many of them in families with young children. About 6 of 10 stops in the Del Rio sector in July were migrants from Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua.
The sector, which extends 245 miles (395 kilometers) along the Río Grande, has been especially dangerous because river currents can be deceptively fast and change quickly. Crossing the river can be challenging even for strong swimmers.
In a news release last month, CPD said it had discovered bodies of more than 200 dead migrants in the sector from October through July.
Surveys by the U.N. International Organization for Migration and others point to rising fatalities as the number of crossing attempts have soared. In the last three decades, thousands have died attempting to enter the United States from Mexico, often from dehydration or drowning.
In June, 53 migrants were found dead or dying in a tractor-trailer on a back road in San Antonio in the deadliest tragedy to claim the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico.
NASA aims for Saturday launch of new moon rocket after fixes
NASA aimed for a Saturday launch of its new moon rocket, after fixing fuel leaks and working around a bad engine sensor that foiled the first try.
The inaugural flight of the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket — the most powerful ever built by NASA — was delayed late in the countdown Monday. The Kennedy Space Center clocks started ticking again as managers expressed confidence in their plan and forecasters gave favorable weather odds.
Atop the rocket is a crew capsule with three test dummies that will fly around the moon and back over the course of six weeks — NASA’s first such attempt since the Apollo program 50 years ago. NASA wants to wring out the spacecraft before strapping in astronauts on the next planned flight in two years.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said he’s more confident going into this second launch attempt, given everything engineers learned from the first try.
Also read: Fuel leak interrupts launch countdown of NASA moon rocket
So is astronaut Jessica Meir, who’s on NASA’s short list for one of the initial moon crews.
“We’re all excited for this to go, but the most important thing is that we go when we’re ready and we get it right, because the next missions will have humans on board. Maybe me, maybe my friends,” Meir told The Associated Press on Friday.
The engineers in charge of the Space Launch System rocket insisted Thursday evening that all four of the rocket’s main engines were good and that a faulty temperature sensor caused one of them to appear as though it were too warm Monday. The engines need to match the minus-420 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-250 degrees Celsius) of the liquid hydrogen fuel at liftoff, otherwise they could be damaged and shut down in flight.
“We have convinced ourselves without a shadow of a doubt that we have good-quality liquid hydrogen going through the engines,” said John Honeycutt, the rocket’s program manager.
Once fueling begins Saturday morning, the launch team will perform another engine test — this time earlier in the countdown. Even if that suspect sensor indicates the one engine is too warm, other sensors can be relied on to ensure everything is working correctly and to halt the countdown if there’s a problem, Honeycutt told reporters.
NASA could not perform that kind of engine test during dress rehearsals earlier this year because of leaking fuel. More fuel leaks cropped up Monday; technicians found some loose connections and tightened them.
The engine-temperature situation adds to the flight’s risk, as does another problem that cropped up Monday: cracks in the foam insulation of the rocket. If any foam pieces break off at liftoff, they could strike the strap-on boosters and damage them. Engineers consider the likelihood of that happening low and have accepted these slight additional risks.
“This is an extremely complicated machine and system. Millions of parts,” NASA’s chief, Nelson, told the AP. “There are, in fact, risks. But are those risks acceptable? I leave that to the experts. My role is to remind them you don’t take any chances that are not acceptable risk.”
The $4.1 billion test flight is NASA’s first step in sending astronauts around the moon in 2024 and landing them on the surface in 2025. Astronauts last walked on the moon in 1972.
Trump search inventory reveals new details from FBI seizure
Along with highly classified government documents, the FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate found dozens of empty folders marked classified but with nothing inside and no explanation of what might have been there, according to a more detailed inventory of the seized material made public on Friday.
The agents also found more than 10,000 other government documents kept by Trump with no classification marked.
The inventory compiled by the Justice Department reveals in general terms the contents of 33 boxes and containers taken from Trump’s office and a storage room at Mar-a-Lago during the Aug. 8 search. Though the inventory does not describe the content of the documents, it shows the extent to which classified information — including material at the top-secret level — was stashed in boxes at the home and mixed among newspapers, magazines, clothing and other personal items.
