PARIS, April 17 (Reuters) &#8211; France will order a strict 10-day quarantine for all travellers coming from Brazil starting April 24, the prime minister&#8217;s office said on Saturday, in a bid to prevent the spread of a coronavirus variant first found in the South American county.
France decided this week to suspend all flights to and from Brazil. The measure will be extended until April 23, the prime minister&#8217;s office said in the same statement.
Starting April 24, only people residing in France or holding a French or European Union passport will be allowed to fly to the country.
The government will impose a 10-day quarantine on all travellers upon arrival, the prime minister&#8217;s office said, and authorities will make checks before and after the flight that the travellers made the proper arrangements to isolate themselves.
The police will also be used to ensure the quarantine is respected, it said. Prior to boarding on the plane, authorised travellers will be required to present a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test that is less than 36 hours old.
The same measures will also gradually be put in place by April 24 for people returning from Argentina, Chile and South Africa, where the presence of other coronavirus variants were detected, the prime minister&#8217;s office said.
A 10-day quarantine will also be imposed on travellers coming from the French Guiana, an overseas department of France on the northeast coast of South America. (Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
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France to impose 10-day quarantine for travellers coming from Brazil

By Mahamat Ramadane
N&#8217;DJAMENA, April 17 (Reuters) &#8211; Chad President Idriss Deby has taken a strong early lead and appeared poised to extend his three-decade rule, partial provisional results of the April 11 presidential election released by the election commission showed.
Deby has won a majority in all but one of the 51 departments announced so far, and secured a plurality in the other, with 61 departments remaining, according to the Independent National Election Commission (CENI).
On Saturday Kilmapone Larme, head of logistics at the CENI, said they had still not received more than 30% of results.
An ally of Western powers in the fight against Islamist militants in West and Central Africa, Deby is one of Africa&#8217;s longest-serving leaders, but there are signs of growing discontent over his handling of the nation&#8217;s oil wealth.
Chad&#8217;s government has been forced to cut back public spending in recent years because of the low price of oil, its main export, sparking labour strikes.
Opposition leaders called on their supporters to boycott the polls and make the country &#8220;ungovernable&#8221; after Deby&#8217;s decision to seek a sixth term led to protests and clashes with security forces.
Deby has relied on a firm grip over state institutions and one of the region&#8217;s most capable militaries to maintain power.
On April 9 authorities said they had arrested several people, including at least one opposition leader, for what they said was a plot to assassinate politicians and bomb polling stations and the electoral commission headquarters. (Reporting by Mahamat Ramadane; Writing by Hereward Holland; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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Chad’s Deby takes early election lead, partial results show

GUATEMALA CITY, April 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Guatemala will restrict entry to visitors who have recently been to Brazil, the United Kingdom and South Africa in an effort to control a jump in coronavirus cases, President Alejandro Giammattei said on Friday.
The measure will go into effect on Saturday and last through April 30, applying to tourists who have been to those countries within the prior two weeks, Giammattei said in a public address.
He noted that Guatemala had registered 5,813 new COVID-19 infections in the last five days, bringing the total in the Central American country to 210,667 confirmed cases.
&#8220;That has triggered our alerts and forces us to have to decree a state of prevention immediately,&#8221; Giammattei said.
Guatemala had previously enacted strict lockdowns and travel restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus, which has caused 7,160 deaths in the country of 16 million people. (Reporting by Sofia Menchu, Writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Kim Coghill)
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Guatemala blocks travel from Brazil, UK and South Africa in new COVID measure

