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Travel chaos caused by the protest of Polish train drivers who slow down during safety demonstrations
On Friday, Poland's railways were impacted by widespread disruption as train drivers protested safety concerns and slowed down their trains. Around two thirds of services experienced delays on what is one of the busiest weeks of the year. A train that hit a truck and derailed at a level-crossing in central Poland Wednesday killed one person and sent 10 to the hospital. This is just the latest of a series of accidents caused when road users ignore warning signs. "We do not view this as protest but as an act of desperation," said Sebastian Piernik. He added that the union's demands for safety were?ignored in the past. "The fundamental problem is to ensure that drivers are held accountable for crossing the tracks at a time when there's a red signal." Train drivers at all level crossings slowed to 20 kilometres an hour (12 mph), as part of the protest that lasted until Friday noon local time. As a consequence, train operator PKP intercity reported that as of 12 p.m. (1100 GMT), 203 of 290 services?faced delays averaging 38 minutes. Alicja Kiman, a resident of Gdansk, said that she wasn't surprised by the protest because?motorists are?often reckless. She said, "I've seen garbage trucks break the barrier twice - forcing themselves in when it was closing." The government announced that it would introduce harsher 'penalties for drivers disregarding warning signals at crossings, and it spent hundreds of millions?zlotys to improve safety. Dariusz Klimczak, Infrastructure Minister, told reporters that "these changes will result in the risk of losing a driver's licence" for drivers who enter a road/rail crossing with RED light on.
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Gains in UAE shares as oil supply concerns fuel regional conflict
The UAE stock market closed higher on Friday. Dubai was the best performer in its region, aided by a sharp rise in oil prices. Attacks on Middle East shipping routes have fueled concerns about supply disruptions. Crude oil was on track to gain over 7% this week while U.S. Diesel prices reached a record. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed to oil as Iran and the U.S. trade attacks. Meanwhile, the Houthis, who are aligned with Iran, have taken control of Yemen's Mocha port, which threatens Saudi oil exports into the Red Sea. Preliminary ship tracking data on Friday showed that the number of vessel transits in the Strait of Hormuz dropped to seven on Thursday, from eleven the day before. This is well below the 10-day average of 15 Brent crude, the main driver for Gulf economies, fell 3.6% to $103.75 per barrel by 1056 GMT. Dubai's main stock market gained 0.6% following two sessions of losses, thanks to a 4.2% surge in the top lender Emirates NBD Bank. Utility firm Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation also rose by 1.9%. National Central Cooling's shares fell by 2.1%, however, after the announcement of Yousif al Hammadi becoming its new CEO. Abu Dhabi's benchmark Index edged up for the fourth consecutive session by 0.03%, supported?by a rise of 3.6% in investment firm Two Point Zero Group owned by IHC. Adnoc Logistics & Services, a state-owned energy shipping company, grew by 2.9%. Meanwhile, energy infrastructure developer NMDC Group grew by 3.5%. The index's gains were capped by a 5% decline in Fertiglobe, a chemical manufacturer, and a 1.5% drop in First Abu Dhabi Bank, the largest lender. Six people with knowledge of the matter said that the United Arab Emirates is quietly revising its plans for a 5-gigawatt AI Data Center?project, one of the largest outside the U.S., after the Iran War prompted a reconsideration of where and how critical infrastructure should be built. According to LSEG, the Abu Dhabi Index and Dubai Index both recorded weekly gains of 1,4% and 1%, respectively.
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AirBaltic has postponed a key bondholders meeting
In an email, Latvia's airBaltic> announced that it had rescheduled the meeting of its?bondholders, which was scheduled to take place on Friday. The airline stated that the bondholders meeting had been postponed in order to give bondholders more time to review and submit their voting instructions. The virtual meeting will now take place on September 15th. The Latvian government, which owns the majority of the carrier, has said it will seek financing from bondholders in a bid to avoid default. AirBaltic asked bondholders on Friday for approval of a plan to raise EUR257,000,000 ($298,000,000) via new super-senior bonds due in 2027. The airline is a 'test case' for the wider market, where weaker operators who struggle to re-pass on increased costs are most affected by the soaring jet fuel price caused by the Iran War. Analysts said that the rise in yields could be due to a 'priority' given to new bonds over notes due in 2029.
