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In Thailand, crane accident kills 32 people
The regional governor reported that a train derailed on Wednesday in northeastern Thailand after a crane fell onto two of its wagons. At least 32 people were killed and 66 injured. The accident happened in the 'Sikhio' district of Nakhon Ratchasima Province, 230 km northeast of Bangkok. It was on a train bound for Ubon Ratchathani. In a press release, Transport Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn stated that there were 195 passengers aboard the train. He also said he ordered an investigation. The crane, which was working on high-speed rail construction project collapsed when it hit a passing train. This caused the train to derail briefly and catch fire. After being briefed on the incident, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said to reporters that the State Railway of Thailand should provide good compensation to the families of those who died. He added: "We must investigate... and take legal actions." The Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited, which had been contracted to build the rail section, expressed regret and promised to compensate and provide relief to the families of those who died. A 30-storey Bangkok building being constructed by a joint-venture including ITD collapsed in March of last year killing 89 after an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.8 struck Myanmar. ITD President Premchai Karnasuta was Indicted on August Along with 22 other people on allegations of negligence, and breaching "construction regulations". When they were arrested for the first time in May, the executive and 14 other people denied any wrongdoing. Smoke Billows from Wreckage The ministry shared images of train carriages flipped over next to shrubland, and firefighters extinguishing an blaze while smoke billowed. The footage, which was verified by, showed rescue workers attempting to remove casualties from a mangled carriage. Some of the badly injured passengers were already being loaded into ambulances. The elevated high-speed railway project was built above an existing rail line. The concrete stanchions that were built to support the rail link are still holding up a part of the collapsed crane. Debris is dangling from the tracks below. The project is part of a transnational high-speed rail link between the Thai capital and the southwest Chinese city Kunming. The recovery operations continued at the accident site into the evening of Wednesday.?Anutin said that the track must be cleared by the weekend. He said that delays on this major rail line would harm the local economy. HIGH-SPEED LINK?CONNECTS CHINA THROUGH THE LAOS Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said that Beijing attaches great importance to the safety of personnel and projects in Thailand. "At the moment, it appears that a Thai company was building the relevant section." The cause of the accident remains under investigation. The high-speed cross-country rail project will link to China via Laos. Last year, the government announced that more than one-third of the construction work had been completed on the segment between Bangkok and Nakhon Ratchasima. The entire line from Nong Khai to the border with Laos is expected to be ready by 2030. (Reporting Panarat Thepgumpanat, Panu Wongcha -um and Ethan Wang from Beijing; editing David Stanway Sharon Singleton Mark Heinrich
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Indonesian authorities discover wreckage of a missing surveillance plane that had 11 people on board
Indonesian authorities announced on Sunday that they have located the wreckage from a missing fisheries-surveillance plane in South Sulawesi Province near a foggy mountain. They are still searching for 11 people who were on board. The ATR42-500 turboprop owned by Indonesia Air Transport lost touch with air traffic control on Saturday around 1:30 pm local time (0530 GMT), in the Maros area of South Sulawesi. The plane was chartered by Indonesia’s Marine Affairs and Fisheries Ministry for air surveillance of fisheries. The passengers were staff from the ministry. The head of South Sulawesi’s rescue agency, Muhammad Arif Anwar said on local TV that the rescuers will deploy 1,200 people to?search the missing passengers and crew. He said, "Our first priority is to find the victims. We hope there are some that we can safely evacuate." Before losing contact, the aircraft was heading towards Makassar (the capital of South Sulawesi) after leaving Yogyakarta. Andi Sultan, a South Sulawesi rescue agency official, said that local rescuers discovered the wreckage around Mount Bulusaraung on Sunday morning. The mountain is located approximately 1,500 km (930 mi) northeast of Jakarta, the capital city of this island nation. Sultan informed reporters that "our helicopter crews saw the debris from the plane's windows at 7:46 am." He said that around 7:49 am, large pieces of aircraft were discovered, which he suspected to be fuselage. The tail of the airplane was also visible at the bottom slope of the mountain. Sultan said that rescuers were deployed at the sites where the wreckage had been discovered. He added that the search for the wreckage was hindered by dense fog and the mountainous terrain. Video footage released by the'rescue agency' shows a window from the plane scattered around the mountain in thick fog. Sultan stated that the National Transportation Safety Committee of Indonesia would be leading an investigation into this crash. Experts say that the cause of this accident is still unclear. The ATR 42 500, produced by the franco-italian planemaker ATR, is a regional turboprop aircraft that can carry between 42 and fifty passengers. Flightradar24, a flight tracking website, said that on X the plane was over the ocean and at a low level so its coverage was limited. The last signal was received around 20 km northeast of Makassar Airport at 0420 GMT. (Reporting and editing by Jamie Freed; Ananda Teresia)
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EU Summit Chair: European Union is weighing its response to Trump's Greenland Tariffs
Antonio Costa, the European Council president, said that the EU is'very firm' in defending international law. He was responding to a question regarding new tariff threats by U.S. President Donald Trump. Costa also added that he was working on an "EU response" on this issue. Costa said at a press briefing after the EU signed a free-trade agreement with Mercosur and Trump threatened to impose tariffs on European allies for refusing to support his desire to take over Greenland. He continued, "For the time being, I'm coordinating a response from the European Union member states on this issue." (Writing and Editing by Mark Potter.)
