SINGAPORE: Eleven men were charged in a Singapore court on Tuesday over their part in an alleged oil theft at Shell’s biggest refinery, court documents showed.
Police in the island-state, Asia’s main oil trading hub, said earlier on Tuesday they had detained 17 men and seized millions of dollars in cash and a small tanker during their investigations into a theft at the Pulau Bukom industrial site.
Royal Dutch Shell, which first reported the theft to authorities in August, said in a news release that the arrests included “a limited number of Shell employees” and that it anticipated “a short delay in the supply operations at Bukom.”
Nine Singaporeans were charged over the theft and two Vietnamese nationals were charged with receiving stolen goods, transferred from Pulau Bukom to a small oil tanker named Prime South, charge sheets showed.
Shipping data from Thomson Reuters Eikon showed the Prime South was shipping fuel between Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Singapore for the past 30 days.
Those arrested by police during raids on Sunday, all men, ranged in age from 30 to 63. Police said the six who had not been charged were still under investigation.
The court documents seen so far allege three incidents of gasoil theft: on November 21, 2017, of more than 2,322 tons valued at S$1.277 million (SR3.6 million); and on January 5 and 7 this year of a combined 2,062 tons of gasoil valued at S$1.126 million.
Both Vietnamese nationals were charged with receiving gasoil on January 7, at wharf 5 on Bukom island, the documents show.
Police said they also seized S$3.05 million in cash and the 12,000-deadweight-ton tanker.
They have also frozen the suspects’ bank accounts, the police said.
Bukom is the largest wholly owned Shell refinery in the world in terms of crude distillation capacity, according to the company’s website.
Shell declined to say how much oil had been stolen. The charge sheets specified gasoil as the stolen commodity and listed varying amounts for each man charged. Shipping and oil refining have contributed significantly to Singapore’s rising wealth during the past decades.
The Southeast Asian city-state is one of the world’s most important oil trading hubs, with most of the Middle East’s crude oil passing through Singapore before being delivered to the huge consumers in China, Japan and South Korea.
Singapore is also Southeast Asia’s main refinery hub and the world’s biggest marine refueling station.
Shell is one of the biggest and longest established foreign investors in Singapore. Its oil refinery on Bukom island, situated 5.5 kilometers to the southwest of Singapore, is the company’s biggest such facility in the world, with a processing capacity of 500,000 barrels per day.
Southeast Asia is a hotspot of illegal oil trading. In some cases, oil has been illegally siphoned from storage tanks, but there have also been thefts at sea.
The Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) says that siphoning of fuel and oil at sea in Asia, including through armed robbery and piracy, saw sharp increases between 2011 and 2015.
There has been a modest decline since then, although the organization said in a quarterly report that oil theft was still “of concern,” especially in the South China Sea, off the east coast of Malaysia.
The stolen fuel is generally sold across Southeast Asia, offloaded directly into trucks or tanks at small harbors away from oil terminals.
Singapore charges 11 men over Shell oil heist
Singapore charges 11 men over Shell oil heist
German lawmakers vote to suspend family reunions for many migrants
It will suspend rules dating to 2018 that allowed up to 1,000 close relatives per month to join the migrants granted limited protection
BERLIN: German lawmakers voted Friday to suspend family reunions for many migrants, part of a drive by the new conservative-led government for a tougher approach to migration.
Parliament’s lower house voted 444-135 to suspend the possibility of family reunions for two years for migrants who have “subsidiary protection,” a status that falls short of asylum.
At the end of March, more than 388,000 people living in Germany had the status, which was granted to many people fleeing Syria’s civil war.
New Chancellor Friedrich Merz made tougher migration policy a central plank of his campaign for Germany’s election in February. Just after he took office in early May, the government stationed more police at the border and said some asylum-seekers trying to enter Europe’s biggest economy would be turned away.
The bill approved Friday is the first legislation on migration since Merz took office. It will suspend rules dating to 2018 that allowed up to 1,000 close relatives per month to join the migrants granted limited protection, with authorities making case-by-case decisions on humanitarian grounds rather than granting an automatic right for reunions.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told lawmakers that the change would result in 12,000 fewer people being able to come to Germany each year and “break a business model” for smugglers.