And the empty folders raise the question of whether the government has recovered all of the classified papers that Trump kept after leaving the White House.
The inventory makes clear for the first time the volume of unclassified government documents at the home even though presidential records were to have been turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration. The Archives had tried unsuccessfully for months to secure their return from Trump and then contacted the FBI after locating classified information in a batch of 15 boxes it received in January.
The Justice Department has said there was no secure space at Mar-a-Lago for sensitive government secrets, and has opened a criminal investigation focused on their retention there and on what it says were efforts in the past several months to obstruct the probe. It is also investigating potential violations of a law that criminalizes the mutilation or concealment of government records, classified or not.
Lawyers for Trump did not immediately return an email seeking comment Friday. Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich asserted that the FBI search was a “SMASH AND GRAB” — though the Justice Department had received court-authorized permission to search specific locations in the home.
Read:Trump CFO’s plea deal could make him a prosecution witness
The inventory was released as the Justice Department undertakes its criminal investigation, as intelligence agencies assess any risk to national security caused by mishandling of classified information and as a judge weighs whether to appoint a special master — essentially an outside legal expert — to review the records.
The inventory had been filed earlier under seal, but the Justice Department had said that given the “extraordinary circumstances,” it did not object to making it public. Trump himself has previously called for the disclosure of documents related to the search. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said on Thursday that she planned to unseal the inventory and did so on Friday.
All told, the inventory shows, the FBI seized more than 100 documents with classification markings in August, including 18 marked top secret, 54 secret and 31 confidential. The FBI had identified 184 documents marked as classified in 15 boxes recovered by the Archives in January, and received additional classified documents in a single Redweld envelope during a June visit to Mar-a-Lago.
The Justice Department has said that it searched the property in August after developing evidence that documents were likely “concealed and removed” from the storage room as part of an effort to obstruct its probe.
The court filings have not offered an explanation for why Trump had kept the classified documents, and why he and his representatives did not return them when requested.
The inventory shows that 48 empty folders with classified banners were taken either from the storage room or office, along with additional empty folders labeled as “Return to Staff Secretary” or military aide.
It is not clear from the inventory list what might have happened to any of the documents that apparently had been inside.
Separately Friday, the Justice Department said in a court filing that it had reviewed the records seized during the recent search and had segregated those with classified markings to ensure that they were being stored according to proper protocol and procedure.
“The seized materials will continue to be used to further the government’s investigation, and the investigative team will continue to use and evaluate the seized materials as it takes further investigative steps, such as through additional witness interviews and grand jury practice,” the department said.
It added that “additional evidence pertaining to the seized items,” including the manner in which they were stored, “will inform the government’s investigation.”
Injuries, destruction reported in Northern California blaze
A fast-moving fire in Northern California injured several people, a fire official said, and destroyed multiple homes Friday as thousands of residents were forced to leave immediately, jamming roadways at the start of a sweltering Labor Day weekend.
The Northern California blaze destroyed multiple homes Friday and forced as many as 7,500 residents to leave immediately, jamming roadways at the start of a sweltering Labor Day weekend. Suzi Brady, a Cal Fire spokeswoman, said several people were injured and taken to a hospital. She said she didn’t know the extent of their injuries.
Brady said residents are still evacuating and that the blaze continues to rapidly spread amid 36 mph (58 kph) winds.
She said more resources have been requested to aid at least 200 firefighters battling the blaze on the ground and from the air.
Brady didn’t know how many people have been injured or where they were taken.
The Mill Fire started on the property of Roseburg Forest Products, a lumber mill north of the town of Weed, and quickly burned through homes and prompted evacuation orders for all of Weed and the nearby communities of Lake Shastina and Edgewood, with a combined population of about 7,500 people, said Weed councilwoman Sue Tavalero.
Also read: California wildfires prompt evacuations amid heat wave
She said there were burned homes in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood but “I don’t know how many. I’m positive several homes have been lost.”
