Black Immigrant Daily News

OPEC and allied oil-producing countries, including Russia, cut their supplies to the global economy by 100,000 barrels per day, underlining their unhappiness with crude prices that have sagged because of recession fears.

The decision Monday by energy ministers means the cut for October rolls back the mostly symbolic increase of the same amount in September. The move follows a statement last month from Saudi Arabia’s energy minister that the group could reduce output at any time.

Oil producers such as Saudi Arabia have resisted calls from US President Joe Biden to pump more oil to lower gasoline prices and the burden on consumers.

But worries about slumping future demand have helped send prices down from June peaks of over $120 per barrel, cutting into the windfall for the government budgets of OPEC+ countries but proving a blessing for drivers in the US as pump prices have eased.

The energy ministers said in a statement that the September increase was only for that month, and that the group could meet again at any time to address market developments.

Other factors are lurking that could influence the price of oil. For one, the Group of Seven major democracies plan to impose a price cap on imports of Russian oil and what effect that might have on the market. The price level for the cap has not yet been set.

Meanwhile, a deal between Western countries and Iran to limit Tehran’s nuclear program could ease sanctions and see more than 1 million barrels of Iranian oil return to the market in coming months. However, tensions between the US and Iran appear to have risen in recent days: Iran seized two US naval drones in the Red Sea, and US, Kuwaiti and Saudi warplanes flew over the Middle East on Sunday in a show of force.

Oil prices have gyrated in recent months: Recession fears have pushed them down, while worries of a loss of Russian oil because of sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine pushed them up.

Recently, recession fears have taken the upper hand. Economists in Europe are pencilling in a recession at the end of this year due to skyrocketing inflation fed by energy costs, while China’s severe restrictions aimed at halting the spread of the coronavirus have sapped growth in that major world economy.

Those falling oil prices have been a boon to US drivers, sending gasoline prices down to $3.82 per gallon from record highs of over $5 in June.

That month, fears that US and European sanctions would take Russian oil off the market helped push Brent to over $123. Those concerns are still out there because European sanctions aimed at Russian oil shipments won’t take effect until the end of the year.

By DAVID McHUGH AP Business Writer

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Black Immigrant Daily News

[Update: 5pm, September 4, 2022]

The deceased in the latest fatal shooting at Lynches, St Philip has been identified.

He is Patrick Moore, 51, of River Land, St Philip.

Police are investigating another shooting death which appears to now be the country’s 29th murder for 2022.

At Lynches, St Philip, according to police, it was reported about 8:40 pm last night, Saturday, September 3, 2022, that there were a number of people liming in an area under a street light playing dominoes, when a vehicle approached the area stopped and suddenly a number of masked men jumped out the car and started shooting.

The crowd scattered for safety. Moments later one man was found in the area lying motionless with several noticeable injuries. No one else received or complained of being injured.

The victim was pronounced dead by a medical doctor who visited the scene.

Investigations are ongoing.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Members of the public may soon see changes to Cayman’s tobacco legislation. This is according to statements made at a press briefing last week by Dr Autilia Newton, Cayman’s interim chief medical officer and Sabrina Turner, Minister for Health and Wellness.

Speaking about the development, Minister Turner said:

A significant win for our country [is that] recently the Cayman Islands has become the first United Kingdom Overseas Territory in the Caribbean to request the extension of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control legislation to our country.

Now, this convention is an evidence-based treaty that addresses another global pandemic that claims seven million lives every year. That’s tobacco.

I am happy and proud to say that this legal framework will allow us to develop and expand more comprehensive approach to tobacco control that will pay dividends in strengthening the health and wellness of our population.

Explaining why the Cayman Islands is now in a position to have the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control extended to the Cayman Islands, Dr Newton said:

To be able to ask for the extension, you have to fill in this table… [which] shows that your local legislation has already been amended to accommodate the framework requirements.

Cabinet wouldn’t have been able to ask for the extension if the work had not already been done.

Now, the people will be assessed by the FCDO colleagues and Department of Health & Social Care in the UK and they will say “yes that’s right.” Then, there is additional legislation that you can introduce which is to do with the graphics on the package and all the elements… and this is then up to us to see whether we want to that order step forward.

The whole point is [to] reduce prevalence of smoking and support people who want to quit smoking.

