Romanian officials reroute flooded stream away from Praid salt mine
Romanian police stand guard on a road leading to the Praid salt mine after the Corund river flooded portions of the mine, near the village of Praid, Harghita, Romania, June 2, 2025. Inquam Photos/Alex Nicodim via REUTERS
A drone view shows the Corund river flooding portions of the Praid salt mine near the village of Praid, Harghita, Romania, June 2, 2025. Inquam Photos/Alex Nicodim via REUTERS
A drone view shows the Corund river flooding portions of the Praid salt mine, near the village of Praid, Harghita, Romania, June 2, 2025. Inquam Photos/Alex Nicodim via REUTERS
A drone view shows the Corund river flooding portions of the Praid salt mine and sink holes that have formed, near the village of Praid, Harghita, Romania, June 2, 2025. Inquam Photos/Alex Nicodim via REUTERS
A drone view shows the Corund river flooding portions of the Praid salt mine and sink holes that have formed, near the village of Praid, Harghita, Romania, June 2, 2025. Inquam Photos/Alex Nicodim via REUTERS
BUCHAREST - Romanian officials were rerouting a stream in central Romania to prevent further flooding of the Praid salt mine, one of Europe's largest salt reserves and a crucial tourist attraction, after parts of its floor caved in.
Authorities evacuated 45 households near the mine areas at risk of collapse after the worst floods in 30 years in the central Romanian county of Harghita have swollen the nearby stream.
While part of the mine has been producing salt, with an annual production capacity of around 70,000-100,000 metric tons, its huge galleries and medical centre attract half a million tourists each year.
On Monday, the government approved support schemes worth 300 million lei ($67.82 million) for immediate help to the state-owned mine as well as up to 200 local companies that will be affected from the loss of tourism.
European experts were also expected on site to assess potential solutions to save the mine. REUTERS
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
36 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Fugitive ponzi scheme boss assumed dead may be alive, London police say
Anthony Constantinou stole at least £70 million (S$122 million) from investors he lured with the promise of risk free returns. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: UNSPLASH LONDON – The fugitive boss of a bogus London FX firm convicted as the mastermind behind a Ponzi-style investment scheme was thought to have died in Mexico while on the run, but London police are not so sure. Anthony Constantinou stole at least £70 million (S$122 million) from investors he lured with the promise of risk free returns, and was sentenced to 14 years in prison in his absence. News outlets including UK tabloid The Sun and Miami-based website OffshoreAlert reported that Constantinou died of a heart attack in July 2024 while in Guadalajara, Mexico. A death certificate has been filed in Mexico and seen by the City of London Police, but investigators remain unconvinced that Constantinou has actually died, according to lawyers at a court hearing on June 5. They have evidence of Constantinou's cremation within 24 hours of his death, but some of the documents reviewed contain inaccuracies, including that Constantinou's mother was Mexican. He is known to be of Greek-Cypriot heritage. 'There remains an active search for his whereabouts,' prosecution lawyer David Durose said in court. 'If there were more legitimate grounds to believe that the defendant may have died the Crown would be looking more carefully at it.' Constantinou had no legal representation at the hearing. The police want to recover some of the investor cash that was lost in the scheme and asked the judge to make an order that would help them seize assets. So far recoveries have been minimal, despite Constantinou enjoying a lavish lifestyle, with money being traced through a number of offshore jurisdictions. Constantinou was sentenced in his absence after he disappeared weeks into his trial in 2023. A warrant for his arrest was issued shortly after. Weeks after he disappeared, he was arrested in Bulgaria for carrying fake identification documents, but for unknown reasons, he was let go. His firm, CWM, lured in victims with false promises of generous returns on risk-free foreign exchange market transactions and lavish perks. Operating out of an office in the City of London's Heron Tower, he enticed investors from late 2013 by boasting of generous returns on allegedly risk-free foreign exchange market transactions, for a minimum investment of £100,000. Client funds were also used to boost Constantinou's lifestyle including his £2.5 million wedding in Santorini, the court heard. BLOOMBERG Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
an hour ago
- Straits Times
China's rare earth weapon changes contours of trade war battlefield
