PARIS: French lawmakers on Monday (Apr 13) passed a Bill to simplify the return of artworks looted during the colonial era to their countries of origin.

France still has in its possession tens of thousands of artworks and other prized artefacts that it looted from its colonial empire.

The draft legislation to return them was unanimously approved by the lower house National Assembly late on Monday.

The upper house had unanimously passed the measure in January.

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President Emmanuel Macron has made it a political promise to return the cultural items, and has gone further than his predecessors in admitting past French abuses in Africa.

Speaking during a visit to the Burkina Faso capital Ouagadougou shortly after taking office in 2017, Macron vowed that France would never again interfere in its former colonies and promised to facilitate the return of African cultural heritage within five years.

Designed to streamline the process, Monday's Bill specifically targets property acquired between 1815 and 1972.

Former colonial powers in Europe have slowly been moving to send back some artworks obtained during their imperial conquests - but France is hindered by its current legislation, which requires every item in the national collection to be voted on individually.

France has been flooded with restitution demands, including from Algeria, Mali and Benin.

In 2025, France's parliament approved the return to Ivory Coast of a "talking drum" that colonial troops took from the Ebrie tribe in 1916. It returned home in March.

The Bill has faced political wrangling in France, with the hard-left France Unbowed party (LFI) arguing that its scope should be extended.

The far-right National Rally party, on the other hand, wants to limit the restitution of colonial-era art only to states which have "cordial" relations with France.

A series of coups in West Africa have brought several military juntas hostile to Paris into power in former French colonies in recent years.

In 2023, France adopted two so-called framework laws to return objects in two categories: one for goods looted from Jewish families during World War II, and another for the repatriation of human remains from public collections.

"NECESSARY STEP"

The passage of the Bill is a "recognition of a moral imperative, a necessary step toward rectifying historical injustices and restoring cultural heritage to its rightful owners", news outlet China Daily said in an editorial on Thursday.

It added that the Bill is "welcome news" for China, saying that the Chinese Museum inside the Palace of Fontainebleau alone reportedly holds over 1,000 Chinese artifacts.

China Daily said that there has been a growing ethical consensus in recent years that artifacts looted during colonial rule or war should be returned to their origin countries.

"This shift in moral perspective is part of a broader wave to redress the historical injustices of colonisation that extends beyond the political and economic realms into the cultural and museum sectors," it added, calling France's move a "beacon of hope".

It noted that several countries, such as Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, have made moves in this direction.

"Hopefully, France's initiative will become a new starting point for the global movement to return stolen cultural relics."

PARIS: Could planes soon be stuck on the ground due to a lack of fuel? The risk of jet fuel shortages is growing each day the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, although it is uncertain when exactly supplies will run out.

The risk of shortages is greatest in Asia, and to a lesser extent Europe, as they both rely on oil from the Gulf and its refineries for their supplies.

"The situation can, within the next three, four weeks, become systemic," Rystad Energy economist Claudio Galimberti said on US financial news channel CNBC on Tuesday (Apr 14) about jet fuel shortages.

"So you can have severe cuts of flights in Europe, already starting in May and June," he warned.

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Galimberti said flights had already been cancelled due to fuel shortages, but the European Commission on the same day said there was no lack of fuel as yet.

"There is no evidence for fuel shortages in the European Union at present," said spokeswoman Anna-Kaisa Itkonen.

However, she acknowledged that "supply issues could occur in the near future in particular for jet fuels".

MAY OR JUNE SHORTAGES

Last week, the Airports Council International Europe wrote to the European Commission saying shortages of jet fuel could begin in three weeks - at the beginning of May, if tankers don't begin sailing through the Strait of Hormuz before then.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz - through which a fifth of the world's crude oil and liquefied natural gas supplies transited before the war - has been almost completely blocked since the United States and Israel began bombing Iran on Feb 28.

The head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, also warned that Europe could face shortages of jet fuel "maybe beginning of May".