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India fines IndiGo $2.45Million for December cancellations
IndiGo was fined a record amount of?222 millions Indian rupees (2.45 million dollars) by India's aviation regulator on Saturday for "poor roster planning" that resulted in mass cancellations of flights in December. The regulator issued warnings for senior staff, including Chief Operating Officer Isidre?Porqueras, and Jason Herter, Senior Vice?President of Operations Control Centre, with instructions to IndiGo to relieve Herter?of "current operational responsibilities". According to a government source, the fine was the highest ever. IndiGo has been ordered to provide a $5.51m bank guarantee in favor of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. This is "to ensure compliance with the directives, and long-term correction of the system," according to the regulator. IndiGo stated in a press release that the board and management are "committed to taking full cognisance and will take appropriate measures, 'in a thoughtful manner and on time. India's biggest airline, Air India, canceled 4,500 flights in the first weeks of December. This left tens of thousand of passengers stranded across the country. It also caused chaos at airports. Reporting by Abhijith Gaapavaram and Rajveer Pardesi, Editing by Toby Chopra & Barbara Lewis
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Indonesia searches for missing surveillance aircraft with 11 onboard
Officials?said that Indonesian rescuers searched on Saturday for a missing ATR 42500 fisheries monitoring aircraft with 11 people aboard. Andi Sultan, a local rescue official, said that the Indonesia Air Transport plane had lost contact with air traffic control at around 1:30 pm (0530 GMT), in the Maros area of South Sulawesi Province. Sultan stated that the aircraft was heading towards Makassar (the capital of South Sulawesi) after leaving?Yogyakarta Province before contact was lost. He added that there were eight crew members and three passengers aboard. Sultan stated that around 400 personnel including military and law enforcement units were deployed to search for the aircraft and its passengers, but the effort was hampered by bad weather. Sultan declined to make any comments on the 'possible cause' of -the incident. We suspect that the plane crashed near the summit of Mount Bulusaraung. He said that our personnel had been deployed there. Pung Nugroho Sasono, a ministry official who works for the Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MoMAF), told the state news agency Antara that this plane was chartered. The three passengers, according to Marine Affairs and Fisheries minister Sakti Wahyu Trnggono, were staff of the ministry conducting air surveillance for?fisheries. The ATR 42 500 is a regional turboprop capable of carrying 42 to 50 passengers. Flightradar24 has unconfirmed data that an aircraft matching this description flew eastward at 11,000 feet over the Java Sea before rapidly losing altitude and dropping tracking systems. ATR, a Franco-Italian aircraft manufacturer in France, said that it was notified of an accident occurring in Indonesia. Its specialists are assisting the local authorities with their investigations. Reporting by Ananda Teresia from Jakarta, Tim Hepher from Paris and Rajveer S. Pardesi from Bengaluru. Toby Chopra, Mark Potter and Toby Chopra edited the story.
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US rail regulator finds merger application between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern incomplete
The U.S. Surface Transportation Board sent Union Pacific's $85 billion merger proposal with Norfolk Southern back to be revised on Friday, saying that it was missing required information. This is part of an ongoing review by the U.S. The STB rejected the application in December, citing a lack of projections on market share and competition impacts. The board denied the application without prejudice and allowed the railroads to re-file once they addressed the deficiencies. Donald Trump publicly supported the merger proposal. The administration tends to 'approve large transactions or impose remedy rather than blocking them outright. A merger of this magnitude was considered unthinkable during the Biden administration's broader crackdown against consolidation. This is the first major proposed?merger of railroads to be reviewed using the more stringent framework that was put in place over?two decades ago. The stricter framework?requires applicants?to prove their transaction will enhance competition, not just preserve it?while delivering demonstrable benefits to the public?interest? The board stated that the railroads had projected growth in traffic and divertions from the proposed coast to coast railroad, but only provided data for 2023, not the projections required showing how the combined carrier’s?share could evolve several years after the merger. The decision follows a filing in January by Canadian National. It argued that there were critical 'competitive disclosures' missing from the application, including a methodology to identify routes where two rails feed into one another and complete lists of 'potentially affected shippers'. Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern submitted their nearly 7,000-page application to the Federal Communications Commission on December 19. They claimed that this combination would increase?service reliability?, divert truck freight onto rails, maintain shipper options, and provide broad public benefits, while protecting union jobs. The STB stated that the ruling it issued should not be interpreted as a guideline for how it would ultimately determine whether a revised application was admissible.
