NAGANO, Japan, Oct 13- Japan sent tens of thousands of troops and rescue workers on Sunday to save stranded residents and fight floods caused by one of the worst typhoons to hit the country in recent history. Another 15 were missing and 177 injured by Typhoon Hagibis, which paralysed Tokyo on Saturday and dumped record levels of rain around Japan.
WASHINGTON, Sept 24- The U.S. Treasury Department said on Tuesday it was imposing sanctions on four maritime companies for transporting Venezuelan oil to Cuba in violation of a previous round of sanctions. Despite tough U.S. measures against Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA in January, Cuba's state-run oil import and export company Cubametales and...
CARACAS, Sept 12- Venezuela's banking regulator will launch a temporary state intervention of private bank Banco Occidental de Descuento, according to a document seen by Reuters on Thursday, following the closure of the bank's offshore affiliate in Curacao. Regulator Sudeban said the decision came in light of Curacao authorities' decision to implement an "...
MARSH HARBOUR, Bahamas, Sept 5- Richard Johnson said his six-year-old brother Adrian was just too small to withstand Hurricane Dorian. The boy was blown into churning storm surge and is among thousands of people missing, many children, after the worst hurricane to hit the Bahamas. An international relief effort was trying to overcome formidable logistical...
NASSAU, Bahamas, Sept 5- An international relief effort gathered pace on Thursday to help stunned residents of the Bahamas, where the health minister predicted a "staggering" death toll from Hurricane Dorian, now churning northward off the coast of South Carolina. Aerial video of the Abaco Islands in the northern Bahamas worst hit by the then-Category 5...
NASSAU, Bahamas, Sept 5- An international relief effort to bring humanitarian aid to stunned residents of the Bahamas gathered pace on Thursday as Hurricane Dorian churned northward off the coast of South Carolina, threatening storm surges and flooding. Aerial video of the worst-hit Abaco Islands in the northern Bahamas showed widespread devastation, with...
GIBRALTAR, Aug 17- The United States has issued a warrant to seize an Iranian oil tanker caught in the standoff between Tehran and the West in a last ditch effort to prevent the vessel from leaving Gibraltar. The Grace 1 was seized by British Royal Marines at the western mouth of the Mediterranean on July 4 on suspicion of violating European Union sanctions by...
*Gibraltar says Grace 1 is free to sail. *Tehran denies vessel was headed for Syria. GIBRALTAR, Aug 16- An Iranian tanker caught in the standoff between Tehran and the West shifted position on Friday, but its anchor was still down off Gibraltar and it was unclear if it was ready to set sail soon.
PANAMA CITY, Aug 16- The Panama Canal will allow vessels coming from Venezuela to transit the waterway provided they present the necessary paperwork, the canal authority's chief said on Wednesday, suggesting a new round of U.S. sanctions on the South American country may not make any difference to canal traffic. The measure did not explicitly place sanctions on...
*Tehran denies vessel was headed for Syria. GIBRALTAR, Aug 16- An Iranian tanker caught in the standoff between Tehran and the West shifted position on Friday, but its anchor was still down off Gibraltar and it was unclear if it was ready to set sail soon. The Grace 1 was seized by British Royal Marines at the western mouth of the Mediterranean on July 4 on suspicion of...
*Tehran denies vessel was headed for Syria. LONDON, Aug 16- An Iranian tanker caught in the standoff between Tehran and the West could sail free from British territory Gibraltar on Friday, unless a last-ditch push by the United States succeeds in dragging the saga back into court. Gibraltar lifted the detention order on Thursday after it said Tehran had given...
MEXICO CITY, Aug 7- Panama's Canal Authority said on Wednesday that the canal was operating normally and without delays, adding that no ships had been detained in the trade waterway.
PANAMA CANAL AUTHORITY SAYS THERE ARE NO SHIPS DETAINED IN PANAMA CANAL, AFTER VENEZUELA GOV'T SAYS SHIP CARRYING 25,000 TONNES OF SOY WAS DETAINED IN CANAL.
PANAMA CANAL AUTHORITY SAYS PANAMA CANAL OPERATING NORMALLY, WITHOUT DELAYS.
BRUSSELS, Aug 6- HSBC's Swiss private banking arm has agreed to pay nearly 300 million euros to settle a tax fraud case in Belgium, Belgian prosecutors said on Tuesday, the latest blow for the Alpine state's banking sector from the EU. UBS, which is under investigation in Belgium for a similar case, denies the charges. Swiss banks have been exposed to such legal...
BRUSSELS, Aug 6- HSBC's Swiss private banking arm, has agreed to pay nearly 300 million euros to settle a tax fraud case in Belgium, Belgian prosecutors said on Tuesday. They alleged that HSBC helped and encouraged tax fraud by creating off-shore companies in Panama and other tax heavens in the Caribbean for wealthy Belgian clients "with no other purpose but to...
The practice of turning off AIS by some vessels from countries such as Iran has become common to evade closer scrutiny as the United States pushes to cut off Iranian oil exports. Tensions spiked between Iran and Britain this month when Iranian commandos seized a British-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, the worlds most important waterway for oil...
LONDON/ DUBAI/ PANAMA CITY, July 26- Somewhere on its journey from the waters off Iran, around Africa's southern tip and into the Mediterranean, the Grace 1 oil tanker lost the flag under which it sailed and ceased to be registered to Panama. The ship carrying 2 million barrels of Iranian crude was seized by British Royal Marines off Gibraltar, raising tensions in the...
PANAMA CITY, July 20- Panama's maritime authority said on Saturday it had begun the process of withdrawing the registration of an oil tanker called MT Riah, which was towed to Iran after it disappeared from ship tracking maps in the Strait of Hormuz on July 14. Iran has said it towed a vessel into its waters from the strait after the ship issued a distress call.
DUBAI, July 16- Emirates is to start flights to Mexico with a stopover in Spain, a so-called fifth freedom flight that could anger critics and rival airlines in the United States and Europe. The Dubai state-owned carrier said on Tuesday it would start daily flights to Mexico City International Airport via Barcelona on Dec. 9, the airline's first service to Mexico.
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