In its latest monthly report on the oil market, released on Tuesday, the IEA advanced a later date.

"If the global jet fuel market tightens further and European markets are unable to secure more than 50 per cent of their lost Middle East volumes, then stocks will hit the crucial 23-day level in June," it warned.

It is hard to make sweeping generalisations about the situation.

Japan is heavily dependent upon imports but has built up considerable reserves.

The situation also varies considerably with Europe.

Austria, Bulgaria and Poland have comfortable stocks. For Britain, Iceland and the Netherlands, it is the opposite. France is somewhere in the middle.

And the impact won't be the same for all airports and airlines.

"Smaller, inland located airports will be in a weaker position than the main hubs," ING Bank economist Rico Luman told AFP.

"It won't be a matter of full halt, but part cancellation at some airlines and airports," he added.

"SERIOUS SUPPLY ISSUES"

Airlines have little visibility to plan their flight schedules.

Airlines for Europe (A4E), a trade association that includes Air France-KLM, Lufthansa and Ryanair, has been urging the European Union to begin providing real time information on jet fuel stocks at airports.

The data would have to come from fuel suppliers, who are not enthusiastic about turning over sensitive commercial data to their major clients.

TotalEnergies has warned that if oil supplies from the Gulf remain blocked in June it won't be able to supply all of its customers.

"If this war and this blockade last more than three months, we'll begin to face some serious supply issues in some products like jet fuel," the company's chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said on Monday.

Airlines for Europe (A4E) has also suggested that the European Commission exceptionally authorise the import of US jet fuel, which is produced to a slightly different standard than in the rest of the world.

Regulatory, political and logistical issues mean there is little chance this could happen in the near future.

Singer D4vd has been arrested on suspicion of killing a 14-year-old girl whose decomposed body was found seven months ago in his apparently abandoned Tesla, authorities said Thursday (Apr 16), while his lawyers declared his innocence.

Los Angeles police said in a brief statement that homicide detectives arrested the 21-year-old Houston-born alt-pop singer, whose legal name is David Burke, on suspicion of murder in the investigation of the killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

Defence attorneys Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter responded in an email: “Let us be clear – the actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death.”

Police said investigators would present a case to prosecutors at the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office on Monday. The office said in its own statement that it is aware of the arrest and its Major Crimes Division will review the case to determine whether there is enough evidence to file charges.

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The defence lawyers added: “There has been no indictment returned by any grand jury in this case and no criminal complaint filed. David has only been detained under suspicion. We will vigorously defend David’s innocence.”

It was their first public statement on the case. Authorities did not publicly name Burke as a suspect until his arrest. He was being held in jail without bail.

The singer had been under investigation by an LA County grand jury looking into the death of Rivas Hernandez. The probe was officially secret, but its existence – and the designation of D4vd as its target – was revealed on Feb 25 when his mother, father and brother filed an objection in a Texas court to subpoenas demanding they testify.

The long-dead body of Rivas Hernandez was found in a Tesla towed from the Hollywood Hills on Sep 8, a day after she would have turned 15. She was a 13-year-old seventh grader when her family reported her missing in 2024 from her hometown of Lake Elsinore, about 112km southeast of Los Angeles. Authorities give her age as 14 when she was killed in court documents.

The 2023 Tesla Model Y was registered in the singer's name at the Texas address of his subpoenaed family members, according to court filings from prosecutors. It had been towed from an upscale neighbourhood in the Hollywood Hills where it had been sitting, seemingly abandoned.

Police investigators searching the Tesla in a tow yard found a cadaver bag “covered with insects and a strong odour of decay”, court documents said, and “detectives partially unzipped the bag and observed a decomposed head and torso”.

Investigators from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office removed the bag and “discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body”, according to court documents. A second black bag was found under the first, and dismembered body parts were inside it. No cause of death has been publicly revealed.

