NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices jumped more than 4% on Wednesday, following a drawdown in U.S. crude and gasoline inventories and as Hurricane Sally forced a swath of U.S. offshore production to shut.

Brent crude LCOc1 settled at $42.22 a barrel, up $1.69, or 4.2%. U.S. crude CLc1 finished $1.88, or 4.9%.at $40.16 a barrel.

U.S. crude stocks fell 4.4 million barrels last week to 496 million barrels, their lowest since April, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.3 million-barrel rise, [EIA/S]

U.S. gasoline stocks fell 400,000 barrels, the EIA said, more than double the draw forecast, while refining utilization rates ticked up 4 percentage points.

“Today’s strong gains were largely attributable to bullish crude guidance out of the EIA release,” said Jim Ritterbusch of Ritterbusch and Associates.

“The bulk of the (crude) stock decline was driven by an unexpectedly large upswing in U.S. refinery activity led by the Gulf Coast,” he said.

Sally, which made landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast as a Category 2 hurricane, also boosted oil prices as more than a quarter of offshore output shut due to the storm. [nL1N2GD0GO]

Roughly 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of offshore crude oil production was taken offline in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, according to the U.S. Interior Department, roughly a third of the shut-ins caused by Hurricane Laura, which landed farther west in August.

Oil collapsed to historic lows as the coronavirus crisis hit demand. A record supply cut by OPEC and its allies, a grouping known as OPEC+, and an easing of lockdowns have helped Brent recover from a 21-year low below $16 in April.

Prices have sunk in September, pressured by rising coronavirus cases and concerns about demand.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and International Energy Agency both cut their demand outlooks this week. [IEA/M][OPEC/M]

A panel of OPEC+ oil ministers meets to review the supply pact on Thursday and is unlikely to recommend further output curbs despite the price drop, sources told Reuters.

FILE PHOTO: Dust blows around a crude oil pump jack and flare burning excess gas at a drill pad in the Permian Basin in Loving County, Texas, U.S. November 25, 2019.REUTERS/Angus Mordant

TOKYO (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Wednesday, extending gains from the previous session, as a hurricane disrupted U.S. offshore oil and gas production and an industry report showed a big drop in U.S. crude stockpiles.

Brent crude LCOc1 was trading up 15 cents, or 0.4%, at $40.68 a barrel by 0055 GMT, while U.S. crude CLc1 gained 18 cents, or 0.5%, to $38.46 a barrel. Both contracts rose by more than 2% on Tuesday.

More than 25% of U.S. offshore oil and gas output was shut and export ports were closed on Tuesday as Hurricane Sally sat just off the U.S. Gulf Coast.

“Our current estimate for the total outage associated with the Sally weather system is between 3 million and 6 million barrels of oil over approximately 11 days,” Rystad Energy said in a note.

That is likely to help reduce stockpiles although refineries were also shut down, cutting demand for oil.

U.S. crude oil inventories fell by 9.5 million barrels last week, although gasoline inventories increased, data from industry group the American Petroleum Institute showed on Tuesday. [API/S]

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Analysts had expected oil stocks to increase by 1.3 million barrels. Official data on U.S. stockpiles is due out later on Wednesday and often conflicts with the industry figures. [EIA/S]

Meanwhile, oil producers and traders are painting a bleak picture for a recovery in fuel demand globally as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, hammering economies.

DHAKA, Bangladesh

The UN has expressed concern over human rights violations and armed clashes in Myanmar and is urging the Aung San Suu Kyi administration to immediately take steps to restore peace in the country.  

“Myanmar continued to witness intensified armed clashes between the Tatmadaw [Myanmar army] and ethnic armed organizations, particularly in the states of Rakhine, Chin, Shan, Kachin and Kayin,” the Office of the United Nations

High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a new report.  

The report is set to be discussed at the 45th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council scheduled on Sept. 14 to Oct. 6 at the UN office in Geneva. 

The report was prepared on the basis of primary and secondary information collected from various sources, including primary witness testimonies. 

It expresses concerns over continuing civilian casualties due to armed clashes.

“The Tatmadaw did not heed the call of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for a global ceasefire and instead, on 26 June 2020, launched another clearance operation, in Rathedaung township, forcibly displacing thousands of civilians.” 

