Asia

Mumbai, India: India ordered tighter controls over natural and cooking gas on Tuesday following import disruptions caused by the Middle East conflict, with restaurants warning it could spark widespread closures. The world's most populous nation is the fourth largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyer, and second-largest buyer of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), such as that used for cooking -- much of which is sourced from the Middle East. "The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has resulted in the disruption of liquefied natural gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz," the Ministry of Petroleum said in an order issued on Tuesday. It said the new rules would "ensure equitable distribution and continued availability for priority sectors". Read Also Filipinos race to fill tanks ahead of petrol price jump Bangladesh scraps light displays as Mideast tensionworsens fuel crunch Bangladesh rations fuel as Mideast tensions deepens energy crunch Egypt raises fuel prices by up to 30 percent: govt The ministry ordered that LNG supplies be prioritised to supply households, transport sectors and production of LPG. But other sectors, including fertiliser plants and tea industries, would receive 70 to 80 percent of consumption needs, "subject to operational availability". To meet the gap, gas supplied to petrochemical facilities and power plants would either be fully or partially curtailed. Indian industries including several ceramics and tile firms have already said they are facing a cutback in gas supplies that could impact production. Restaurants and hotels across India also warned of disruptions to operations, after a separate ministry order on Monday that prioritised domestic LPG supplies to households. The National Restaurant Association of India warned that the government order had resulted in LPG suppliers "across the country" signalling that supplies to eateries would be stopped. "The restaurant industry is predominantly dependent on commercial LPG for its operations," it said in a statement. "Any disruption therein will lead to a catastrophic closure of majority of restaurants." PC Rao, head of a hotel industry association in the southern tech-city Bengaluru, said the "situation was dire". "Supply of gas has been hit and many of the smaller establishments only have one to two days of stock left," Rao told AFP. "The big ones probably have about 10 days worth remaining. Now, people will look to change or restrict their menus bearing in mind the situation."

Asia

Seoul: A concrete barrier blamed for a deadly South Korean jet crash that killed 179 people in December 2024 had been built to cut costs, the state auditor said on Tuesday. Jeju Air Flight 2216 was coming in to land at Muan International Airport from Thailand when it struck a flock of birds and was forced to make a belly landing. While the pilots managed to put the aircraft down and slide it along the runway, it burst into a fireball after colliding with a concrete structure buried inside a mound at the end of the runway, killing 179 people on board. Only two flight attendants seated in the tail section survived. A government-commissioned simulation released earlier this year found that all passengers would have survived had the concrete structure supporting the localisers -- a navigation antenna system that helps aircraft during landing -- not been present. The Board of Audit and Inspection said in a report that the concrete structure had been built by the transport ministry as it "sought to reduce costs". The report said the terrain where Muan airport's runway and runway end safety area were constructed was sloping. Instead of flattening the area -- which would have required significant earthworks and higher expenditure -- officials chose to install the localiser on a concrete structure elevated above the runway, the audit report said. "This reduced the required volume of earthwork. The resulting height difference with the runway's highest point was then addressed by building an embankment," it said. International aviation safety guidelines state that such navigation facilities must be made of frangible, or breakable, materials. The simulation report said that if the localisers had been supported by a frangible structure, "the resulting impact would not have been severe enough to cause serious injuries". The aircraft "would have slid for approximately 770 metres (840 yards) before coming to a stop" had the runway been free of obstacles, the study found.

Middle East

Cairo: Egypt raised domestic fuel prices by up to 30 percent on Tuesday, blaming "exceptional" global energy pressures caused by the situation in the Middle East, which has disrupted oil supplies and shipping routes. The increases, announced by the petroleum ministry, apply to gasoline, diesel and natural gas used in vehicles. "This comes in light of the exceptional situation resulting from the geopolitical developments in the Middle East region and their direct impacts on the global energy markets," the ministry said in a statement.