D4vd, pronounced “David”, gained popularity among Generation Z fans for his blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. He went viral on TikTok in 2022 with the hit Romantic Homicide, which peaked at No 4 on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. He then signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records and released his debut EP Petals To Thorns and a follow-up, The Lost Petals, in 2023.

When the body was discovered, D4vd had been on tour in support of his first full-length album, Withered. Later, the last two North American shows, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with a scheduled performance at LA’s Grammy Museum, were cancelled, as was the European tour that was to have begun in Norway.

SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday (Apr 17) that a fire at the larger of the country's two oil refineries would not trigger any fuel restrictions, as the government ramps up efforts to secure fuel supplies due to the war on Iran.

The blaze at Viva Energy's refinery in Geelong, an hour's drive from Melbourne, comes at a bad time for Australia, which imports 80 per cent of its fuel needs and has been racing to lock in additional supply from regional allies.

The 120,000-barrel-per-day refinery is currently operating at reduced rates, producing about 60 per cent of petrol output and 80 per cent of diesel and aviation fuel after the fire hit two of its petrol processing units, Albanese said after meeting company officials on site.

The refinery supplies more than half the fuel used in Victoria, Australia's second-most populous state, and around a tenth of national demand.

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"The event here will not lead to any change," Albanese told reporters when asked whether the fire would force a shift in the government's four-stage fuel security plan, which includes measures that would limit fuel use if shortages worsen.

"The government has put in place the four stages in order to plan and prepare for circumstances which are predominantly impacted by global events, not by events here," he said.

Australia is currently at stage two of the plan, which urges motorists to buy only the fuel they need while the government takes precautionary steps to boost fuel supply.

Albanese also said BP had agreed to join a government-backed scheme, through its export credit agency, under which Canberra underwrites spot market fuel purchases to secure extra fuel.

Viva Energy CEO Scott Wyatt said work remained to restore the refinery units safely and return to full production.

Wyatt added the 72-year-old refinery underwent major maintenance last year and said the company had not attempted to raise capacity beyond safe operating limits as an investigation into the cause of the fire continues.

The fire broke out on Wednesday night and was brought under control after about 12 hours.

Albanese returned early from Malaysia overnight after meeting Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and securing a deal with state energy firm Petronas to supply excess fuel to Australia.

Malaysia was Albanese's third Southeast Asia stop in the past week, following visits to Singapore and Brunei, as Canberra looks to strengthen food and energy supplies.

PERTH: The fallout from war between the United States, Israel and Iran has dominated global oil markets. And not just because the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about 20 per cent of global oil and gas, remains effectively closed to shipping traffic.

Deep uncertainty about how long the disruption will continue has added a persistent “risk premium” – an extra cost built into oil prices to account for the risk of disrupted supply.

Rising insurance costs, reduced ship traffic and longer transit routes avoiding the Middle East have all added further friction to global oil supply chains.

An optimist might say this will all be sorted out quickly and soon enough we will be back to “normal”. And oil prices have retreated back below US$100 per barrel this week, on renewed hopes of a peace deal. 

But they’re still elevated. Before war broke out in the Middle East, benchmark oil prices had hovered in the range of US$70 to US$80 a barrel since 2023. That’s near where they’ve sat, on average, in “normal” times for much of the past two decades.

But what if there is no way back to “normal”? What if the fundamental challenge now isn’t the short-term disruption in supply, but the realisation that the days of cheap oil may have come to an end? 

OIL’S INVISIBLE REACH

Higher oil prices have a ripple effect that typically starts at the fuel pump. Petrol, diesel and jet fuel are top of mind. Driving to work, moving goods and travelling all become more expensive. Many fertilisers, too, are petrochemical products. That means farming around the world is exposed to a shock.

But the list of goods that rely on oil and gas goes far beyond fuel and fertiliser. According to the US Department of Energy, petrochemicals (derived from oil and gas) are involved in the manufacturing of more than 6,000 everyday products.