The blaze spread quickly in hot and windy conditions, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. The Mill Fire had burned 1.4 square miles (3.6 square kilometers), according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Rebecca Taylor, communications director for Roseburg Forest Products based in Springfield, Oregon, said she did not know where or how the fire started but the company evacuated its veneer plant in Weed after the fire was reported at 12:58 p.m. Friday. Some of its property is burned. The plant employs 145 people, although not all were on shift at the time, Taylor said.
“We’re just devastated to see this fire affecting the community in this way,” she said.
Evacuees described heavy smoke and chunks of ash raining down from massive flames near Weed, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of the Oregon border.
Christopher Rock, an employee at the Mayten Store in Montague, 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Weed, said fire evacuees had swarmed the pumps.
“It’s really busy right now,” he said. “You can’t see the flames from here, just a lot of smoke.”
Marco Noriega, brew master at Mount Shasta Brewing Company, said he received the notice to evacuate around 1 p.m. and he sent the 10 customers and three employees away. He said the power is out and he has received little information.
The wind was blowing from the south, keeping the fire away. He sounded calm as he cleaned up.
“I’ve been through it before, so long as the wind stays in the direction it is, I’m all right. But I know the wind switches quickly,” he said by phone.
The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning for Siskiyou County from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday when area winds were expected to reach up to 31 mph (50 kph).
Willo Balfrey, 82, an artist from Lake Shastina, said she was painting Friday afternoon when her grandson, who is a member of the California Highway Patrol, called to warn her of the fast-spreading flames.
“He said, ‘don’t linger, grab your computer, grab what you need and get out of the house now. It’s coming your way.’ So I did,” Balfrey told The Associated Press.
She grabbed a suitcase full of important documents, as well as water and her computer, iPhone and chargers, and headed out the door.
“I’ve reached the philosophy that if I have all my paperwork, what’s in the house is not that important,” she said.
She stopped to get her neighbor and they drove to a church parking lot in Montague, where about 40 other vehicles were also parked.
Olga Hood heard about the fire on her scanner and stepped onto to the front porch of her Weed home to see smoke blowing over the next hill.
With the notorious gusts that tear through the town at the base of Mount Shasta, she didn’t wait for an evacuation order. She packed up her documents, medication and little else, said her granddaughter, Cynthia Jones.
“With the wind in Weed everything like that moves quickly. It’s bad,” Jones said by phone from her home in Medford, Oregon. “It’s not uncommon to have 50 to 60 mph gusts on a normal day. I got blown into a creek as a kid.”
Hood’s home of nearly three decades was spared from a blaze last year and from the devastating Boles Fire that tore through town eight years ago, destroying more than 160 buildings, mostly homes.
Hood wept as she discussed the fire from a relative’s house in the hamlet of Granada, Jones said. She wasn’t able to gather photos that had been important to her late husband.
In Southern California, firefighters were making progress Friday against two big wildfires despite dangerously hot weather.
Containment of the Route Fire along Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles increased to 37% and it remained at just over 8 square miles (21 square kilometers) in size, a Cal Fire statement said.
California is in the grip of a prolonged heat wave. Temperatures have been so high that residents have been asked for three consecutive days to conserve power during late afternoon and evening hours when solar energy declines.
On Wednesday, seven firefighters working the Route Fire in triple-digit temperatures had to be taken to hospitals for treatment of heat illnesses. All were released.
The tally of destroyed structures remained at two, and all evacuation orders were lifted.
In eastern San Diego County, the Border 32 Fire remained at just under 7 square miles (18 square kilometers) and containment increased to 20%.
More than 1,500 people had to evacuate the area near the U.S.-Mexico border when the fire erupted Wednesday. All evacuations were lifted by Friday afternoon.
Two people were hospitalized with burns. Three homes and seven other buildings were destroyed.
Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
Russia’s Gazprom keeps gas pipeline to Germany switched off
Europe’s energy crisis loomed larger Friday after Russian energy giant Gazprom said it couldn’t resume the supply of natural gas through a major pipeline to Germany for now. The company cited what it said was a need for urgent maintenance work to repair key components — in an announcement made just hours before it had been due to restart deliveries.