People often know they won’t get full recognition as refugees, “but they set off for Germany because it is known that, even without asylum recognition ... you can have your family follow,” Dobrindt said. “That is a significant pull effect and we are removing this pull effect today.”
Dobrindt said “our country’s capacity for integration simply has a limit.”
Liberal opposition lawmakers decried the government’s approach. Marcel Emmerich, of the Greens, described the legislation as “an attack on the core of every society, on a truly central value — the family.”
“Anyone who wants integration must bring families together,” he said.
The far-right, anti-migration Alternative for Germany described the move as a very small step in the right direction.
German governments have for years faced pressure to curb migration as shelters across the country filled up. The administration of Merz’s predecessor, Olaf Scholz, already had taken some measures including the introduction of checks on all Germany’s borders.
Asylum applications declined from 329,120 in 2023 to 229,751 last year and have continued to fall this year.
Mamdani’s NYC primary win sparks surge in anti-Muslim posts, advocates say
- There were at least 127 violent hate-related reports mentioning Mamdani or his campaign in the day after polls closed
- Overall, it noted about 6,200 online posts that mentioned some form of Islamophobic slur
WASHINGTON: Anti-Muslim online posts targeting New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani have surged since his Democratic primary upset this week, including death threats and comments comparing his candidacy to the September 11, 2001 attacks, advocates said on Friday.
There were at least 127 violent hate-related reports mentioning Mamdani or his campaign in the day after polls closed, said CAIR Action, an arm of the Council on American Islamic Relations advocacy group, which logs such incidents.
That marks a five-fold increase over a daily average of such reports tracked earlier this month, CAIR Action said in a statement.
Overall, it noted about 6,200 online posts that mentioned some form of Islamophobic slur or hostility in that day long time-frame.
Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist and a 33-year-old state lawmaker, declared victory in Tuesday’s primary after former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo conceded defeat.
Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani would be the city’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor if he wins the November general election.
“We call on public officials of every party — including those whose allies are amplifying these smears — to unequivocally condemn Islamophobia,” said Basim Elkarra, executive director of CAIR Action.
The advocacy group said its hate monitoring system includes its own scraping and analysis of posts, online submissions by the public and notifications from law enforcement. About 62 percent of the anti-Muslim posts against Mamdani originated on X, CAIR Action said.
People close to Republican President Donald Trump, including one of his sons, are among those spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric, advocates said.
Donald Trump Jr, the president’s son, wrote on X on Wednesday that “New York City has fallen” while sharing a post that said New Yorkers had “voted for” 9/11. Also on Wednesday, Republican US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted an AI-generated picture of the Statue of Liberty draped in a burqa.
President Trump has pursued domestic policies that rights advocates have described as anti-Muslim, including banning travel from some predominantly Muslim or Arab countries in his first term and attempting to deport pro-Palestinian students in his current term.
The White House, which did not respond to a request for comment, has denied claims of discrimination against Muslims. Trump and his allies have said they oppose Mamdani and others due to what they call the Democrats’ “radical left” ideology.
THREATS
The New York City Police Department said earlier this month its hate crime unit was probing anti-Muslim threats against Mamdani.
Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, which documents hate against Asian Americans, and CAIR said attacks against Mamdani mirrored those endured by other South Asian and Muslim political figures, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.
Republicans have called Mamdani antisemitic, citing his pro-Palestinian advocacy and his criticism of Israel’s military assault on Gaza after an attack by Hamas militants in October 2023.
Mamdani has condemned antisemitism and has the backing of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is Jewish. Lander also ran in the Democratic primary.
Rights advocates have noted rising antisemitism and Islamophobia since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, with fatal US incidents including the shooting of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington and the stabbing of a Muslim child in Illinois.
Mamdani and other Pro-Palestinian advocates, including some Jewish groups, said their criticism of Israel is wrongly conflated with antisemitism.
Kremlin says Estonia's readiness to host nuclear-capable NATO jets threatens Russia
- Pevkur said Estonia was ready to host nuclear-capable jets if necessary
- Peskov said such a move would be an obvious threat to Russia
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Friday that Estonia's stated readiness to host NATO allies' U.S.-made F-35A stealth jets, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, posed a direct threat to Moscow.
Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur told the Postimees news outlet on Thursday that Estonia - which borders Russia and is a rotating base for NATO jets tasked with protecting Baltic airspace - was ready to host nuclear-capable jets if necessary.