In many cases, this is because petrochemicals are a key input in the production of plastic. But other products on the list may be surprising, such as aspirin, dishwashing liquid, toothpaste and dyes.

Building materials used in construction warrant a special mention. Asphalt, insulation, paint, pipes, membranes, fittings and other composite materials are mostly oil byproducts. Manufacturing bricks and many ceramic products is also gas-intensive.

Add transporting it all to the construction site, and the oil crisis becomes another headwind to housing affordability.

IS THIS THE END OF CHEAP OIL?

In 1999, an article in The Economist quoted Don Huberts, who was then head of Shell Hydrogen at oil company Royal Dutch/Shell: "The stone age did not end because the world ran out of stones, and the oil age will not end because we run out of oil."

True enough, but what about cheap oil? Can that come to an end?

The world has faced many oil shocks before, some for geopolitical reasons, others due to concerns demand would outstrip supply. But almost every time analysts predicted the world was about to run out of oil, price hikes were met with new discoveries, technological improvements and oil substitution.

Companies such as Chevron have pioneered new techniques, such as deepwater drilling. Extracting oil from shale through fracking unlocked new supplies, especially in the US. This helped the US become the world’s largest producer of crude oil in the late 2010s.

This time, however, production facilities across the Middle East have suffered major damage, which may take years to repair. The central question is no longer whether oil exists in the ground, but whether it can be supplied cheaply, reliably and at scale again.

JUST IN TIME VS JUST IN CASE

Until 2020, global economies largely operated in “just-in-time” mode. You only take what you need, when you need it, assuming it will always be there for you. This system works efficiently – and is cheap – until something goes wrong.

Lessons from the pandemic brought back the idea of “just in case”, particularly as the war in Ukraine caused further disruption. “Just in case” means that you keep more than you need, so if someone closes the tap, you can keep all else running. However, this creates new costs. 

To keep more oil and gas than you need, you don’t just have to pay for the extra stock. Countries also have to build new storage and infrastructure, and pay more in insurance.

You refine your management to make sure it all works properly, so that the extra cost added is part of a larger contingency plan. But someone must foot this bill.

HOW THE WORLD WILL HAVE TO ADAPT

The end of cheap oil does not mean the end of oil use. It means higher costs embedded throughout daily life.

Pressure on governments to subsidise fuel, expand stockpiles and intervene in markets can mean larger budget deficits. Households will have less money left for non-essentials as the cost of living bites even harder.

We will adapt, as we are already beginning to see in the current crisis. There are signs people around the world are travelling less, using more public transport and electrifying cars and homes.

Industries may invest more in efficiency and green energy not out of environmental idealism, but cost necessity.

But there may still be a rocky road ahead, and we may never get back to “normal”. Adaptation does not end oil dependence; it reshapes it. The challenge is managing a world in which oil remains essential, but is no longer cheap, stable or politically neutral.

Flavio Macau is Associate Dean for the School of Business and Law at Edith Cowan University. This commentary first appeared on The Conversation.

LONDON: UK opposition leaders Thursday (Apr 16) called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to resign after the government confirmed that an associate of Jeffrey Epstein failed a background security check before becoming envoy to Washington.

Starmer has faced repeated questions about his judgment in appointing Peter Mandelson, who was sacked last year only months into the post over his ties to the late convicted US sex offender Epstein.

The opposition renewed calls for Starmer's resignation after an investigation by The Guardian newspaper discovered Mandelson had failed an initial background check - later confirmed by the government.

Opposition right-wing Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch wrote on X that "Starmer has betrayed our national security. He should go".

Leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, wrote on X: "If Keir Starmer has misled Parliament and lied to the British people, he has to go."

The prime minister has accused Mandelson of lying about the extent of his ties to Epstein during the vetting process for his Washington posting.

A government spokesperson said that foreign ministry officials made the decision to allow Mandelson's appointment to proceed "against the recommendation of UK Security Vetting".