The Russian state-run energy company had shut down the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Wednesday for what it said would be three days of maintenance.
It said in a social media post Friday evening that it had identified “malfunctions” of a turbine and added that the pipeline would not work unless those were eliminated.
The move was the latest development in a saga in which Gazprom has advanced technical problems as the reason for reducing gas flows through Nord Stream 1 — explanations that German officials have rejected as a cover for a political power play following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
European utilities have scrambled to find additional supply during the summer months to get ready for the winter’s heating demands, buying expensive liquefied gas that comes by ship, while additional supplies have come by pipeline from Norway and Azerbaijan.
Fears of a winter shortage have eased somewhat as storage has progressed, but a complete cutoff could present Europe with serious difficulties, analysts say. The European Union needs to step up efforts to reduce gas consumption, said energy policy expert Simone Tagliapietra at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels.
The continuing interruptions from Gazprom mean that “a winter with zero Russian gas is the central scenario for Europe.” he said. “There is only one way to prepare for that: reducing gas and electricity demand.”
Gazprom said it had identified oil leaks from four turbines at the Portovaya compressor station at the Russian end of the pipeline, including the sole operational one. It claimed to have received warnings from Russia’s industrial safety watchdog that the leaks “do not allow for safe, trouble-free operation of the gas turbine engine.”
Read: UN agency to inspect Ukraine nuclear plant in urgent mission
“In connection with this, it is necessary to take appropriate measures and suspend further operation of the … gas compressor unit in connection with the identified gross (safety) violations,” the company said.
Gazprom started cutting supplies through Nord Stream 1 in mid-June, blaming delays to the delivery of a turbine that had been sent to Canada for repair. Canada has since allowed the turbine’s delivery to Germany, which has said that nothing stands in the way of it being sent to Russia other than Russia saying it wants the part.
In recent weeks, Nord Stream 1 has been running at only 20% of capacity.
Germany’s Siemens Energy, which manufactured the turbines, said following Gazprom’s announcement that “such a finding is not a technical reason for stopping operation.”
“Such leakages do not usually affect the operation of a turbine and can be sealed on site,” it said in a statement. It added that this “is a routine procedure during maintenance work” and that type of leakage didn’t result in operations being shut down in the past.
Siemens Energy said it wasn’t currently contracted for maintenance work, but was standing by. “Irrespective of this, we have already pointed out several times that there are enough additional turbines available at the Portovaya compressor station for Nord Stream 1 to operate,” it added.
Russia, which before the reductions started accounted for a bit more than a third of Germany’s gas supplies, has also reduced the flow of gas to other European countries which have sided with Ukraine in the war.
Natural gas is used to power industry, heat homes and offices, and generate electricity. Increasing the amount in reserve has been a key focus of the German government since Russia invaded Ukraine, to avoid rationing for industry as demand rises in the winter.
Germany’s storage facilities are now over 84% full.
The head of Germany’s network regulatory agency, Klaus Mueller, tweeted that the Russian decision to keep Nord Stream 1 switched off for now increases the significance of new liquefied natural gas terminals that Germany plans to start running this winter, gas storage and “significant needs to save” gas.
It is “good that Germany is now better prepared, but now it comes down to everyone,” Mueller added.
Germany’s Economy Ministry said it had “taken note” of Gazprom’s latest announcement and wouldn’t comment on it directly, but added that “we have already seen Russia’s unreliability in recent weeks” and continued efforts to reduce the country’s reliance on Russian energy imports.
“Of course these are difficult times but we will continue to strengthen provisions consistently,” the ministry said in a statement. “Great efforts are still needed but we are on a good path to coping with the situation.”
The European Union has just reached its goal of filling its gas storage to 80%, ahead of a Nov. 1 deadline, despite Russian supply cutbacks.
Sri Lanka’s ousted president Rajapaksa returns home
Sri Lanka’s former president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country in July after tens of thousands of protesters stormed his home and office in a display of anger over the country’s economic crisis, has returned to the country after seven weeks.