"If some of them, regardless of their country of origin, have a dual-use capability to carry nuclear weapons it doesn't affect our position on hosting F-35s in any way," the outlet cited him as saying.
"Of course we are ready to host our allies."
Pevkur was speaking after Britain, a NATO member, announced it would buy at least 12 F-35A jets capable of carrying nuclear warheads and that they would join NATO's airborne nuclear mission.
Asked about Pevkur's comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such a move would be an obvious threat to Russia.
"Of course it would be an immediate danger," Peskov told a journalist from Russia's Life news outlet. He said the statement was one of many "absurd thoughts" voiced by politicians in the Baltic region, which comprises Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
"We have practically no relations with the Baltic republics because it is very difficult to make them worse," he said.
Liberia holds funeral for ex-leader Doe decades after assassination
- Samuel Doe’s brutal 1990 torture and murder were an early turning point in the two civil wars
- The circumstances surrounding Doe’s death mark a notorious episode in Liberia’s history
ZWEDRU, Liberia: Hundreds of people gathered Friday in rural Liberia for the state funeral of authoritarian former president Samuel Doe 35 years after his assassination, part of the country’s ongoing reconciliation efforts over its violent past.
Doe’s brutal 1990 torture and murder were an early turning point in the two civil wars that killed around 250,000 people and ravaged Liberia’s economy.
He is being commemorated at his home compound in southeastern Grand Gedeh County alongside his wife, Nancy, who died in May and will be buried at the estate.
Liberians gathered along the route Friday as the couple’s caskets – his symbolic, and hers containing her body – were slowly driven through the county capital of Zwedru on the bed of a truck decorated in bunting in the country’s red, white and blue colors.
The state ceremony is being attended by President Joseph Boakai, who declared a period of mourning this week from Tuesday to Friday, with flags flown at half-mast.
His executive mansion Facebook page said the commemorations are part of a “broader effort” meant to “promote national reconciliation.”
The circumstances surrounding Doe’s death mark a notorious episode in Liberia’s history.
Infamous warlord Prince Johnson, a key player in the civil wars (1989 to 2003), appeared in a video watching his fighters slowly mutilate and torture Doe to death while he calmly sipped a beer.
Various rumors but little concrete information exists as to the fate and location of Doe’s remains following his death.
Doe’s own rise to power was also steeped in violence.
His 1980 to 1990 rule remains divisive, remembered by many Liberians as a brutal dictatorship, while others recall some transformative measures he implemented fondly.
Liberian Mercy Janjay Seeyougar said in Monrovia ahead of the funeral that she remembered how Doe once gave her a candy, and that during street cleanings he would “stop and be with the people who are doing the cleaning.”
In 1980, Doe, then an army sergeant in his late 20s, led a coup assassinating president William Tolbert, the last in a line of leaders from the Americo-Liberian ruling class comprised of the descendants of former US slaves.
Quickly establishing a regime of terror, Doe had 13 members of the government he had overthrown publicly executed on a beach and his regime subsequently jailed or persecuted many of its opponents.
He was elected in a 1985 presidential vote that many observers said was marked by fraud.
The brutality of his regime, combined with declining economic conditions and favoritism toward the Krahn ethnic group of which he was a member, led to increased unpopularity.
Russian missile attack kills five in Ukraine’s southeast
- At least four of the wounded were in severe condition and were taken to hospital
- Officials gave no immediate details on damage in the city
KYIV: A Russian missile attack on Friday killed at least five people and wounded more than 20 in the industrial city of Samar in Ukraine’s southeast, officials said, the second strike on the city in three days.
At least four of the wounded were in severe condition and were taken to hospital, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said on the Telegram messaging app.
Officials gave no immediate details on damage in the city, where an attack on an unidentified infrastructure facility on Tuesday killed two people.
Hundreds of kilometers to the south, in the Kherson region, authorities urged residents on Friday to prepare for extended periods without power after a Russian attack hit a key energy facility.
Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram that “Russians decided to plunge the region into darkness.”
In recent weeks Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian cities, particularly its capital Kyiv, more than three years into the war that followed its full-scale invasion.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 363 long-range drones and eight missiles overnight into Friday, targeting a small western city of Starokostiantyniv, home to an important air base. There were no details on damage.
