UN seeks $6 billion to ease ‘appalling’ suffering in Sudan

NEW YORK/SINGAPORE: Oil prices edged higher on Wednesday on supply concerns with the US stepping up efforts to limit Venezuelan and Iranian oil exports, while a bigger-than-expected drop in US crude inventories also lent support.

Brent crude futures gained 20 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $73.22 a barrel by 7:04 a.m. Saudi time, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 20 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $69.20 a barrel.

Both contracts hit their highest in three weeks in the previous session.

“Crude oil prices maintain their bullish bias after Trump’s sanctions on Venezuelan oil, raising supply-side concerns,” Priyanka Sachdeva, a senior market analyst at Phillip Nova, wrote in a market commentary on Wednesday.

On Monday Trump signed an executive order authorizing his administration to impose blanket 25 percent tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act on imports from any country that buys Venezuelan crude oil and liquid fuels.

Oil is Venezuela’s main export. China, already a target of US import tariffs, is its largest buyer.

Trade of Venezuelan oil to top buyer China stalled on Tuesday, as Chinese traders and refiners said they were waiting to see how the order would be implemented and whether Beijing would direct them to stop buying.

Washington last week also imposed a new round of sanctions on Iran’s oil sales targeting entities including Shouguang Luqing Petrochemical, a “teapot,” or independent refinery in east China’s Shandong province, and vessels that supplied oil to such plants in China, the top buyers of Iranian crude.

The market was also buoyed by American Petroleum Institute data that showed US crude inventories fell by 4.6 million barrels last week, a sign of healthy demand for fuel in the world’s largest economy.

Analysts polled by Reuters were expecting a decline of 1 million barrels.

Official US government data on crude inventories is due on Wednesday.

The upswing in oil prices is a temporary phenomenon, with the potential economic slowdown due to Trump’s tariffs keeping a lid on price gains, Phillip Nova’s Sachdeva said.

Further capping oil prices, the US reached deals with Ukraine and Russia to pause attacks at sea and against energy targets, with Washington agreeing to push to lift some sanctions against Moscow.

Kyiv and Moscow both said they would rely on Washington to enforce the deals, while expressing skepticism that the other side would abide by them.

NAIROBI: A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said on Wednesday.
The Kenyan officers were on their way Tuesday to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” according to the mission’s statement, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer.
Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media.
Gang violence has left more than one million people homeless in the Caribbean country in recent years, according to the UN, with many crowding into makeshift and unsanitary shelters after gunmen razed their homes.
The Kenya-led force was launched last year and tasked with fighting gangs trying to seize full control of Haiti’s capital. Kenya had promised to send 1,000 officers to Haiti. Since June, 800 have been deployed.
Another Kenyan officer who was shot and killed by the gangs in Haiti in February was buried in Kenya last week. Opposition leaders in the east African country called for the mission’s officers to be better equipped.
The mission has been struggling with a lack of personnel as gangs that control 85 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince, keep seizing more territory. The force’s funding has also been dealt a blow after the US, its biggest backer, froze some of its funding, part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping freeze on foreign assistance.