Addressing reporters before the summit, Meloni also said the EU needed to thoroughly review the bloc’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and adopt further measures to fight speculation on energy prices

International News via Reuters:

EU leaders meeting on Thursday will focus on ways to lower energy prices while also discussing “very divisive” proposals to issue common debt as part of efforts to boost the bloc’s competitiveness, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said.

Addressing reporters before the summit, Meloni also said the EU needed to thoroughly review the bloc’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and adopt further measures to fight speculation on energy prices.

Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte, Editing by Alvise Armellini

Mottley’s BLP won all 30 seats available, unseating opposition leader Ralph Thorne, after the prime minister built one of the strongest global profiles of any Caribbean leader

International News via Reuters:

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley won her third election victory, with her Barbados Labour Party sweeping all seats of the island nation’s House of Assembly, state TV CBC Barbados said early on Thursday. 

Mottley’s BLP won all 30 seats available, unseating opposition leader Ralph Thorne, after the prime minister built one of the strongest global profiles of any Caribbean leader, and was supported by voters across the country.

“Our mission first and foremost is to stop poor people from being poor and to remove injustice wherever it exists to create opportunities for people,” Mottley said in a victory speech on election night. 

Surrounded by supporters dressed in red, she announced that Friday would be a public bank holiday in Barbados. 

The 60-year-old prime minister also promised to take care of Barbados’ democracy, which last year celebrated 75 years since people earned the right to vote without owning property. 

Her party has vowed to continue to focus on the economy, cost-of-living and the Caribbean nation’s place on the international stage.

“The result is disappointing,” Thorne said from the headquarters of the opposition Democratic Labour Party, although he expressed gratitude for a clean campaign. 

The opposition has criticised issues of security and infrastructure, with Thorne saying policy should be focused on Barbadians’ domestic priorities.

Barbados is the Caribbean’s easternmost country, home to around 283,000 people and a little over half the size of Singapore.  

Reporting by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez; Editing by Kate Mayberry

Brent crude oil futures settled 60 cents, or 0.87%, higher at $69.40 a barrel

International News via Reuters:

Oil prices gained about 1% on Wednesday, as investors worried about escalating tensions between Iran and the U.S., which were preparing to resume negotiations, while a weekly report showing a large build in U.S. crude inventories limited gains.

Brent crude oil futures settled 60 cents, or 0.87%, higher at $69.40 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude gained 67 cents, or nearly 1.05%, to $64.63.

“The market continues to be supported by the tension between the U.S. and Iran and the on-again, off-again talks that don’t seem to lead to any resolution,” said Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates. 

TRUMP SAYS ‘NOTHING DEFINITIVE’ DECIDED ON IRAN

U.S. President Donald Trump said nothing definitive was decided during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday but that negotiations with Iran toward a deal would continue.

On Tuesday, Trump said he was considering sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East if a deal is not reached with Iran, even as Washington and Tehran prepared to resume talks.

U.S. and Iranian diplomats held indirect talks last week in Oman, amid a regional naval buildup by the U.S. threatening Iran. The date and venue of the next round of U.S.-Iran talks have yet to be announced.

“While rhetoric remains belligerent at times, there are no signs, at least for now, of escalation, and the U.S. President believes that Iran will ultimately want to strike a deal on its nuclear missile programme,” PVM Oil Associates analyst Tamas Varga said in a note. 

Also supporting oil prices, U.S. job growth unexpectedly accelerated in January and the unemployment rate fell to 4.3%, the Labor Department said, signaling a healthy economy.

“A resilient labor market underpins demand for transport fuels, petrochemicals and power generation, reducing downside risks to US consumption at a time when macro sentiment had turned cautious,” Rystad Energy said in a note, adding that “labor market stability reinforces the view that the demand picture is firming up.”

Limiting price gains, the U.S. crude inventories rose by 8.5 million barrels to 428.8 million barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration said, far exceeding analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 793,000-barrel rise.

“Domestic production came back with a vengeance and not that far off the all-time record,” said Robert Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho.

In the wider market, OPEC left its oil supply-demand expectations largely unchanged in its monthly report, but highlighted that global oil demand for the wider group’s crude will drop by 400,000 bpd in the second quarter compared to the first. 

Russian oil production edged down around 0.6% in January from December, per the report.

Egypt has directed international oil companies to double production by 2030, with existing contracts due to be revised to spur new investment, Energean International’s country manager for Egypt told Reuters on Tuesday.

Reporting by Nicole Jao in New York, Emily Chow and Siyi Liu in Singapore and Seher Dareen in London; Editing by Ros Russell, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Tomasz Janowski, David Gregorio, Rod Nickel

The name of Fabrice Aidan appears in more than 200 documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice, including emails he sent to Epstein between 2010 and 2016 from both his personal and U.N. accounts

International News via Reuters:

France’s foreign minister has notified prosecutors about a middle-ranking French diplomat who had ties to Jeffrey Epstein and is suspected of transferring United Nations documents to the late convicted sex offender.  

The name of Fabrice Aidan appears in more than 200 documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice, including emails he sent to Epstein between 2010 and 2016 from both his personal and U.N. accounts.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said his ministry had initiated its own administrative investigation and disciplinary proceedings against Aidan, and described the allegations as “extremely serious.”

Prosecutors in Paris will decide whether to open a criminal investigation.

Reuters was unable to reach Aidan for comment via his X handle. His LinkedIn account appeared to have been deleted, Reuters’ online searches found. 

The U.N. documents in question include U.N. Security Council briefings and reports. A readout of a call between former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Turkey’s foreign minister that Aidan sent to a superior was then forwarded to Epstein. 

Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the allegations of corruption and disclosure of confidential information would be addressed “in accordance with the organization’s legal and policy framework.”

“It goes without saying that the sharing of confidential information without express authority to do so is against procedure,” Dujarric told Reuters in an emailed statement.

CODE TO EPSTEIN’S PARIS APARTMENT

“These emails, including the transfer of U.N. documents, are staggering,” Barrot told RTL radio. He said he had learned of Aidan’s actions on Tuesday via a report published by French investigative website Mediapart.     

In one email exchange, Aidan asked Epstein whether he could have the entrance codes to the financier’s luxury apartment in Paris – a request Epstein responded to favourably.

Aidan joined the Foreign Ministry around 2000. He is identified by the ministry as a “principal secretary of foreign affairs currently on personal leave and working outside the ministry.” 

Gerard Araud, France’s ambassador to the United States at the time, said on X that he had sent Aidan back to France. He did not say why but referred to the existence of an FBI file on Aidan, of which he gave no details.

His work at the ministry included a secondment at U.N. headquarters in New York from 2006 to 2013. At the time of his resignation from the secondment, a disciplinary process against him was under way, Dujarric said.

MACRON ‘APPALLED’ BY FINDINGS 

President Emmanuel Macron is “appalled by the recent findings,” a source close to the French leader said.

Government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said “judicial bodies must take up this case if they so wish. All light must be shed on this appalling and far-reaching affair.”

The release of a cache of new files in the U.S. this year has revealed a host of new Epstein connections with politicians, royals and the ultra-rich across Europe and the U.S.

In France, former Culture Minister Jack Lang stepped down from the Arab World Institute, a Foreign Ministry-backed cultural organisation, after his name appeared hundreds of times in the documents. 

Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro and John Irish; Additional reporting by Dominique Vidalon and Elizabeth Pineau; Editing by Richard Lough, Timothy Heritage, Rod Nickel