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PJM announces plan to combat AI-driven surge in power demand
Grid operator PJM Interconnection unveiled a plan on Friday to manage'surging power 'demand from data centres that are required for Big Tech’s artificial intelligence expansion. This comes after the White House urged immediate action to avoid potential blackouts. PJM Interconnection announced that it plans to require large power users?to either bring their own generation or?enter a connect-and-manage framework subject to an early curtailment. The White House had earlier in the day urged the largest U.S. power grid to conduct an emergency auction to prevent rolling blackouts, as the energy demand for data centers is growing faster than the nation can build new generation facilities. PJM controls a large part of the 'power flow' in 13 states, mainly in the Mid-Atlantic region, including the 'largest concentration in data centers, in Virginia. Other?states are also becoming hubs for server storage. PJM’s board stated that its plan 'would focus on bringing a new?power generator online quickly, and would be coupled to options for new load customers whose energy demand can be curtailed if necessary. Reporting by Laila Mukherjee and Anushree Mokherjee from New York; Editing by Leroy Leo, Lisa Shumaker
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White House wants to auction off the largest US electric grid in an emergency
The White House urged on Friday the largest 'U.S. The electric grid should conduct an auction for emergency power to prevent rolling blackouts, as the energy demand from?data centres? is growing faster than new generation plants can be built. The Trump Administration initiative calls for PJM Interconnection, a company that serves 67,000,000 customers across 13 states, including Washington, D.C., and conducts an emergency auction to address escalating prices of electricity and increasing reliability risks in the mid-Atlantic area of the United States. PJM announced its own plan on Friday, urging big data centers that they bring in their own generation to avoid having their power supply curtailed at peak demand times. Grid operator PJM also called for a faster interconnection track to be created for state-sponsored projects. At a White House meeting, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, and Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum, joined by several state governors, discussed initiatives to accelerate the construction of new?power generators worth more than $15 billion on PJM. PJM has been criticized as being too slow in building a cushion to prevent rotating blackouts when demand increases. The rapid expansion of data centres to power artificial intelligence and other things has stretched PJM's resources, as well as those of other regional U.S. electrical grids. Donald Trump wants to fight consumer price inflation, which could undermine Republican support ahead of the November midterm elections. The White House wants to cap the amount that existing power plants are allowed to charge on the PJM market. The recent PJM auction for the capacity market set new records for power generators, with prices more than 800% above those of last year. This increased electricity prices in homes and businesses. Data centers would be required to pay for new power generation, whether or not they use it. This agreement would require them to do this regardless of whether the data center shows up. BYOG is the concept, which stands for "bring you own generation." PJM said it was reviewing the principles laid out by the White House, and the governors. A PJM spokesperson confirmed that PJM had not been invited to the event. PJM forecasts that grid peak usage during the summer will increase by?about?70 gigawatts up to 220 gigawatts in the next 15years. PJM's record summer peak was 165 Gigawatts. PJM claims that it has?processed more than 170 gigawatts in new generation requests since 2023. Nearly 60 gigawatts have been completed by PJM and either signed generation interconnection agreements or have been offered. RISE IN POWER BILLS HAS?LED TO BACKLASH The rising cost of electricity in PJM region has led to a political backlash and threats from some governors that they will abandon the regional grid. Nine state governors sent an open letter last summer to the PJM Board of Managers criticizing the grid operators for not doing enough 'to address the escalating energy affordability crisis. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro told the White House on Friday that PJM had been "too damn slow" to allow new generation onto their grid, at a time when energy demand was increasing. Burgum said PJM was lucky to have avoided widespread blackouts so far. Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Tim McLaughlin and Timothy Gardner from Philadelphia; editing by Liz Hampton and Matthew Lewis
Libya's first oil company to be owned by a private firm is growing in the shadow of eastern commander
According to U.N. experts and shipping records, a Libyan company that is linked to a powerful faction in eastern Libya has exported at least $600,000,000 worth of oil since May. This marks the end of the National Oil Corporation’s monopoly over exports.
The little-known Arkenu Oil Company was established in 2023 and is the first private Libyan oil company to ship. This means that some of the oil revenue of Libya will likely be diverted away from the Central Bank of Libya.
Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has been divided by armed groups. It is now largely split between an internationally recognized government in Tripoli, located in the west, and a rival administration, controlled by Khalifa Hastar's forces, in the east.
