The Taliban government in Afghanistan has appealed for international flights to be restored, claiming that all the problems at the Kabul airport have been resolved while promising full cooperation with airlines.
According to the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the new administration has stepped up efforts to open up the country and gain international acceptance. The airport, which was damaged during the chaotic evacuation of tens of thousands of foreigners and Afghans that followed the Taliban’s seizure of the capital, has since been reopened with the assistance of technical teams from Qatar and Turkey.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said the suspension of international flights has left many Afghans stranded abroad and also prevented people from traveling for work or study.
“As the problems at Kabul International Airport have been resolved and the airport is fully operational for domestic and international flights, the IEA [Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan] assures all airlines of its full cooperation,” he said, as quoted by Reuters.
A limited number of aid and passenger flights, including from Pakistan International Airlines, have been operating from Afghanistan’s airport. However, regular commercial services have been halted.
Natural gas prices on the European market surged by more than 5% on Monday, hitting nearly $900 per 1,000 cubic meters, according to ICE futures trading data.
The price tag for the October futures contract on the TTF hub in the Netherlands reached $895.30, marking a growth of 5.4% against the levels reached at the end of last week.
European gas prices have been hitting record highs over the past month with the estimated price of October futures reaching a decade high of $963.90 on September 15.
The spike is being attributed to the approaching winter season and economic rebound from Covid-19 lockdowns across the world. This has reportedly boosted demand from households and businesses, while lower investment by global drillers is constraining output.
Last week, the CEO of Ukrainian state-controlled energy corporation Naftogaz accused Russia’s Gazprom of deliberately withholding gas supplies from Europe, thus manipulating the markets.
The Russian energy corporation says the surge in gas prices are the result of low reserves in European underground storage facilities ahead of the winter season. As of September 19, those reserves were reportedly only 72% full, which is nearly 14% lower than in the past five years.
Earlier this month, Germany’s energy ministry said Russia is fully compliant with its gas supply obligations to Europe, stressing there was no need for the state to intervene in the situation with gas prices.
Major crypto coins started to recover on Monday, following last week’s massive sell-off in the wake of China’s blanket ban on virtual currency-related businesses.
Bitcoin has rallied to about $44,000 per coin, nearing the level it was trading on Friday before the People’s Bank of China announced that crypto transactions in the country are illegal. Meanwhile, ether broke above last week’s level, trading up by more than 5% at $3,110 as of 10:47 GMT.
“As the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) around the cryptocurrency ban in China is slowly leaving the market, there is a sense of stability across the crypto spectrum. With bitcoin surpassing the $44,000 mark, most of the other top cryptocurrencies followed suit. The coming 24 hours could be a period of stability across the crypto spectrum,” Edul Patel, CEO and co-founder of Mudrex, told the Economic Times.
According to Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at Oanda Corporation, “Over the weekend sessions, bitcoin has shown some resilience and has now recovered the majority of those losses.”
“It may well be that China’s previously announced crackdowns had already been built into prices,” he said in a note seen by Bloomberg.
The People’s Bank of China revived its tough stance on digital currencies on Friday, ruling all crypto-related trading activities illegal and banning overseas cryptocurrency exchanges from providing services to mainland investors.
The regulator announced plans to bar financial institutions, payment companies and internet firms from facilitating cryptocurrency trading, as well as to strengthen monitoring of risks from such activities.
The ruling came as part of a broader state-run campaign by Chinese regulators against cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, Beijing banned mining in major bitcoin hubs, such as Sichuan, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, which led to a sharp drop in bitcoin’s processing power, as multiple miners took their equipment offline.
The British government could deploy military personnel to deliver gasoline to services stations if the situation with fuel shortages shows no sign of improving, media reported.
A series of emergency measures were announced by the authorities over the weekend to address the fuel crisis, including issuing temporary work visas for up to 5,500 foreign truck drivers and suspending the competition law to allow suppliers to deliver fuel to rival operators.
This came as long queues of cars have been seen outside UK gas stations in recent days, with drivers attempting to fill up their vehicles amid media reports of an impending shortage.
According to Gordon Balmer, executive director of the UK’s Petrol Retailers Association, temporary visas would ease supply constraints to an extent, but that is not enough. He told LBC News on Monday that he hoped the government was indeed considering measures like bringing in the army. “A lot of people have filled up over the weekend, many people only fill up once a month,” he said, adding: “That might give us some respite to start to replenish stocks over the next few days.”
On Friday, the Automobile Association (AA) appealed for calm after oil giant BP said it had temporarily closed some of its gas stations due to shortages of unleaded and diesel petrol. “These have been caused by some delays in the supply chain which has been impacted by the industry-wide driver shortages across the UK and there are many actions being taken to address the issue,” BP’s spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, Business Minister Kwasi Kwarteng said on Sunday that he had exempted the fuel industry from UK competition laws, which he said would allow companies to “share information and prioritize the delivery of fuel to areas most in need.”
Budapest signed a new long-term contract on Monday with Russia’s energy giant Gazprom for gas supplies bypassing Ukraine, Reuters reports.
The agreement was sealed by Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller and Hungarian energy group MVM executives at the Hungarian Foreign Ministry.
The deal was signed after Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto announced last month that Budapest had agreed with Moscow on all the conditions for a new supply contract to take effect from October 1. The minister said that under the new deal, Hungary will buy gas “at a much better price than under the expiring contract,” which was signed in 2020.
According to Szijjarto, the duration of the new agreement with Gazprom would be 15 years, with a clause to change purchased quantities after 10 years. The price had also been agreed.
Gazprom would ship 4.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Hungary annually, Szijjarto said, adding that some 3.5 billion cubic meters will come via Serbia and 1 billion cubic meters via Austria.