Rajapaksa flew into Colombo’s Bandaranaike international airport around midnight Friday from Bangkok via Singapore. On being welcomed by lawmakers in his party, Rajapaksa left the airport in a motorcade heavily guarded by armed soldiers and reached a government-owned house allocated to him as a former president, at the center of the capital, Colombo.
On July 13, the ousted leader, his wife and two bodyguards left aboard an air force plane for the Maldives, before traveling to Singapore from where he officially resigned. He flew to Thailand two weeks later.
Rajapaksa has no court case or arrest warrant pending against him. The only court case he was facing for alleged corruption during his time as the secretary to the ministry of defense under his older brother’s presidency was withdrawn when he was elected president in 2019 because of constitutional immunity.
Read: Sri Lanka leader proposes 25-year plan for crisis-hit nation
For months, Sri Lanka has been in the grips of its worst economic crisis, which triggered extraordinary protests and unprecedented public rage that ultimately forced Rajapaksa and his brother, the former prime minister, to step down. The situation in the bankrupt country was made worse by global factors like the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but many hold the once-powerful Rajapaksa family as responsible for severely mismanaging the economy and tipping it into crisis.
The economic meltdown has seen monthslong shortages of essentials such as fuel, medicine and cooking gas due to a severe shortage of foreign currency. Though cooking gas supplies were restored through World Bank support, shortages of fuel, critical medicines and some food items continue.
The island nation has suspended repayment of nearly $7 billion in foreign debt due this year. The country’s total foreign debt amounts to more than $51 billion, of which $28 billion has to be repaid by 2027.
On Tuesday, President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over after Rajapaksa resigned, and his administration reached a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a $2.9 billion bailout package over four years to help the country recover.
Rajapaksa, a former military officer, was elected on promises to uplift the country’s economy and ensure national security after Islamic State-inspired bomb attacks killed some 270 people in churches and hotels on Easter Sunday 2019. He relinquished his American citizenship when he contested the election because laws at the time made dual citizens ineligible from holding political office.
As a top defense official he is accused of overseeing human rights violations by the military during the country’s three-decade civil war with the now-defeated Tamil Tiger rebels who fought for an independent state for the country’s ethnic minority Tamils.
In April, protesters started camping outside the president’s office in the heart of Colombo and chanted “Gota, go home,” a demand for Rajapaksa to quit, which quickly became the rallying cry of the movement.
The demonstrations dismantled the Rajapaksa family’s grip on politics. Before Rajapaksa resigned, his older brother stepped down as prime minister and three more close family members quit their Cabinet positions.
But the country’s new president, Wickremesinghe, has since cracked down on protests. His first action as leader included dismantling the protest tents in the middle of the night as police forcibly removed demonstrators from the site and attacked them.
There is genuine fear among people who want to protest now, said Bhavani Fonseksa, with the independent think tank Center for Policy Alternatives.
“Whether people will take to the streets to demonstrate again is still to be seen, especially since there’s been so much repression since Ranil Wickremesinghe came to power. Several protesters have been arrested so there is genuine fear,” she said.
Dayan Jayatilleka, a former diplomat and political analyst, said the ruling SLPP party will welcome him back, but didn’t think his return would spark people to flood the streets again. “They will be sour — it is still far too early for him to return,” he said.
“There is no way Gotabaya will be forgiven for his transgressions but I think now there is more bitterness than public rage that awaits him,” Jayatilleka added.
For Nazly Hameem, an organizer who helped lead the protest movement, the former president’s return isn’t an issue “as long as he is held accountable.”
“He is a Sri Lankan citizen so no one can prevent him from coming back. But as someone who wants justice against the corrupt system, I would like to see action taken — there should be justice, they should file cases against him and hold him accountable for what he did to the country.”
“Our slogan was ‘Gota, go home’ — we didn’t expect him to flee, we wanted him to resign. As long as he doesn’t involve himself in active politics, it won’t be a problem.”