BEIJING - China has signalled for more than 15 years that it was looking to weaponise areas of the global supply chain, a strategy modelled on longstanding American export controls Beijing views as aimed at stalling its rise. The scramble in recent weeks to secure export licences for rare earths, capped by Thursday's telephone call between U.S. and Chinese leaders Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, shows China has devised a better, more precisely targeted weapon for trade war. Industry executives and analysts say while China is showing signs of approving more exports of the key elements, it will not dismantle its new system. Modelled on the United States' own, Beijing's export licence system gives it unprecedented insight into supplier chokepoints in areas ranging from motors for electric vehicles to flight-control systems for guided missiles. "China originally took inspiration for these export control methods from the comprehensive U.S. sanctions regime," said Zhu Junwei, a scholar at the Grandview Institution, a Beijing-based think tank focused on international relations. "China has been trying to build its own export control systems since then, to be used as a last resort." After Thursday's call, Trump said both leaders had been "straightening out some of the points, having to do mostly with rare earth magnets and some other things". He did not say whether China committed to speeding up licences for exports of rare earth magnets, after Washington curbed exports of chip design software and jet engines to Beijing in response to its perceived slow-rolling on licences. China holds a near-monopoly on rare earth magnets, a crucial component in EV motors. In April it added some of the most sophisticated types to an export control list in its trade war with the United States, forcing all exporters to apply to Beijing for licences. That put a once-obscure department of China's commerce ministry, with a staff of about 60, in charge of a chokepoint for global manufacturing. The ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters' questions sent by fax. Several European auto suppliers shut down production lines this week after running out of supplies. While China's April curbs coincided with a broader package of retaliation against Washington's tariffs, the measures apply globally. "Beijing has a degree of plausible deniability – no one can prove China is doing this on purpose," said Noah Barkin, senior adviser at Rhodium Group, a China-focused U.S. thinktank. "But the rate of approvals is a pretty clear signal that China is sending a message, exerting pressure to prevent trade negotiations with the U.S. leading to additional technology control." China mines about 70% of the world's rare earths but has a virtual monopoly on refining and processing. Even if the pace of export approvals quickens as Trump suggested, the new system gives Beijing unprecedented glimpses of how companies in a supply chain deploy the rare earths it processes, European and U.S. executives have warned. Other governments are denied that insight because of the complexity of supply chain operations. For example, hundreds of Japanese suppliers are believed to need China to approve export licences for rare earth magnets in coming weeks to avert production disruptions, said a person who has lobbied on their behalf with Beijing. "It's sharpening China's scalpel," said a U.S.-based executive at a company seeking to piece together an alternative supply chain who sought anonymity. "It's not a way to oversee the export of magnets, but a way to gain influence and advantage over America." DECADES IN THE MAKING Fears that China could weaponise its global supply chain strength first emerged after its temporary ban of rare earth exports to Japan in 2010, following a territorial dispute. As early as 1992, former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping was quoted as saying, "The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths." Beijing's landmark 2020 Export Control Law broadened curbs to cover any items affecting national security, from critical goods and materials to technology and data. China has since built its own sanctions power while pouring the equivalent of billions of dollars into developing workarounds in response to U.S. policies. In 2022, the United States put sweeping curbs on sales of advanced semiconductor chips and tools to China over concerns the technology could advance Beijing's military power. But the move failed to halt China's development of advanced chips and artificial intelligence, analysts have said. Beijing punched back a year later by introducing export licenses for gallium and germanium, and some graphite products. Exports to the United States of the two critical minerals, along with germanium, were banned last December. In February China restricted exports of five more metals key to the defence and clean energy industries. Analysts face a hard task in tracking the pace of China's approvals following the Trump-Xi call. "It's virtually impossible to know what percentage of requests for non-military end users get approved because the data is not public and companies don't want to publicly confirm either way," said Cory Combs, a critical minerals analyst with Trivium, a policy consultancy focused on China. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
an hour ago
- Straits Times
Dutch semiconductor toolmaker Nearfield Instruments sets up shop in S'pore, plans regional expansion
SINGAPORE – The Netherland's Nearfield Instruments plans to make Singapore an innovation and service hub for its machines that help chipmakers boost production yield and efficiency of their integrated circuit devices. The company, which counts Temasek as one of its key investors, is in talks with several local precision engineering firms over its plans. They will manufacture parts and modules of its equipment that provide highly accurate nanometer-level measurements of individual, and even buried, features and defects especially in advanced memory and logic chips for AI that are more complex. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