The central bank of Tripoli has been at the center of many disputes, mainly over the distribution and use by that institution of the oil revenues. Haftar's troops, who control the majority of Libya's fields, have shut down production and exports periodically, most recently last August, to make sure money flows east.
Arkenu's ownership could not be determined. In a report submitted to the Security Council on Dec. 13, a U.N. expert panel said that Arkenu is indirectly controlled by Saddam Haftar. He is one of Khalifa Haftar’s sons.
Charles Cater is the director of investigations for The Sentry, a global investigative and policy organization.
For this article, we also interviewed Libyan experts, diplomats, traders, and reviewed over two dozen documents including letters from oil companies, government decisions, and bills of lading.
Arkenu's website and LinkedIn profile indicate that the company is headquartered in Benghazi. This city, located in eastern Libya, has a Mediterranean port with a terminal of oil under Haftar’s control.
Two sources claim that the company was founded in early 2023, by former employees of state-owned National Oil Corporation.
Arkenu website, but never received a response. A spokesman of the Libyan National Army (which Haftar commands) was also contacted without a response.
OPEC MEMBER
According to a U.N. Report, Saddam Haftar became chief of staff for the army's ground force in May of last year. This gave him control over the country's relations with its neighbouring countries, as well as its economic interests.
Arkenu's first connection to oil exports was when the Arabian Gulf Oil Company, a subsidiary of NOC awarded it ownership of a cargo in May. A letter dated 11 July seen by was the proof.
Arkenu exported seven more oil cargoes since then. Its total exports from May to December 2024 will be 7.6 million barrels based on shipping records and worth approximately $600 million if Brent crude average monthly prices are used.
Exxon Mobil, the U.S. oil giant, bought one of the cargoes destined to Italy on October 28, according documents and data reviewed by LSEG and Kpler.
According to a person with knowledge of the situation, Exxon purchased the cargo not directly from Arkenu but from another trader.
Unipec is the trading arm for China's Sinopec - the largest refiner in the world. At least two of these were destined for Britain or Italy.
Sinopec didn't respond to a comment request. It wasn't immediately clear whether Sinopec purchased the cargoes from Arkenu or another trader.
Requests for comments from the NOC, AGOCO, and central bank were not answered. The oil ministry refused to comment.
Libya, Africa's second largest oil producer, and a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, has been in chaos since Gaddafi was overthrown, but oil exports remained under the control of the central government.
The NOC still accounts for a large part of Libyan exports. It has operated independently in this volatile country and maintained political neutrality.
Based on Kpler's data and calculations, it shipped 264 million barrels worth $21 billion in the same time period for Arkenu’s eight shipments.
SARIR AND MESSLA FIELD
Payments are made for NOC crude cargoes in dollars at the Libyan Foreign Bank, New York. Then they are transferred to the Tripoli Government's central bank account.
Shipping documents indicated that payments for Arkenu cargoes were to be made into accounts at the Dubai-linked state bank Emirates NBD, and Banque de Commerce et de Placements SA, both in Geneva. The documents did not indicate whether payments had been made to these accounts or where the money might have been deposited.
Emirates NBD stated that it could not confirm or deny client relationships because of internal policies and regulatory requirements. Banque de Placement confirmed or denied any client relationships in accordance with its policy.
U.N. experts say Haftar has the support of Egypt, Russia and United Arab Emirates.
He spent 20 years in the U.S. before returning to help rebels overthrow Gaddafi. He launched the Battle of Benghazi in 2014 and it has been his stronghold since then. His forces have a tight hold on the east of Libya where the majority of the main oilfields of the country are located.
Arkenu, in addition to being allowed to export crude oil, was also made a part-owner of the Sarir and Messla major oilfields. This is according to a letter from the NOC dated 10 July, during the tenure then NOC chairman Farhat Bengdara who resigned last week.
The letter didn't give any details about the partnership. AGOCO, a subsidiary of NOC, runs the two fields. They account for around 300,000. barrels of high-quality crude per day - same grade that Arkenu exports.
Cater, of The Sentry, said that there was no evidence to suggest that Arkenu had performed any development or services at the Mesla oil fields. Arkenu’s claims of hundreds of millions in NOC payments, made as oil export cargoes to Arkenu, raise serious suspicions of corruption.
Arkenu became a partner in the development of three smaller oilfields, Sultan and Latif (in Libya's east) and Tahara (in the west), according to an November 2023 cabinet resolution.
According to the U.N. Report, members of armed groups were appointed to different posts at the NOC as part of a reshuffle. This included setting up a separate office responsible for service contracts with private companies.
The U.N. report stated that "among them was an arrangement with the first privately owned oil company in Libya, Arkenu Oil Company."
(source: Reuters)