Global coal consumption is set to rise to an all-time high in 2022 and remain at similar levels in the next few years if stronger efforts are not made to move to a low-carbon economy, a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday.

High gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and consequent disruptions to supply have led some countries to turn to relatively cheaper coal this year.

Heatwaves and droughts in some regions have also driven up electricity demand and reduced hydropower, while nuclear generation has also been very weak, especially in Europe, where France had to shut down nuclear reactors for maintenance.

The IEA’s annual report on coal forecasts global coal use is set to rise by 1.2% this year, exceeding 8 billion tonnes in a single year for the first time and a previous record set in 2013.

It also predicts that coal consumption will remain flat at that level to 2025 as falls in mature markets are offset by continued strong demand in emerging Asian economies.

This means coal will continue to be the global energy system’s largest single source of carbon dioxide emissions by far.

The largest increase in coal demand is expected to be in India at 7%, followed by the European Union at 6% and China at 0.4%.

“The world is close to a peak in fossil fuel use, with coal set to be the first to decline, but we are not there yet,” said Keisuke Sadamori, the IEA’s director of energy markets and security.

Europe’s coal demand has risen due to more switching from gas to coal due to high gas prices and as Russian gas has reduced to a trickle.

However, by 2025 European coal demand is expected to decline below 2022 levels, the report said.

Global coal-fired power generation is set to rise to a new record of around 10.3 terawatt hours this year, while coal production is forecast to rise by 5.4% to around 8.3 billion tonnes, also an all-time high.

Production is expected to reach a peak next year but by 2025 should fall to below 2022 levels.

The three largest coal producers – China, India and Indonesia – will all hit production records this year but despite high prices and comfortable margins for coal producers, there is no sign of surging investment in export-driven coal projects.

This reflects caution among investors and mining companies about the medium- and longer-term prospects for coal, the report said.

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Ukraine’s military said Russia had pulled some troops from towns on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from Kherson city, the first official Ukrainian report of a Russian withdrawal on what is now the main front line in the south..

* Spain has stepped up security at public and diplomatic buildings after a spate of letter bombs, including one sent to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and another to the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, where an official suffered minor injuries.

* Air raid alerts were issued across all of Ukraine following warnings by Ukrainian officials that Russia was preparing a new wave of missile and drone strikes. “An overall air raid alert is in place in Ukraine. Go to shelters,” country’s border service wrote on Telegram messaging app.

* Ukraine’s military said it had found fragments of Russian-fired nuclear-capable missiles with dud warheads in west Ukraine, and that their apparent purpose was to distract air defences.

* The recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson has lost its power supply after heavy shelling by Russian forces, the regional governor said.

* European Union governments tentatively agreed on a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil, with an adjustment mechanism to keep the cap at 5% below the market price, an EU diplomat said.

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on that big problems had accumulated in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), accusing the West of spurning the chance to make it a real bridge with Russia after the Cold War.

* Lavrov said that discussions with Washington about potential prisoner exchanges were being conducted by the two countries’ intelligence services, and that he hoped they would be successful.

* The European Union needs patience as it sanctions Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, as most measures will only have an impact in the medium and long term, Lithuania’s prime minister said in an interview at  the  Reuters NEXT conference.

* Switzerland has frozen financial assets worth 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($7.94 billion) as of Nov. 25 under sanctions against Russians to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said.

* Russia said the German parliament’s move to recognise the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine as a Soviet-imposed genocide was an anti-Russian provocation and an attempt by Germany to whitewash its Nazi past.

* Ukraine sacked a top engineer at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, accusing him of collaborating with Russian forces, and urged other Ukrainian staff at the plant to remain loyal to Kyiv.

* Russia must withdraw its heavy weapons and military personnel from the Zaporizhzhia plant if the U.N. atomic watchdog’s efforts to create a protection zone are to succeed, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

* In a grim sign of the energy crisis caused by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid, nine people have been killed in fires over the past 24 hours as Ukrainians resorted to emergency generators, candles and gas cylinders in violation of safety rules to try to heat their homes after power outages.

* “Remember one thing – the Russians are afraid. And they are very cold and no one will help them, because they do not have popular support,” – Andriy Yermak, chief of Ukrainian presidential staff.

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China set out urgent plans to protect rural communities from COVID-19 on Friday as millions of city-dwellers planned holidays for the first time in years after Beijing abandoned its stringent system of lockdowns and travel curbs.

