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CCTV reports that Li Xiong, a Chen Zhi associate, was extradited to China from Cambodia.
Chinese broadcaster CCTV, citing officials, reported that an alleged key?member of Chinese businessman Chen Zhi’s online scam & money laundering operation -?Li Xiong - was extradited from Cambodia to China. Chen founded the Prince Group - a Cambodian conglomerate that has fingers in real estate, banking, airlines, and cryptocurrency investment schemes. According to U.S. prosecutors these schemes have allegedly stolen billions of dollars worldwide from their victims. In a press release, the Cambodian government confirmed that he had been extradited to China. CCTV reported that Li was the former chairman of the Huione Group. Huione Group?allegedly laundered?at least $4 billion in illicit proceeds between August 20,21 and January 20,25, according the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Agency. FinCEN determined that Huione Group, out of the $4 billion total, laundered virtual currencies worth at least $37 millions? that were stolen from North Korean cyber-heists and at least $36 from investment scams involving virtual currencies, as well as $300 million in virtual currencies from other cyber scams. Cambodian Government spokesperson?Touch Sokhak said that China sent experts to Cambodia in order to assist with the investigation which led to the arrest. He said: "This shows Cambodia’s willingness to eliminate online?scams, and that Cambodia is not a safe haven for scam criminals."
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UKMTO: Tanker struck by two projectiles in Qatar, including one that was unexploded
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said a tanker'struck off Qatar' was hit by two projectiles. One exploded and the other remained unexploded inside the engine room. The tanker was hit about 17 nautical miles (31km) north of Qatar’s industrial hub?Ras Laffan, causing damage to the vessel above the waterline. The crew were safe and there were no reported environmental impacts. UKMTO stated that it could not confirm the origin of the projectiles, and investigations were still ongoing. The incident occurs as a result of 'growing threats to maritime travel in the wake of the U.S. - Israel conflict with 'Iran. Kuwait announced?on Tuesday that one of their fully loaded oil tanks?was attacked off Dubai and?triggered a fire. In recent days, maritime authorities reported "multiple incidents" involving vessels in Gulf waters.
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Defence Ministry: 29 killed in crash of Russian military transport aircraft in Crimea
According to news reports, a Russian An-26 military aircraft crashed into a cliff on the Crimean peninsula, killing 29 people on board. The crash was caused by a possible malfunction of a plane's technical system, said Russia's Defence Ministry. The TASS News Agency, quoting the Ministry, stated that communication was lost with the aircraft at around 6 p.m. local (1500 GMT) Tuesday during a flight planned over Crimea. The peninsula is covered with sweeping mountains that lead down to the Black Sea coast. It was annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014. TASS reported: "The Defence Ministry announced that a team of searchers had located the site of this catastrophe." According to a report on the scene, six crew and 23 passengers were killed. The report from the ministry did not mention how many passengers were on board. However, it did not mention any survivors. The ministry said that there was no impact to the aircraft, implying objects such as missiles, birds, and drones were not involved. The preliminary cause of the accident is a malfunctioning technical system. It said that a military commission was working on the site. The Russian defence ministry didn't respond to a comment request outside of normal business hours. The An-26 is in service since the late 1960s. It has also been used to carry freight by airlines. In 2022, a Ukrainian An-26 crashed in the Zaporizhzhia Region in Ukraine's southeast during a?technical flight. One person was killed. In 2020, a Ukrainian An-26 crashed during a training flight over the northeastern Ukraine region. All but one person on board died. In 2020, eight people, including five Russians, died when an An-26 crashed into South Sudan. In 2017, four of the 10 people aboard were killed in a crash landing by an An-26 in Ivory Coast, West Africa. Reporting and editing by Jamie Freed
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US oil is headed to Greece for the first time in 4 years as refiners look for alternatives to Middle East crude
Ship tracking data on Kpler showed that a cargo of WTI Midland Crude?was headed to Greece for the?first time in about four years. The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, and the reduced traffic through Strait of Hormuz, have disrupted trade and closed down production in the area. Ship tracking data and the maritime platform Signal Ocean revealed that the Isle of Man flagged medium-sized Eagle Helsinki had loaded 700,000 barrels of WTI Midland - the flagship U.S. sweet light crude - at Seabrook Logistics Terminal?in Houston. The tanker was then anchored in Agio Theodoroi (Greece), close to Motor Oil's refinery located in Corinth. The 'Corinth' refinery is Greece’s second-largest and represents more than a third of the country's total refining capacity. Eagle Helsinki initially indicated its destination as Rotterdam before changing its mid-Atlantic course to head towards Gibraltar, then Greece, according ship tracking and Signal Ocean. Signal Ocean reported that the refinery relies on Iraqi crude oil from Basrah to a large extent. The company declined to make any comment. Ship tracking data revealed that a cargo of Ecuadorian heavy crude with high sulfur was also headed to Irving Oil’s refinery in Canada’s east coast via the Panama Canal in March. This is the first shipment in more than a year. The Zaruma, a mid-size vessel flying the Panama flag,?transported about 700,000. barrels of Ecuadorian Oriente crude.to the refinery. Canada received its last cargo of oil in Ecuador last February. Irving oil didn't immediately respond to a?request for a comment. Reporting by Arathy S. Somasekhar, in Houston. Angeliki Koutantou, in Athens. Jonthan Saul, in London. Amanda Stephenson and David Gregorio in Calgary.
