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LONDON — The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) faces a critical moment in its 60-year history with the coronavirus crushing crude demand and prices, discord among its members, and threats from a world seeking cleaner fuel.

Founded on September 14, 1960, by Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela who sought to control crude oil output, OPEC currently comprises 13 members, including countries from Africa and Latin America.

The 60th anniversary "comes at a critical moment in its history", UniCredit analyst Edoardo Campanella said in reference to the OPEC.

"Its ability to steer the oil market in its favour has never been put in question to the extent it is now," he noted.

 'Relevant role' 

The Vienna-based institution convenes for regular meetings to assess the state of supply and demand in the marketplace and its pronouncements can still spark major price swings.

That ability has dimmed in recent years however, prompting it to join forces with ten non-OPEC producers, including Russia to curb their collective output.

OPEC+ essentially wanted to counter surging energy supplies from shale rock in the United States and help clear a stubborn supply glut on world markets.

Today, the OPEC pumps about one third of global oil — but the OPEC+ accounts for almost 50 per cent, giving it greater clout.

Carlo Alberto de Casa, trader at Activtrades, insisted that the cartel retains a "relevant" function in the market, dismissing talk the organisation was a "has-been".

"They are slightly less influential compared to the past, also due to production of non-OPEC countries and new extraction techniques. But I still see a role for the OPEC," he told AFP.

This despite the larger OPEC+ in March failing to agree on a new strategy — with Russia refusing cartel kingpin Saudi Arabia's request to cut their collective output and combat a virus-fuelled slump in crude demand.

In response, top global exporter Saudi Arabia slashed its prices and raised output to preserve market share in the face of Russian opposition.

The Saudi-Russian price war, in tandem with the worsening Covid-19 pandemic, sent oil prices off a cliff — and even caused New York's light sweet crude contract to briefly turn negative in April — meaning producers paid buyers to take the oil off their hands.

After the unprecedented market crash, OPEC+ in May slashed up to a fifth of its output — a move that triggered a sharp rebound in crude prices to current levels around $40 per barrel.

Added to the supply backdrop, the United States, now the world's biggest oil producer, curbed the pace of costly shale extraction.

Rystad Energy analyst Paola Rodriguez-Masiu, while noting that OPEC has lost market share in recent years, said the cartel still has an important role to play because it possesses the largest amount of accessible crude.

This meant that extracting its oil resulted in fewer carbon emissions, she said.

"I would argue that OPEC would become more and more important" in the future, she concluded.

LONDON — Two major British supermarkets said this week that they are rationing some products after new coronavirus restrictions to avoid panic buying seen at the start of the pandemic.

The country's biggest retailer Tesco revealed on Friday that is limiting certain items — including anti-bacterial wipes, baby wipes, flour, dried pasta and toilet roll — to three purchases per person. Online customers also face limits on rice and canned vegetables.

"We have good availability, with plenty of stock to go round, and we would encourage our customers to shop as normal," a Tesco spokesperson said.

"To ensure that everyone can keep buying what they need, we have introduced bulk-buy limits on a small number of products."

Rival supermarket Morrisons had also decided to introduce similar curbs on Thursday.

"We are introducing a limit on a small number of key products, such as toilet roll and disinfectant. Our stock levels of these products are good but we want to ensure that they are available for everyone," a Morrisons spokesperson said.

Industry body the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has meanwhile urged consumers to be considerate of others when shopping for food and other essential items.

"Supply chains are stronger than ever before and we do not anticipate any issues in the availability of food or other goods under a future lockdown," said Andrew Opie, BRC director of food and sustainability.

"Nonetheless, we urge consumers to be considerate of others and shop as they normally would."

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday tightened restrictions to stem a surge of coronavirus cases, ordering pubs to close early and advising people to go back to working from home to prevent a second national lockdown.

LONDON — European and Asian stock markets tumbled on Thursday following another sharp sell-off overnight on Wall Street as investors reacted to rising virus infections, new lockdowns, a slowing economic recovery, stalled US stimulus talks and American election uncertainty.

Months of mind-boggling gains in global equities have come to a juddering halt this month, and expectations are fading that a wall of cash from governments and central banks will jump-start a rebound.

"Markets are digesting and grappling with this idea that the growth expectations that investors have might not materialise," said Lauren Goodwin, at New York Life Investments.

"As the fiscal impulse in the US starts to wane, some of these expectations for a slow and steady recovery are shaken."