China’s move last week to start aligning with a world that has largely opened up to live with the virus, followed historic protests against President Xi Jinping’s signature ‘zero-COVID’ policies designed to stamp out COVID.

But the excitement that met this dramatic u-turn has quickly given way to concerns that China is unprepared for the coming wave of infections, and the blow it could deliver to the world’s second-largest economy.

China reported 2,157 new symptomatic COVID-19 infections for Dec. 15 compared with 2,000 a day.

The official figures, however, have become less reliable as testing has dropped, and are increasingly at odds with signs of wider spread on the ground including long queues outside fever clinics and pharmacy shelves emptied of medicines.

There is particular concern about China’s hinterland in the run up to China’s Lunar New Year holiday starting on Jan. 22.

Rural areas are likely to be inundated with travellers returning to their hometowns and villages, which have had little exposure to the virus during the three years since the pandemic erupted.

China’s National Health Commission on Friday said it was ramping up vaccinations and building stocks of ventilators, essential drugs, and test kits in rural areas. It also advised travellers to reduce contact with elderly relatives.

Mainland China’s international borders remain largely shut, but recent decisions to abandon testing prior to domestic travel and disable apps that tracked people’s journey history have freed up people to move around the country.

One of China’s most populous provinces Henan cancelled all holidays for healthcare staff until the end of March to ensure “a smooth transition” as COVID restrictions ease, state media reported late Thursday.

Multiple cities across the country of 1.4 billion people also opened new vaccination sites to encourage the public to take booster shots, the state-run Global Times newspaper reported.

“Go all out” was the message from China’s state asset regulator in a statement late Thursday that urged government-owned drugmakers to ensure supplies of COVID-related medicines to meet “the rapid increase” in demand.

SF Express (002352.SZ), one of China’s largest courier services, said on its official WeChat account that it sent in workers from across the country to keep deliveries going in Beijing amid staff shortages and soaring demand.

It also said it had started a “fast track” for emergency shipments such as medicines and daily necessities, with demand in the capital 300% above normal levels in recent days.

The COVID scare in China also led people in Hong Kong, Macau and in some neighbourhoods in Australia to go in search for fever medicines and test kits for family and friends on the mainland.

Thanks to the government’s previously uncompromising controls, China got off lightly compared with many other countries during the pandemic over the past three years, but now many Chinese are resigned to catching the virus at some point.

“Everyone will get it, I guess,” a 29-year-old Beijing resident who requested to be identified by her surname Du, told Reuters on the streets of Beijing.

Analysts fear China will pay a price for letting the virus rapidly rip through a population that lacks “herd immunity” and has low vaccination rates among the elderly.

That has dented the prospects for near-term growth, even if the opening up should eventually help revive China’s battered economy.

JPMorgan on Friday revised down its expectations for China’s 2022 growth to 2.8%, which is well below China’s official target of 5.5% and would mark one of China’s worst performances in almost half a century.

China is bracing for “a transitional pain period”, analysts at the bank said, adding they expected infections to spike in the months after the Lunar New Year holidays before the economy starts to recover in the middle of 2023.

President Xi, his ruling Politburo and senior government officials are holding their annual Central Economic Work Conference this week, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

China’s top state planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said “arduous efforts” are needed to sustain the recovery in growth due to an adverse external environment and the global economy’s loss of momentum.

Companies that are already suffering from China’s policy shift are the swathes of firms involved in its quarantining, COVID-tracking and movement-monitoring products and services, which had become big employers over the past three years.

China’s yuan firmed on Friday as traders remained optimistic that more measures to support the economy would emerge from the conference.

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Somewhere inside whatever hole they’re hiding in the days, Republican Party leaders are breathing just a tiny bit easier. Donald Trump insisted on Wednesday that he was going to make a “major announcement” on Wednesday, leading to speculation that it could be anything from announcing his 2024 running mate to an end-around attempt at becoming Speaker of the House. Any such move would be terrible news for the GOP, which at this point is just hoping Trump gets tossed in prison sooner rather than later, so he can’t keep screwing up the party’s prospects any longer.

While rattling off some possible options for what Trump’s “major announcement” might be, I quipped that it could end up being something as stupid as a book launch. Little did I know what it would end up being something so stupid, so profoundly stupid, it would make a book launch look like a “major announcement” in comparison.