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Myanmar's Mandalay Airport shuts down after drone attack
According to a major domestic carrier, flight operations at the airport international serving Myanmar's 2nd largest?city were shut down following a drone strike on 'Thursday' by rebels fighting the country's military in a long-running civil war. Myanmar Airways International announced on its official page on Facebook late Thursday night that all international flights into and out of Mandalay's Tada-U International Airport had been temporarily suspended. Domestic flights will be?transferred until further notice to another airport for "operational" reasons. An official from Myanmar Airways International's Bangkok office, who declined to give their name, said that flights to Mandalay on September 11 and 12, are cancelled. The airport is closed, so the flights have been cancelled. Global New Light of Myanmar, the state-run news outlet, reported that security forces thwarted a terrorist attack by the People's Defence Force (PDF), a prodemocracy militant organization, who fired six suicide drones from 'first-person' view at an airport. The attack caused a temporary disruption of some domestic flights. The newspaper reported that no injuries or damage was caused to airport runways or vehicles. Local media reported that the resistance was targeting military jet fighters on the airport. Could not independently verify the situation. Since the February 20, 2021 coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government, Myanmar has been engulfed in conflict. This has triggered a national resistance movement which has developed into a civil war involving the military with a variety of ethnic groups armed and pro-democracy militas. Min Aung Hlaing was the former head of Myanmar's junta and was elected president in April by a parliament backed by the military. This formalised his hold on power following five years under army rule.
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AirBaltic has postponed a key bondholders' meeting
AirBaltic, a Latvian carrier, has rescheduled the'meeting with bondholders scheduled for?Friday. The majority-owned airline by the Latvian government has stated that it is seeking funding from bondholders in order to avert default. AirBaltic asked its bondholders on Friday for their approval of a plan to raise EUR257m ($298m) via a new super-senior loan due in 2027. The virtual meeting will now take place on the 15th of September, without further explanation. The airline is a good test case for the broader airline market, where weaker operators who struggle to pass higher costs on face the greatest pressure due to the rising jet fuel prices caused by the Iran War. The new bonds will be given priority in repaid from collateral, which includes eight aircraft and seven engines. Notes due in 2029 are ranked third. Analysts believe this could have been the cause of a spike in yields this week.
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New York Times Business News - September 11,
These are the top stories from the New York Times' business pages. ? These stories have not been?verified? and we cannot vouch for the accuracy of these reports. Anthropic has blocked several attempts to use their artificial intelligence models in research that could help?the development?of biological weapons. The Trump administration has announced that it will issue $500 rebates to nearly one million Americans in 30 states who are higher-income earners and have enrolled in Obamacare plans. Michael O'Leary, Chief Executive Officer of Ryanair, denied reports that a passenger was partially sucked from a shattered glass during a Malta Air flight on its way to Germany. McClatchy owns The Miami Herald and has cut more than one-third of the editorial staff at The Herald. The company cited a lack of interest from subscribers as a reason for cutting jobs.