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US Customs Agency says that the tariff refund system is progressing but payments could take up to 45 Days
U.S. Customs Agency said Tuesday that it is making progress in setting up a simplified process to refund some $166 billion?in tariff collection deemed illegal by Supreme Court. However, its new system could take as long as?45 days for review and processing?refund requests. Brandon Lord, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection representative, said in a filing to the U.S. Court of International Trade that development of a refund claims portal, review and processing system, and refund system are now between 60-85% complete. Lord did not specify a date when applications would be accepted, but the agency had previously indicated a goal of 45 days, which ends in April. Lord stated in the declaration filed on Tuesday that 'the new system would begin accepting claims gradually, giving priority to entries that have been liquidated or 'finalized' within the previous 80 days, and entries with liquidation status "suspended" or "under review". Lord stated that the initial phase would also accept declarations containing entries for warehouses and warehouse withdrawals. Lord said that the initial phase will also 'accept declarations containing warehouse and warehouse withdrawal entries. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down last month President Donald Trump's most expansive global tariffs, under IEEPA. This was a major blow to his central economic policy. Documents from the court show that more than 330,000 importers 'paid the IEEPA duties on 53 million shipments. The Supreme Court gave no guidance regarding the refund of tariff payments collected by importers between February 2025 and now. That matter was left to the Court for International Trade in New York City. FedEx and other large importers sued CBP in order to secure their refund rights, which Trump claimed could take up to five years. Many smaller importers were afraid that the costs of the refund process would be too high to justify the benefits. The Court of International Trade's Judge Richard Eaton ordered CBP earlier this month to process?refunds with its existing system. However, the agency proposed a different method that would allow refund requests to be accepted as early as next month without requiring importers to file a lawsuit. (Reporting and editing by Paul Simao; Additional reporting in Wilmington, Delaware by Tom Hals; Reporting by David Lawder)
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Japan and Europe continue to have near-historical lows in coffee stocks
According to the Coffee Trading Academy, green coffee stocks in Japan, Europe, and the United States, the two largest coffee-consuming regions in the world, were near historic lows in February, despite the recent weakness of coffee prices. Japan's stock was 2.21 million 60 kg bags. This is a little different from January, and also from last year. It is still far below the 5-year average of 2.75 millions bags for this time of the year. CTA cited data from the European Coffee Federation to say that green coffee stocks in Europe were 6.8 million bags at the end of February. This was 7.5% less than January and 8% below the same period last year. European stocks could reach 14 million bags by mid-2022. "High carry costs are one of the reasons that discourage stock building in an inverted market," said Ryan Delany, CTA's founder and chief analyst, referring the fact the spot prices are higher. He said that European stocks were around 4.5 millions bags below the average of the past 10 years and around 3.5million bags below the average for the last five years. Analysts claim that the relatively low stocks in major coffee-consuming regions make the market susceptible to price fluctuations in the event of a logistical breakdown or weather-related disruptions in important production regions like Brazil or Vietnam. The market is closely following the Middle East situation with the Hormuz Strait, and the Suez Canal. Stocks are low, and the coffee flow heavily depends on maritime transport," Gustavo Matias said at Matias Coffee Trading. He added that transportation costs had increased. Matias said the market was currently "split" on the price direction. One side is looking at the large Brazilian crop that will be coming up and the other side, the tight coffee flow in the short term. (Reporting and editing by Hugh Lawson; Marcelo Teixeira)
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After US airport security workers get paid, absences drop sharply
Transportation Security Administration said absences among the nation’s 50,000 security agents fell'sharply' on Monday, as workers received their paychecks after six weeks of working without a paycheque. Major?airports which had experienced multi-hour lines reported that operations were largely back to normal. Homeland Security Department reported that the absence rate dropped to 8.6% from 12.4% on Friday. Atlanta had the highest number of absenteeism reported on Monday, with 29%. Other airports with high absence rates include Baltimore, New Orleans and John F. Kennedy in New York, Philadelphia, Houston's two airports, Baltimore, New Orleans and Houston. The TSA experienced a surge in security lines as a result of the weeks-long congressional standoff. In some cases, these lines topped four-hours long. This is the longest TSA line in 25 years. Last week, hundreds of U.S. Immigration agents and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officers were deployed at 14 U.S. Airports to help with security screening. The White House said that they would stay in place until normal operations were resumed. The President Donald Trump signed a memo on Friday ordering TSA workers to get paid even though Congress still hasn't ended the 46-day partial government shutdown. U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed that workers began receiving their pay on Monday. DHS reported that most TSA agents received retroactive pay on Monday, which included at least two?two-week checks. It plans to give workers the rest of a partially missed paycheck since the shutdown began as soon as possible. Since mid-February, more than 500 airport security guards have quit. Tens of thousands?other DHS employees are still unpaid. The airports are coping with an increase in school spring break travel, which is about 5% higher than last year. Democrats in Congress halted funding for DHS, demanding that immigration rules be changed after agents in Minneapolis killed U.S. Citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti. After weeks of squabbling, the Senate finally passed a bipartisan compromise bill that would pay TSA employees. The Republican leadership in the U.S. House rejected this legislation on Friday, passing a measure to fund DHS as a whole. David Shepardson is the reporter.