With the northern hemisphere now moving into autumn and winter, there are worries that a second wave of coronavirus will see the reimposition of strict, economically devastating containment measures.

France became the latest European country to act, shutting bars and restaurants in the second-biggest city Marseille and putting it on "maximum alert", while several others, including Paris, will see new restrictions, including limitations on public gatherings and earlier closing hours.

Britain's government has also shortened opening hours and has warned of other measures, while the Madrid region has locked down roughly 850,000 people and plans to extend its curbs.

The International Labour Organisation found that by mid-year, global working hours had declined 17.3 per cent from December -- equivalent to nearly 500 million full-time jobs, which its chief Guy Ryder called "catastrophic".

US traders are now growing concerned that rising infections at home could see similar moves, and several Federal Reserve officials including boss Jerome Powell have called for a new stimulus package to mitigate the impact.

But with politicians on Capitol Hill still at a standstill, hope for a deal is waning, particularly with a presidential election just around the corner.

"A procession of US Federal Reserve speakers voiced more concerns about the ongoing impasse on additional fiscal stimulus," said AxiCorp's Stephen Innes.

Economy in 'deep hole' 

But he said Fed vice chair Richard Clarida's warning that while the economy was seeing improvement, it was still in a "deep hole", would strike fear into traders.

"Clarida's messaging provides the most distinct read on the global economy. Inferring the world has probably just seen the bounce from a sudden stop, not a cyclical recovery but merely a restart," Innes added.

Michael Hewson at CMC Markets said: "The main problem the Fed has is that US politicians appear more interested in fighting an election campaign than helping to pass a new stimulus plan which would help the American people."

All three main indices in New York saw steep losses on Wednesday, resuming a retreat that has characterised September.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq led the way, tanking more than three per cent after the Trump administration unveiled legislation aimed at limiting the liability shield of online services for content they host. 

The Justice Department said the proposal was aimed at reforming a law that protects internet services from liability from third-party content.

The losses flowed through to Asia again.

Market unease was increased by fears of an extended battle over the US presidential election result, with Donald Trump refusing to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power should he lose to Joe Biden.

"Well, we're going to have to see what happens," he said in response to a reporter's question. 

Trump, who is behind in the polls against Democrat Biden, has frequently claimed mail-in ballots are vulnerable to mass fraud and that election officials are being encouraged by Democrats to rig the election, though there is no evidence postal voting has ever led to significant fraud in the past.

JAKARTA — Indonesia is developing vast farm estates across the archipelago — an area 10 times the size of neighbouring Singapore — to counter the country’s reliance on imported food, President Joko Widodo said on Wednesday.

The project, which eventually will span nearly 800,000 hectares, is preparing land to grow rice, cassava and corn for the world's fourth-most populous country, Widodo told a televised Cabinet meeting. 

The announcement will anger environmental groups, who have warned such projects mostly exploit peatland areas and encourage forest fires blamed for the seasonal haze that has choked much of the region for the past two decades.

Widodo said the project would "anticipate the world's food crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic... also to anticipate climate change as well as to curb our reliance to imported food".

The early phase has already started in North Sumatra, as well as central Kalimantan, on the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo.

Eventually it may be extended to three more regions on the world's biggest archipelago — South Sumatra, Papua and East Nusa Tenggara. 

The project has its critics, however.

Earlier this month Greenpeace Indonesia warned that converting carbon-rich peatland into giant farmlands could cause an environmental catastrophe. 

"Since 2015, over a quarter of a million hectares of peatland forest have burned in Central Kalimantan," it said.

"While the scientific community is urging us to protect all peatland to halt climate change, the government instead is backing a plan that looks set to turn this land into another carbon bomb."

SAINT PETERSBURG — Russia's nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika, touted as the most powerful of its kind and a symbol of Moscow's Arctic ambitions, set off on its maiden voyage on Tuesday.

Designed to transport liquefied natural gas from the Arctic, the giant vessel is 173 metres  long and 15 metres high.

"The unique domestically-built vessel will for the first time find itself in the extreme conditions of Arctic ice where it will have to confirm its status as the flagship of Russia's icebreaker fleet," said its constructors, the Baltic Shipyard in Saint Petersburg.

The Arktika is expected to arrive at its future home port of Murmansk in northwestern Russia in two weeks after undergoing tests of its performance en route.

Launched in 2016, it is part of a planned fleet of nuclear icebreakers aimed at significantly boosting freight traffic along Russia's Arctic coast, making the passage between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans navigable all year round.