Because of the anticipated government campaign to reduce the prevalence of smoking which will accompany the foregoing WHO convention extension, Loop News posed the question to Dr Newton whether she had any particular view if the use of tobacco was more dangerous than the use of cannabis.

In response, Dr Newton said:

To answer this question, I would have to prepare a bit better and so, because it’s … you have to review all your literature.

It’s not only me giving you my personal position.

I will have to look at the evidence to give you a more correct answer, a more precise answer.

As a result of these announcements, smokers and non-smokers alike eagerly await the details of the implementation of the extension of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to Cayman.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Britain’s Conservative Party announced Monday that Liz Truss, currently the country’s foreign secretary, has been elected as the party’s new leader and thus the UK’s new prime minister.

Truss, 47, beat former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak after a leadership contest in which only about 170,000 dues-paying members of the Conservative Party were allowed to vote. Truss received 81,326 votes, compared with Sunak’s 60,399.

She faces immediate pressure to deliver on her promises to tackle a cost-of-living crisis walloping the UK and an economy heading into a potentially lengthy recession.

Queen Elizabeth II is scheduled to formally appoint Truss as Britain’s prime minister on Tuesday. The ceremony will take place at the queen’s Balmoral estate in Scotland, where the monarch is spending her summer, rather than Buckingham Palace in London.

The two-month leadership contest left Britain with a power vacuum at a time of growing discontent across the country amid spiralling energy and food costs. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made no major policy decisions since he announced he was stepping down on July 7, and officials insisted that measures to address the energy cost crisis would be deferred until his successor is in place.

Meanwhile tens of thousands of workers have gone on strike to demand better pay to keep up with relentlessly rising costs. Inflation is above 10 per cent for the first time since the 1980s, and the Bank of England has forecast that will reach a 42-year high of 13.3 per cent in October. That’s largely driven by soaring energy bills, which will jump 80 per cent for the average household starting next month.

“I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy. I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills, but also dealing with the long term issues we have on energy supply,” Truss told party members after she was elected.

“I know that our beliefs resonate with the British people: Our beliefs in freedom, in the ability to control your own life, in low taxes, in personal responsibility,” she added. “I know that’s why people voted for us in such numbers in 2019 and as your party leader I intend to deliver what we promised those voters right across our great country.”

Truss has won the support of many Conservatives with her Thatcherite zeal to roll back state intervention and slash taxes. Both she and her rival Sunak have spoken of their admiration for Margaret Thatcher, who was prime minister from 1979 to 1990, and her free-market, small-government economics.

It’s not clear how Truss’s right-wing brand of conservatism, which played so well with party members, will go down with the wider British public – especially those most in need of government relief to help heat their homes this winter.

“This is someone who believes in the market in a radical way, someone who believes that the objective of government is to get towards a much smaller state sooner rather than later. She takes that very seriously,” said Steven Fielding, a professor of political history at Nottingham University.

While the economy is certain to dominate the first months of the new premier’s term, Johnson’s successor will also have to steer the U.K. on the international stage in the face of Russia’s war in Ukraine, an increasingly assertive China and ongoing tensions with the European Union over the aftermath of Brexit – especially in Northern Ireland.

Truss will be the UK’s fourth Conservative prime minister in six years, entering Downing Street following Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron.

Johnson was forced to resign after a series of ethics scandals that peaked in July, when dozens of cabinet ministers and lower-level officials quit in protest over his handling of allegations of sexual misconduct by a senior member of his government.

Both Truss and Sunak were key players within Johnson’s Cabinet, though Sunak resigned in the last days of Johnson’s time in office.

A Truss government may not sit well with many because it reminds voters too much of Johnson’s misdeeds, Fielding said.

“She’s basically been elected as Boris Johnson 2.0 by Conservative members — she’s made it very clear that she is a loyal Boris Johnson supporter,” Fielding said. “I think she’s going to find it very difficult to disentangle herself from the whole Johnson shadow.”

Truss and Sunak were the final two candidates whittled down from an initial field of 11 leadership hopefuls.

Under Britain’s parliamentary system of government, the center-right Conservative Party was allowed to hold an internal election to select a new party leader and prime minister without going to the wider electorate. A new general election isn’t required until December 2024.

By SYLVIA HUI and DANICA KIRKA

Associated Press

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