That’s right, in a development left plenty of us wondering if we were dreaming or had perhaps accidentally ingested hallucinatory mushrooms, Donald Trump’s “major announcement” ended up being trading cards. No really, trading cards. With him depicted as a superhero on them. Digital trading cards, for that matter. That’s right, not only is this a cash grab, he’s too cheap to even have physical cards printed up.

I’ve spent all day pondering what to write about this story, or whether to write about it, or what the story even is. All I can come up with is that Trump isn’t even trying to pretend he’s actually running for President, is he? It’s time the media stops pretending Trump is running as well.

The post Donald Trump’s trading card debacle reveals there really is nothing left of him appeared first on Palmer Report.

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Police Commander in Chief, Inspector General of Polish Police, Jaroslaw Szymczyk, during the celebration of the Police Day in Podkarpackie Voivodeship (Subcarpathia Province) held in Rzeszow.

Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

• A Polish police commander suffered minor injuries after a gift he received from Ukraine exploded.
• Polish authorities said the present was from a head of Ukraine’s law enforcement and rescue agencies.
• Poland said on Thursday that it’s asked Ukraine for an explanation.

Poland is seeking answers from Ukraine after a Ukrainian official’s gift to a top Polish police commander exploded near the latter’s office, authorities said on Thursday.

Jarosław Szymczyk, the chief of Poland’s police, suffered minor injuries from the explosion on Wednesday and was admitted to a hospital for observation, the Polish Interior Ministry said in a statement.

“Yesterday at 7:50 a.m., an explosion occurred in a room adjacent to the office of the Police Commander-in-Chief,” the statement read.

“One of the presents the Commandant received during his working visit to Ukraine on December 11 and 12 exploded,” it continued.

According to the statement, the gift was from a head official of the Ukrainian Police and Emergency Situations.

A civilian employee at the Polish headquarters also suffered minor injuries but did not require hospitalization, the ministry said.

The ministry said it asked Ukraine for an explanation and that a case was opened with the prosecutor’s office and corresponding services.

The incident comes a month after a missile strike during a Russian attack on Ukraine killed two people in Poland. Both NATO and Poland later said the missile was likely Ukrainian air defence, though NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said Russia was still to blame for the deaths because it launched the initial attack.

Poland’s Interior Ministry and Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.

Asia stocks fell for a second straight day on Friday and were headed for their worst week in two months after a slew of central banks raised interest rates and warned there were more hikes to come next year.

Interest rates went up in Europe, Britain, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Mexico and Taiwan on Thursday, following a U.S. rate hike on Wednesday, and central bankers’ vows to keep on raising rates until inflation is tamed had markets worried about a potential recession.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) fell 0.8% and was down 2.3% on the week. World stocks (.MIWD00000PUS) are down 1.2% this week.

Japan’s Nikkei (.N225) fell 1.9%.

Overnight on Wall Street the S&P 500 (.SPX) had its biggest percentage drop in more than a month as it fell 2.5%. S&P 500 futures were flat and European futures up 0.3%.

Treasuries were steady while the dollar hung on to what were on Thursday its best gains in about two months.

“Central banks are still hawkish, still intent on raising rates,” said Alvin Tan, Asia currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets in Singapore, while markets still price in U.S. rate cuts in the second half of next year.

“So there’s a tension … and that dichotomy has been emphasised over the past 48 hours by both the Fed and the European Central Bank.”

On Thursday the European Central Bank made a 50 basis point hike like the Fed, with both opting for a smaller increase than previously, but it flagged there were more hikes to come than investors had expected.

ECB President Christine Lagarde said current information predicates “another 50 basis point rise at our next meeting and possibly at the one after that, and possibly thereafter,” prompting traders to jack up Europe’s rate expectations.

“This is not a pivot,” she said of the smaller rate rise. “We are not slowing down, we are in for the long game.”

The Bank of England announced a 50 bp hike, too, and forecast more. Even Norges Bank, which began hiking in September last year and has raised rates by 275 basis points since then, hiked 25 bps on Thursday and said it isn’t finished.

In China, where markets are churning around an uncertain reopening, relief at the apparent resolution of a long-running accounting access dispute with the United States was not enough to drive a rally, and the Hang Seng (.HSI) was flat.