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Can Africa seize the moment to compete for critical minerals? Andy Home
Africa could transform itself as global competition increases for essential minerals. Although the continent has a large amount of energy transition metals like copper, manganese and cobalt but it is still far from its full potential. According to the Brookings Institution, Africa's share of global mineral revenue is only 10%, even though it holds 30% of world reserves. It's possible that there are still more hidden treasures underground. According to CSIS, the U.S. think tank, only 10% of the global mineral exploration was focused on the continent in 2024. As Africa moves to the forefront of the global battle for resources, the West and China will be vying for the control of metals, which are essential components in both green technologies as well as AI data centers. Can Africa seize the metallic moment? In order to do this, the continent will have to break away from a long history of resource exploitation. The European colonisation in Africa during the late 19th century and the early 20th century laid the foundations of unequal trade relationships based on the extraction of materials for export markets. This pattern persists today. Africans have sacrificed blood, sweat, and tears to build rubber plantations in Belgian Congo, goldfields in South Africa, or copper mines in what is now Zambia. But foreign investors reap the rewards. Many African governments now realise that the global demand for critical metals presents a unique opportunity to alter the terms of the resource trade. Let's Build a Smelter Building more processing capacity is one way African nations can capture more value in mining. Indonesia is a leader in the world. The country will ban nickel ore exports in 2020 and force miners to invest into smelters. This strategy has proven so successful, that Indonesia is the dominant producer of nickel in the world, and exports a variety of nickel products including refined metals with high purity, as well as sulphate, which is used by battery manufacturers. African countries have taken notice. Zimbabwe has imposed controls on the export of lithium, Guinea on bauxite, and the Democratic?Republic of Congo both on cobalt as well as copper. All of these countries are leveraging raw materials in order to increase domestic processing capacity. According to a report published in June by the World Bank and CRU, there are "vast" barriers to starting a successful business. Even when prices fall, a business with low margins can still be profitable if the power supply, infrastructure and logistics are all right. These factors may even be more important than mineral reserves themselves. Look at Angola. Angola is building a smelter for aluminium at Barra do Dande, despite not having bauxite or the ability to convert it into alumina - the intermediate product used in the smelting procedure. The project has a deep sea port that is suitable for handling raw material?and a strategically located free-trade area, which allows it to take advantage of shared infrastructure, favorable business rates, and reliable electricity supplies. CORRIDONS OF POWER Angola is also at the end one of the biggest infrastructure projects in Sub-Saharan Africa - a project that will have a huge impact on the region's efforts to limit the external power of the continent. The Lobito Corridor is a combination of new and existing rail lines that will link the central African Copperbelt to the Angolan Port of Lobito. Both the U.S.A. and Europe are heavily supporting this ambitious project. The strategic importance of this is immense The Lobito Corridor is a Western shipping alternative for the Chinese-built TAZARA rail line that runs from Zambia to Tanzania's port of Dar es Salaam. TAZARA is a transit route that carries a large amount of copper and cobalt from the region as it begins its long journey to a Chinese Port. Chinese companies operate and own some of the biggest copper and?cobalt mining operations in the region. This begins a supply-chain that leads to Chinese electric vehicles and humble air conditioner units. The Lobito Corridor represents a direct challenge against this dominance. The project reduces the time it takes to transport goods from Congo's mining areas to the sea to one week. This helps to reduce risks for potential private sector investment. China responded by committing to spend $1.4billion to renovate TAZARA which it funded in the 1970s. In the end, both Congo and Zambia could benefit from competing rail corridors. GROWTH CONDUCTORS However, the Lobito Corridor promises more than just a quick exit route for Africa’s metals. The 1,800-km (1,120-mile route) is designed to create agricultural, metals, and technology hubs. Western partners are investing in both hard and soft infrastructure, which the European Union calls "soft connectivity". This includes trade facilitation, vocational and technical training, as well as a focus on local employment. In Angola the results are already visible, since the railway infrastructure is being simply upgraded, rather than constructed from scratch as it will be in Zambia by 2030. Upgrades provide immediate economic opportunities in the local economy. Angolan agricultural products from Huambo Province, the farming heartland