According to its constructors, the Arktika can cut through ice that is 2.8 metres thick.

Economic development of the Arctic is one of President Vladimir Putin's key goals.

The Arctic holds huge oil and gas reserves that are being eyed by Russia and other countries including the United States, Canada and Norway.

WASHINGTON — Software giant Microsoft on Monday said it will acquire ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion, marking a major expansion into video gaming that will give it ownership of several best-selling franchises.

ZeniMax is the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, publisher of the Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises, and “Bethesda brings an impressive portfolio of games, technology, talent, as well as a track record of blockbuster commercial success,” Microsoft said in statement.

The company will pay for the acquisition in cash with the deal expected to close by the second half of fiscal year 2021.

The deal comes as Microsoft prepares to release its Xbox Series X in mid-November, its first update to the gaming console since 2013 that includes a slew of upgrades, even as analysts predict a shift away from physical consoles amid an increasing reliance on games hosted on the cloud.

“Generations of gamers have been captivated by the renowned franchises in the Bethesda portfolio and will continue to be so for years to come as part of Xbox,” Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of Gaming Phil Spencer said in announcing the deal.

In addition to Bethesda Softworks, ZeniMax also owns Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, ZeniMax Online Studios, Arkane, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog, and Roundhouse Studios, employing more than 2,300 people worldwide.

NEW YORK — A US judge on Sunday blocked the government's ban on WeChat downloads, hours before it was due to take effect in an ongoing technology battle between Washington and Beijing.

The Trump administration had ordered a ban on downloads of the messaging platform WeChat as well as hugely popular video-sharing app TikTok, both owned by Chinese companies. Both bans have now been suspended.

A California court ruling said it granted a "motion for a nationwide injunction against the implementation" of the government order on WeChat, with the judge citing concerns over free speech.

The order would have slowed WeChat down and made it unusable in the United States for video chats with family and friends, according to experts.

Owned by technology giant TenCent, WeChat has around 19 million active daily users in the US.

As President Donald Trump seeks a breakthrough with voters to win a second term in the November 3 election, he has increasingly put national security and his aggressive stance toward China at the centre of his campaign.

He regularly accuses Democratic opponent Joe Biden of weakness toward Beijing.

The president said on Saturday that he had approved a deal allowing Silicon Valley giant Oracle to become data partner for TikTok to avert a shutdown of that app.

The deal, announced by the companies, includes Walmart as a commercial partner and would create a new US company named TikTok Global.

National security threat? 

TikTok — owned by China's ByteDance — confirmed the Oracle agreement, which came as companies raced against the Sunday deadline.

The US Department of Commerce on Saturday announced it was postponing the ban on TikTok downloads until September 27, due to "recent positive developments".

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Friday accused China of using the two apps "to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and the economy of the US".

WeChat is "mostly used by Chinese visiting or working here or by Chinese-Americans staying in touch with their relatives", said William Reinsch of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

That includes several hundred thousand Chinese students in the US, who use it for daily online conversations.

Trump has often claimed, without providing evidence, that TikTok and WeChat are collecting user data for Beijing.

In early August, he gave ByteDance until September 20 to hand over TikTok's US operations to an American company.

TikTok's brand of short, quirky phone videos has become a global phenomenon, especially among young people, with 100 million users in the United States alone.

China on Saturday condemned US "bullying", saying it violated international trade norms and that there was no evidence of any security threat.

China also launched its long-expected "unreliable entities list", seen as a weapon for Beijing to retaliate against the United States. 

The Trump administration has used its own "entity list" to shut Chinese telecom giant Huawei out of the US market, in addition to the recent moves against TikTok and WeChat.

US officials have described Washington's crackdown as essential to safeguard against potential Chinese espionage through the platforms.

According to the US Treasury, the TikTok deal still needs to be finalised by the involved companies and approved by a federal national security committee.

MUMBAI — Apple will launch its first online store in India next week, the Silicon Valley company said on Friday, hoping to cash in on the country's festive season and grow its tiny share of the booming market.

The company is a small player in India, where sales of its smartphones lag those of South Korean rival Samsung, with the iPhone maker pricing itself exclusively at the luxury end of the market.

Its renewed push into India comes as Asia's third-largest economy has hit a record slump due to a months-long coronavirus lockdown.

India's busiest shopping season usually kicks off in October, with stores offering steep discounts and freebies to customers looking to splurge on big-ticket items as they celebrate popular Hindu festivals including Dussehra and Diwali.