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Top EU diplomats visit Bucha in commemoration of 2022 massacre
On Tuesday, the European Union's top diplomatic representative Kaja 'Kallas' and a number of EU foreign ministers visited Bucha to mark the fourth anniversary since a massacre. They expressed their support for Ukraine in its demand for Russian accountability for the atrocities that were 'committed' there. Ukrainian officials claim that Russian forces killed hundreds of people in Bucha soon after the beginning of the 2022 invasion. Kallas, along with around a dozen EU Foreign Ministers and other senior European Officials made the trip to Bucha amid tensions in the EU over EU Aid for Ukraine. Kallas, who returned to Kyiv from the trip, said: "This morning we were reminded what's at stake." "There's no more stark example of Russia’s brutality than the events in Ukraine." Zelenskiy urged partners to focus on the "war in Ukraine" despite the impact of the U.S./Israeli war against Iran. "You know that images from Bucha have been compared with the horrific scenes in the Second World War. But there is a big difference," he explained. He added that the difference in treatment of Nazism and the sanctions imposed on Russia for the war on Iran was not a good reflection on the world leaders today. Peace talks on the end of the war in Ukraine are suspended because of the Middle East conflict. Officials in Kyiv expressed concern that weapons could be diverted from Ukraine due to Western military resources being stretched. KALLAS: EUROPE WILL STAND BY THE UKRAINE. Europe is now the primary backer of Ukraine in its fight against a larger and better equipped Russian army on a 1,200-kilometre (746-mile) frontline. Hungarian PM?Viktor Orban has blocked a 90 billion-euro ($103 billion) EU Loan for Ukraine due to a dispute about Russian oil transit through Ukraine's Druzhba Oil Pipeline. Hungary also blocks progress in talks on Ukraine's EU accession. Kallas stated that European ministers must work for Europe, not Russia. This was in response to a phone call leaked by a Russian and a Hungarian foreign minister discussing EU sanctions 2024. She said, "We must not fund Russia but confront it." The Ukrainian officials will use the senior EU officials' visit to increase accountability for war crimes. Sybiha stated that eight countries had confirmed their willingness to join an expanded partial agreement for the Special Tribunal?for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, a planned, international criminal court. He expressed his hope that this number would increase. "Perhaps, more than anywhere else in the world, we feel that the future of Europe and Europe's safety are decided here - right now - in Ukraine," said Sybiha. "The frontline of the current conflict is also an issue of international law, and values that we all share." Moscow has stated that it will not recognise the tribunal special and any country joining will be viewed as an act of hostility.
IndiGo shares rise after Willie Walsh, a veteran airline executive, is named CEO
IndiGo shares gained 4.4% Wednesday, after the Indian budget airline named Willie Walsh as its new chief executive officer. This comes just weeks after Pieter Elbers' departure.
Jefferies described this appointment as "remarkably quick" for an airline with the scale and complexity of IndiGo, and that it would likely minimize any leadership vacuums and ensure continuity in implementation.
Jefferies stated that Walsh will be able to guide IndiGo through its current growth phase as well as operational stabilisation, international expansion and the company's future expansion.
Walsh's tenure as the?head the International Air Transport Association ends on July 31. He is expected to join IndiGo no later than August 3, according to a?statement from the airline.
IndiGo?commands approximately 65% of India’s rapidly growing aviation market. The carrier's biggest crisis occurred in December when it cancelled more than 4,500 flight after not preparing for the new rules on pilot rest.
Elbers was among the senior executives reprimanded by regulators for "inadequate oversight of flight operations" and "crisis management".
IndiGo, like its competitors, has been affected by higher costs due to flight reroutings caused by the conflict in the Middle East and Pakistani restrictions on airspace.
Jefferies noted that the airline's key priorities?now are improving reliability, addressing issues with crew, and balancing its low-cost model amidst ongoing cost pressures.
IndiGo shares have fallen 19% this year so far, making it one of the worst performers on the Nifty50.
The airline's current value is 1.59 trillion rupees (16.97 billion dollars). $1 = 93.6810 Indian Rupees (Reporting and editing by Sonia Cheema in Bengaluru)
(source: Reuters)