of Angola, are now accompanying Congo's cobalt and copper on their way to Lobito. Angola exports its first avocados into Europe thanks to a trade logistics platform funded by the EU and a EUR50 million investment programme for sustainable agricultural chains. The Lobito Corridor can be a way to escape Africa's resource-trap. If they are primarily export-oriented, building processing plants may not necessarily bring wealth to the local economy. The Congo's copper is now mostly in high-purity metals, but it still exports most of it to China. This must change if Africa wants to get a bigger share of its mineral revenue. HISTORIC MINERS How to manage the traditional workforce is perhaps the biggest challenge that African countries face in converting their mineral wealth into sustainable economic growth. Around 10 million people in Africa are involved directly in small-scale mining. Many more depend on it to survive. Africans have been engaged in mining for thousands years. Small-scale collective operations were the norm, especially in rural areas where employment opportunities are low. Women and children are still willing to participate in this dangerous job. The environmental impact is devastating and fatalities are not uncommon. ASM, although often referred to as "artisanal", is more like bonded labour. The ground ore is sold by middlemen for a fraction its real value. ASM is often used as forced labour in conflict zones, such as the eastern provinces of Congo and certain Sahel-based countries. Africa's historical miner operate in a "dark zone" thanks to laws from colonial times declaring such "native operations" illegal. Many Western companies are hesitant to buy metals that contain ASM ore, and this is understandable. Multiple efforts are being made to "formalise" ASM, by integrating its workforce into the official mining industry. The biggest is in Congo. This country has been targeted for years by activists who want to exploit its "blood" cobalt. Kinshasa tried and failed to merge its "illegal miners" into the official sector. The new Eurasian Resources Group scheme promises better results, thanks to new controls on cobalt exports and increased powers for the mining regulator Entreprise Generale du Cobalt. Irony: If the West wants Congo cobalt, but doesn't want Chinese operators to supply it, they need to go to the ASM sector. The metal must be accompanied by guarantees that human rights violations have not been committed. Everyone has an interest in bringing Africa's original miner back from the cold. For Africa, this may be the most powerful lever to change a bloody history of exploitation. You like this column? Open Interest (ROI) is your new essential source of global financial commentary. Follow ROI on LinkedIn and X. Listen to the Morning Bid podcast daily on Apple, Spotify or the app. Subscribe to the Morning Bid podcast and hear journalists discussing the latest news in finance and markets seven days a weeks.
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Wall Street Journal, September 11,
These are the top stories from the Wall Street Journal. The Wall 'Street Journal has not?verified?these stories or?cannot?guarantee?their accuracy. - The Pentagon is in talks to lend roughly $5 billion to AI cloud-computing startup Fluidstack, adding the U.S. military ?to the growing list of financiers of artificial-intelligence infrastructure. - 'Lineage, world's biggest cold-storage operator based on capacity, is suing Altus Power, a solar-panel supplier, and Pearce Services. They claim that their negligence led to a fire in a Los Angeles warehouse. The prediction markets platform Kalshi plans to apply for regulatory approval in order to offer the first U.S. perpetual futures that are regulated and tied to a single stock. Andrew Tulloch is leaving Meta Platforms to join Anthropic. He was offered a package of more than $1 billion dollars. Positron AI announced a funding round of $875 million on Thursday, quadrupling the company's valuation to $5 billion in just seven months.
Turkish Minister says Turkey and Azerbaijan are aiming to sign a deal on a power transmission line in Europe by November.
Alparslan Bayraktar, the Turkish Energy Minister, said that Turkey, Azerbaijan, and other participating 'countries' aim to sign an agreement for a power transmission link to europe during COP31 - the climate summit, in November.
The electricity corridor would allow surplus electricity from Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey to be exported to Southeast Europe.
Bayraktar said at the Azerbaijan and Turkey Energy Forum in Baku that "this is a TANAP on a regional scale" referring to the?pipeline that carries Caspian gas through Turkey to Europe.
Bayraktar stated that the participating governments aimed at finalising an intergovernmental agreement regarding the overland electric corridor during the United Nations COP31 Climate Conference in Antalya, in November.
Turkey and Azerbaijan want to use their geographical positions and existing energy ties to become major exporters of green electricity as European countries diversify and pursue decarbonisation goals.
Azerbaijan is 'further planning to build a regional power bridge connecting Central Asia with Turkey via the 'Zangezur Transport Corridor, said?country energy minister, Parviz Shahbazov.
(source: Reuters)