The prospect of higher near-term rates also has investors nervous about longer-run growth as there are growing signs that a worldwide slowdown is gathering steam.

Japan’s manufacturing activity shrank at the fastest pace in more than two years in December, a corporate survey showed on Friday. U.S. retail sales fell more than expected in November as some of the consumption momentum ebbs away from the economy.

Ten-year Treasuries rallied a bit on Thursday before steadying in Asia at 2.4736% during Friday. Larger moves were in currencies, where the dollar arrested its recent slide with its sharpest jump in two months.

The dollar index rose 0.9% on Thursday. It gave back 0.1% on Friday to sit at 104.37. The dollar jumped 1.7% and through its 200-day moving average on the yen, where it was a bit softer at 137.29 yen . The Aussie dollar had it worst session in two years and dropped 2.4% on Thursday.

“This time it wasn’t U.S. bond yields driving the move, instead it was just a feeling that if Fed policy remains tighter for longer … it could be tough going for risk assets,” strategists at ANZ bank said in a market note.

“The Fed may not be hiking as fast, but it still has the highest policy rate in the G10 and will be one of the few central banks to take policy (rates) past 5%.”

Gold fell against the rising dollar, dropping 1.7% to sit at $1,777 an ounce in Asia. Oil gave back some recent gains with Brent crude futures down 1.8% overnight and steady on Friday at $80.94 a barrel.

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A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Ankur Banerjee

Investors have hunkered down with their risk-off hat on, after a central bank bonanza this week (that’s seven central banks on Thursday and the Fed on Wednesday, for those counting) made it clear that interest rates will go up in 2023 for most countries as the battle against inflation rages on.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde’s forceful hawkish rhetoric has played Grinch, with little sign yet of a Santa rally as we head towards Christmas and the New Year. Asian equities (.MIAPJ0000PUS) look set to end the week in the red, snapping their six-week winning streak, while the U.S. dollar straightened its crown as a safe-haven after a recent wobble.

“The market wanted a metaphorical hug that everything will be OK, but central banks have pushed real rates higher,” said Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone.

And so, investors will parse every inch of economic data coming through in the near term to gauge inflationary pressures and recessionary signals, with flash PMI data from the Eurozone and the UK on deck for the day.

China was ramping up vaccinations, especially for the elderly, and building stocks of ventilators, essential drugs and test kits in rural areas as the country braces for a surge in COVID-19 cases, while many city dwellers were planning holidays for the first time since the pandemic began.

The initial exuberant reaction to the dismantling of China’s zero-COVID policy has quickly given way to worries that the world’s second biggest economy may be unprepared for the wave of infections to come.

Nearly 200 Chinese companies, including Alibaba (BABA.N) and Baidu , heaved a sigh of relief after the U.S. accounting watchdog said it has full access to inspect and investigate firms in China, removing the risk that these companies could be booted off U.S. stock exchanges.

Of course, the worry remains on what the audit is likely to reveal, and that has put a lid on gains for these stocks.

Meanwhile, Twitter suspended the accounts of several prominent journalists who recently wrote about its new owner Elon Musk, with the billionaire tweeting that rules banning the publishing of personal information applied to all, including journalists. “Some time away from Twitter is good for the soul,” Musk tweeted.

Key developments that could influence markets on Friday:

Economic events: Nov UK retail sales, Flash PMI data for UK, Eurozone, Sweden’s unemployment rate for November

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DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) -Eight Turkish police officers were wounded on Friday when a bomb exploded in a roadside vehicle as their minibus passed on a highway in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, security sources said.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said two people had been detained and were believed to be the perpetrators of the blast.

“There was an explosion in a parked vehicle at 05:10 a.m. (0210 GMT) as a police vehicle was going to work in Diyarbakir,” he said.

The Diyarbakir governor’s office said the bomb had not critically hurt anyone, but nine people who had been in the armoured minibus had been taken to hospital for checkups.

The blast occurred near a livestock market some 10 km (6 miles) south of the centre of Diyarbakir, the largest city in the region, the sources said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Kurdish, leftist and Islamist militants have all carried out bomb attacks in Turkey in the past.

A bomb killed six people and wounded dozens in Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, last month. Dozens of people, including a Syrian woman, were detained as suspects.

Turkey blamed Kurdish militants for that blast, but no group claimed responsibility then, either. The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) denied involvement.

The PKK launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984, largely focused in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

It is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.

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