The report also records in detail violations in other states in Myanmar. 

“Since 2019, fighting between the Tatmadaw and the Arakan Army [armed Buddhist rebels] in Rakhine and Chin states has intensified in scale and ferocity, resulting in deaths and injuries and the destruction of civilian property and other civilian objects.”

Concerns over attacks on civilians

The report accused Myanmar’s army of launching crackdowns on civilians even in places where no presence of the Arakan Army was reported. 

“It appears that the Arakan Army was not active or present in the areas where these attacks took place and no armed clashes were reported to have been ongoing at that time,” it added. 

It records that on April 7, 2020, Myanmar fighter jets carried out an airstrike in Chin state, “killing seven civilians and wounding six women and one child.” 

“Eight houses and a rice mill were destroyed and the villagers were forced to flee.” 

During the first five months of 2020, at least 137 civilians, including 25 members of the Rohingya minority, were reportedly killed and 386 wounded, including 44 Rohingya, in the Rakhine and Chin states, according to the report. 

“On 29 February 2020, a Tatmadaw convoy opened fire on a village in Mrauk-U township, killing six Rohingya and wounding another six,” the report said. 

Citing eyewitnesses, it added that the Tatmadaw fired indiscriminately on the village for over an hour after a vehicle in their convoy was damaged by a mine explosion. 

“Schools, religious sites and civilian homes have been targeted in attacks and damaged by heavy artillery or by Tatmadaw patrols,” the report said, adding that at least 17 schoolchildren were wounded when a mortar shell hit a primary school in Buthidaung township on Feb. 13, 2020. 

The report also decried a brutal crackdowns on civilians in the townships of Kyauktaw, Minbya, Paletwa and Kyauk Seik. 

“In some cases, the Tatmadaw have rounded up the entire male populations of villages, often blindfolding them, before transferring them to unknown locations,” it said.

Immediate cease-fire

The report emphasizes restoring peace and urges Myanmar’s government to “immediately extend the ceasefire throughout the whole country and end violations.” 

As part of a conducive peace process, it also recommends doing “prompt, independent, impartial and thorough investigations into all allegations of violations” including “war crimes and crimes against humanity in Rakhine and Chin states” and ensuring that “perpetrators are brought to justice through transparent and credible processes.” 

The report also asks the Suu Kyi administration to acknowledge that “sexual crimes” have occurred in Rakhine state and other parts of the country and to “take concrete measures to identify perpetrators and hold them accountable and ensure health-care and psychosocial services for survivors.” 

On the one-sided upcoming general election in Myanmar set for this November, the report urges officials to ensure an environment for holding a fair and participatory election. 

It points to the deprivation of minority Rohingya people in their home country and recommends amending the controversial 1928 Citizenship Law to remove “links between ethnicity and citizenship and restore the citizenship of the Rohingya.” 

It also recommends ensuring an independent media and civil society and cooperating and engaging “meaningfully with the newly appointed [UN] Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar and relevant international justice and accountability mechanisms.” 

The report also urges ethnic armed groups in Myanmar to take “all measures to end hostilities and violations of international humanitarian law and abuses of international human rights law.”

Consequences, not recommendations 

Separately, the Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN), a UK-based rights group, called on the international community Monday “to promote consequences for Burma’s failures rather than more recommendations.” 

Referring to a recent joint statement by eight countries including the US and UK, the statement said, using an older name for Myanmar: “Burma has a long history of discussing how to improve its human rights and democratic issues with the international community and for just as long has managed to do the exact opposite of what is recommended.” 

“The country is failing as a democracy, is subjecting its citizens to brutal military operations, is continuing to deny its past atrocities despite its own soldiers now speaking out about them and has no viable path for equitable repatriation for the Rohingya,” said BHRN Executive Director Kyaw Win.  

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, he added: “Burma has a long history of buying time and not doing anything. Burma has completely disregarded the call of the UN secretary general to cease fighting during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Therefore, it is time for Burma to face consequences.” 

The statement also urges sanctions on Myanmar. 

“The use of targeted sanctions should be increased for the country’s failures. 

“Companies with connections to the government or military should also be considered for new sanctions until Burma demonstrates a serious effort to address its horrendous human rights violations and prevents them from recurring,” it added.