But the spokesperson said neither Starmer nor the foreign minister "was aware" of this "until earlier this week".

The recommendation of UK Security Vetting was not binding, the spokesperson added.

Starmer said in February that Mandelson had been cleared by security vetting.

In March, Starmer's Labour government released about 150 pages of details of how Mandelson, a friend of Epstein, was vetted before being appointed ambassador in 2024.

Starmer sacked Mandelson as ambassador after documents released by a US Congressional committee revealed new details about the depth of his ties to Epstein. 

Police have opened an investigation into allegations of misconduct in office by Mandelson, who was arrested and bailed in February.

The force is investigating Mandelson over allegations he leaked sensitive documents to Epstein when he was a government minister, including during the 2008 financial crash.

NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS

"HISTORIC CROSSROADS"

ROME: Bank robbers in Italy held 25 people hostage for two hours on Thursday (Apr 16), before making their escape through a tunnel with loot from safe deposit boxes, a police source told AFP.

Three masked robbers, one of whom "was certainly armed", entered a branch of the French Credit Agricole bank in Naples at around 11:30am (5:30pm, Singapore time), the source said.

They took hostage customers and employees, who were rescued some two hours later, he said.

"Thanks to the swift response ... all the hostages were freed shortly after 1:30pm (7:30pm, Singapore time), without serious injuries," Naples Prefect Michele di Bari said in a statement.

Police broke windows to get inside the bank, according to local media footage from the scene.

But the robbers escaped through a tunnel which led "into the sewers", the police source said.

"The thieves took the contents of dozens of safe deposit boxes", he said.

Asked how much the stolen goods were worth, he said: "Nobody but the clients knows what was in those boxes".

Some 40 police officers, including some with sniffer dogs, were searching the area for the robbers, while forensic police at the scene dusted for fingerprints, the source said.

NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks climbed higher Thursday (Apr 16), adding to records as investors greeted optimistic comments from US President Donald Trump about negotiations with Iran while shrugging off a jump in crude prices.

After veering between gains and losses much of the day, all three major US indices finished in the black. That meant fresh records for both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, which ended up 0.4 per cent.

While there is still "nothing concrete" on Iran, commentary from Trump and other figures "is sounding constructive," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare. 

"By all accounts, the market expects a good outcome here."

Analysts have said that some of the recent strength in stocks reflects a desire to get ahead of an actual deal that could push stocks even higher.

But energy prices have soared since the US-Israel siege on Feb 28, with Iran blocking most tankers from the Strait of Hormuz. Around a fifth of the world's crude oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes through the waterway.

Trump said the United States and Iran were "very close" to a peace deal, raising hopes that activity in the strait could resume.

"We had to make sure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon," Trump said. "They've totally agreed to that. They've agreed to almost everything, so maybe if they can get to the table, there's a difference."

But earlier Thursday, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth took a tough line on the situation.

"If Iran chooses poorly, then they will have a blockade and bombs dropping on infrastructure, power and energy," Hegseth told a news conference at the Pentagon.

Oil prices bounced Thursday, with Brent oil futures rising nearly five per cent to more than US$99 a barrel.

Stephen Schork of the Schork Group attributed oil market volatility to the uneven rhetoric coming out of both Washington and Tehran. 

"We don't know how this ends or how quickly it ends," said Schork.

European stocks ended largely just in the green, with London and Frankfurt adding a little shy of 0.5 per cent on the day while Paris slipped slightly.

The Tokyo stock market earlier reached a record high, following all-time peaks for key US indexes on Wednesday as investors cheered healthy earnings for American blue chips despite surging oil prices and rising inflation overall.

Global stock markets "have staged one of the fastest recoveries in recent memory," said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

At the same time, "oil prices remain elevated ... as investors look towards a possible extension of the ceasefire between the US and Iran while weighing the chances of a broader agreement that could ultimately reopen the Strait of Hormuz," he said.