Apple's online store, which will open for business on September 23, will offer "a range of affordability options" including discounts on Macs, iPads and tech accessories for students, the company said in a press release.

Shoppers will be able to get their AirPods, iPads and Apple Pencils engraved in English, Hindi and a range of other Indian languages.

Apple currently sells through third-party retailers in India including Amazon, and the country is seen as a huge potential market for the firm due to its giant 1.3 billion population and relatively low number of smartphone owners.

The company has only a 2 per cent share of the Indian market, according to industry estimates.

An application to open Apple Stores in India in 2016 was reportedly rebuffed because of a rule that states foreign retailers must source 30 per cent of their products locally. 

New Delhi has since relaxed the rules, giving companies up to eight years to meet the sourcing requirements, as part of a push to attract foreign investment and create jobs.

Some of its smartphones, including the iPhone 11, are assembled at facilities operated by Taiwanese manufacturers Foxconn and Wistron in the southern Indian cities of Chennai and Bangalore.

LONDON — Japan’s Hitachi on Wednesday scrapped its multi-billion-pound nuclear plant project in Wales in face of the deteriorating investment environment, in a blow to Britain’s atomic energy programme. 

The project in Anglesey, already suspended for 20 months because of financial difficulties, was cancelled as “the investment environment has become increasingly severe due to the impact of Covid-19”, Hitachi said in a statement.

The company said it would consult with the UK government and others regarding the fate of its licences and the Wylfa Newydd site that would have housed two reactors.

“We recognise that this will be very disappointing news for the people of North Wales,” the British government said in a statement.

It asserted, however, that “nuclear power will play a key role in the UK’s future energy mix” as the country transitions “to a low-carbon economy”.

The cost of building the Anglesey plant had been estimated at up to £20 billion ($25.4 billion, 21.4 billion euros).

Its targeted production capacity was nearly three gigawatts — enough to supply around six per cent of Britain’s electricity needs.

As recently as last month, Hitachi’s Horizon Nuclear subsidiary had said it was still committed to the project.

Hitachi had been waiting for the British government’s latest energy strategy, which could potentially include new financing models for the nuclear industry.

‘Urgent need 

for progress’ 

Tom Greatrex, chief executive of Britain’s Nuclear Industry Association, said Hitachi’s decision “underscores the urgent need for progress on new nuclear projects in the UK if net zero carbon emissions is to become a reality”.

The government “can secure these economic and environmental opportunities for future generations by setting out a clear pathway for new nuclear power in forthcoming policy announcements”, he said in a statement. 

Britain’s nuclear power plants built in the last century have either closed or are coming to the end of their lifespan.

But the country wants to maintain the 20 per cent of electricity it generates from nuclear power to help meet its pledge to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 and tackle climate change.

The Hinkley Point scheme in southwest England, the only nuclear project under construction, is due to be completed in 2025.

However, there is mounting concern at Chinese involvement in the project and further planned British nuclear plants amid strained diplomatic ties between London and Beijing.

China General Nuclear Power (CGN) is working alongside France’s EDF in the construction of Hinkley Point, while the pair are also awaiting formal approval for a new plant at Sizewell on the Suffolk coast in eastern England.

In both cases, CGN is the minority partner. 

But in another project, the Bradwell nuclear reactor in southeastern England, it is CGN that will hold the majority stake, pending UK government approval of the project.

Strained relations 

Diplomatic relations between London and Beijing are fraught after China introduced a controversial security law in former British colony Hong Kong. 

In addition, Britain recently ordered the phased removal of equipment belonging to Chinese mobile giant Huawei from its 5G network amid alleged security concerns.

“If CGN is blocked from Bradwell, they might walk out on Hinkley leaving a huge funding gap,” Steve Thomas, a professor of energy policy at London’s University of Greenwich, told AFP. 

He described Hitachi’s decision as a “blow” to the UK government. 

Justin Bowden, a senior official at British energy union GMB, said having foreign companies and governments to fund the UK’s future energy needs was a “fanciful experiment”. 

“This utterly predictable announcement from Hitachi is the outcome of successive [UK] government failures to act decisively around new nuclear, and in particular how it is financed,” Bowden said.

The move also dents Japan’s attempts to expand its nuclear businesses overseas after the Fukushima catastrophe effectively halted demand for new reactors in its home market. 

In 2018, Toshiba pulled the plug on a nuclear power plant in northwest England.