Persecuted people

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

According to Amnesty International, more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women and children, fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in August 2017, pushing their numbers in Bangladesh above 1.2 million.

Since Aug. 25, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed by Myanmar's state forces, according to a report by the Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA).

More than 34,000 Rohingya were also thrown into fires, while over 114,000 others were beaten, said the agency report titled Forced Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience.

As many as 18,000 Rohingya women and girls were raped by Myanmar's army and police and over 115,000 Rohingya homes burned down while 113,000 others vandalized, it added./aa

•             Hackers linked to the Chinese government have successfully infiltrated US government systems across "many sectors," according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI.

•             The hackers are taking advantage of publicly available code and exploits that have already been publicized in order to hack into US entities.

•             The report suggests that, after vulnerabilities are discovered and publicized by US defenders, hackers are often able to exploit the vulnerabilities before government agencies patch them.

•             CISA did not specify which agencies were compromised or how many records were potentially stolen, but says that hackers were frequently successful using "low-complexity" methods.

Hackers linked to the Chinese government have repeatedly attempted to compromise US government systems over the past year — and in some cases, they were successful, according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity division.

In an advisory published with the FBI this week, CISA warned that Chinese hackers appeared to be using publicly available information about vulnerabilities that security researchers had discovered — but that hadn't yet been patched — in order to target US entities.

"CISA has observed the threat actors using a variety of open-source and publicly available exploits and exploit code to compromise Federal Government networks," the agencies said in the advisory.

US intelligence agencies have warned of attacks originating from China's state-run hacking teams for years, and there's nothing particularly new about the practice. But the advisory published this week shows that mere awareness of attempted hacks isn't enough to hold them off when government agencies don't adequately protect their systems.

The advisory doesn't say which agencies were targeted, nor does it disclose the number of records that were potentially stolen. But it outlines how hackers have successfully targeted the US in the past year using "low-complexity" tactics.

Those tactics included sending malicious links in phishing emails to US officials, buying domain names to pose as trustworthy organizations, and buying passwords leaked in other breaches to try and compromise officials' accounts.

Hackers also regularly exploited vulnerabilities that security researchers had previously identified and publicized. One of the resources that hackers are using is a database of known vulnerabilities compiled by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

"CISA analysts have observed a correlation between the public release of a vulnerability and targeted scanning of systems identified as being vulnerable," the advisory reads.

The findings suggest that US agencies need to work more quickly to patch vulnerabilities that have been publicly documented. In one case, hackers used an exploit to target US systems weeks after the exploit was publicly disclosed.

"CISA and the FBI recommend that organizations place an increased priority on patching the vulnerabilities routinely exploited," the advisory reads. "CISA and the FBI also recommend that organizations routinely audit their configuration and patch management programs to ensure they can track and mitigate emerging threats."

Business Insider

Authorities in Panama have discovered a mass grave they believe contains the bodies of people tortured and killed by a religious cult.

Investigators had to hike through the mountains for 10 hours to reach the grave in a remote indigenous province in the country’s north-west.

Skeletal remains are being removed from the grave where they will later be forensically examined.

The discovery comes after another grave containing seven bodies was exhumed in January.

Police alleged an indigenous-run religious sect performed exorcisms on victims to make them “repent for their sins”.

The deceased victims included a pregnant mother and her five children, and the family’s teenage neighbour.

A further 15 people were being held captive in a makeshift church and forced to participate in bizarre rituals which included the sacrifice of a goat.

Public prosecutor Azael Tugri said they believe a different sect is responsible for the new mass grave.

“At this time it is not possible to determine either the sex or the number of people [found in the grave],” he told local media.

The grave is located about 210 miles west of Panama City on the jungle-clad Caribbean coast.

All the remains will be sent to a morgue where a forensic examination will be carried out.

Earlier this week, police arrested the alleged leader of the New Light of God over January’s mass grave discovery.

Authorities were alerted to the cult after three villagers managed to escape to a hospital and raise the alarm.

They told police their torturers tried to “remove the demons” by attacking them with machetes, sticks and bibles.

The cult had reportedly been preying on local villagers for three months before police got to them.

Authorities believe the 15 survivors would have also been killed if they weren’t found in time./ Thr Independent