Apr 16 (OPTA) &#8211; Scores from the PGA Tour RBC Heritage on Friday -16 Stewart Cink (USA) 63 63 -11 Corey Conners (Canada) 67 64 -10 Emiliano Grillo (Argentina) 68 64 -9 Billy Horschel (USA) 66 67 Sungjae Im (Korea Republic) 68 65 Collin Morikawa (USA) 65 68 Cameron Smith (Australia) 62 71 -8 Wesley Bryan (USA) 68 66 Tom Hoge (USA) 67 67 Harold Varner III (USA) 66 68 -7 Abraham Ancer (Mexico) 69 66 Matthew Fitzpatrick (England) 71 64 Shane Lowry (Republic of Ireland) 70 65 Michael Thompson (USA) 68 67 Will Zalatoris (USA) 68 67 -6 Lucas Glover (USA) 67 69 Charles Howell III (USA) 66 70 Sung-hoon Kang (Korea Republic) 68 68 -5 Branden Grace (South Africa) 68 69 Brian Harman (USA) 67 70 Charley Hoffman (USA) 68 69 Dustin Johnson (USA) 70 67 Chris Kirk (USA) 70 67 Robert MacIntyre (Scotland) 70 67 Ian Poulter (England) 69 68 Adam Schenk (USA) 68 69 Sepp Straka (Austria) 70 67 Robert Streb (USA) 68 69 Camilo Villegas (Colombia) 69 68 Matt Wallace (England) 65 72 -4 Daniel Berger (USA) 67 71 Cameron Davis (Australia) 69 69 Dylan Frittelli (South Africa) 71 67 Mackenzie Hughes (Canada) 67 71 Si Woo Kim (Korea Republic) 71 67 Matt Kuchar (USA) 70 68 Maverick McNealy (USA) 71 67 Kevin Streelman (USA) 67 71 Brian Stuard (USA) 70 68 -3 Christiaan Bezuidenhout (South Africa) 70 69 Brice Garnett (USA) 69 70 Doug Ghim (USA) 70 69 Tyrrell Hatton (England) 73 66 Russell Henley (USA) 69 70 Harry Higgs (USA) 71 68 Tom Lewis (England) 72 67 Ryan Moore (USA) 70 69 Alex Noren (Sweden) 71 68 Rory Sabbatini (South Africa) 70 69 Chase Seiffert (USA) 71 68 Webb Simpson (USA) 71 68 Lee Westwood (England) 71 68 Danny Willett (England) 68 71 -2 Sam Burns (USA) 72 68 Wyndham Clark (USA) 70 70 Scott Harrington (USA) 69 71 Andrew Landry (USA) 70 70 Kyoung-Hoon Lee (Korea Republic) 67 73 Luke List (USA) 74 66 Denny McCarthy (USA) 73 67 Matthew NeSmith (USA) 68 72 Scott Piercy (USA) 70 70 Brandt Snedeker (USA) 69 71 Brendon Todd (USA) 70 70 Kevin Tway (USA) 69 71 -1 Byeong Hun An (Korea Republic) 72 Austin Cook (USA) 67 Tommy Fleetwood (England) 76 Jim Furyk (USA) 70 Danny Lee (New Zealand) 68 Sebastian Munoz (Colombia) 72 Pat Perez (USA) 72 Patrick Rodgers (USA) 72 Hudson Swafford (USA) 70 0 Rafael Campos (Puerto Rico) 70 Patrick Cantlay (USA) 71 Paul Casey (England) 74 Jason Dufner (USA) 71 Brian Gay (USA) 68 Zach Harris Johnson (USA) 72 Hunter Mahan (USA) 73 J.T. Poston (USA) 74 Kyle Stanley (USA) 70 1 Ryan Armour (USA) 72 Sergio Garcia (Spain) 68 Bill Haas (USA) 72 Adam Hadwin (Canada) 76 Jim Herman (USA) 75 Patton Kizzire (USA) 74 Russell Knox (Scotland) 71 Satoshi Kodaira (Japan) 72 Ben Martin (USA) 74 Carlos Ortiz (Mexico) 68 Scott Stallings (USA) 73 Nick Taylor (Canada) 69 Vaughn Taylor (USA) 68 2 Tyler Duncan (USA) 71 Tommy Gibson (USA) 73 Chesson Hadley (USA) 74 Bo Hoag (USA) 72 Beau Hossler (USA) 74 Davis Love III (USA) 74 Graeme McDowell (Northern Ireland) 73 Troy Merritt (USA) 68 Cheng-Tsung Pan (Chinese Taipei) 72 3 Luke Donald (England) 73 Will Gordon (USA) 75 Kevin Kisner (USA) 72 Adam Long (USA) 73 Peter Malnati (USA) 73 Ted Potter Jr (USA) 73 4 K.J. Choi (Korea Republic) 76 Harris English (USA) 70 Mark Hubbard (USA) 73 Anirban Lahiri (India) 71 William McGirt (USA) 74 Kevin Na (USA) 74 Henrik Norlander (Sweden) 72 Martin Trainer (USA) 73 Richy Werenski (USA) 69 5 Scott Brown (USA) 73 Michael Gligic (Canada) 76 Bo Van Pelt (USA) 73 Aaron Wise (USA) 72 Xinjun Zhang (China PR) 75 6 Bryson Nimmer (USA) 80 Chez Reavie (USA) 75 Robby Shelton (USA) 73 8 John Augenstein (USA) 72 Andrew Putnam (USA) 70 10 Brandon Hagy (USA) 76 Doc Redman (USA) 81 Nick Watney (USA) 72 30 Michael Kim (USA) 72 
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PGA Tour RBC Heritage Scores

By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Bernie Sanders and nine other Democratic senators urged President Joe Biden on Friday to back a temporary patent waiver for COVID-19 vaccines that would allow countries to manufacture treatments locally and accelerate the global vaccination effort.
World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonko-Iweala on Wednesday urged WTO member to address inequitable access to vaccines, with low-income countries administering just 0.2% of 700 million global doses.
She urged WTO members to advance negotiations on a proposal by India and South Africa and backed by over 80 WTO members that would temporarily waive the intellectual property (IP) rights of pharmaceutical companies. The issue will be discussed by WTO members in early May.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai this week said the gaping divide between developed and developing countries&#8217; access to medicines, seen previously during the AIDS crisis, amounted to a market failure and was &#8220;completely unacceptable&#8221;.
But Washington has not backed the temporary waiver of IP rights, which is opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and big pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and BioNTech , Moderna, and Johnson &amp; Johnson.
They argue that waiving IP rights could reduce the safety of vaccines worldwide, and say other issues &#8211; such as improving distribution networks &#8211; are far more urgent priorities.
In their letter, the senators called on Biden to embrace the waiver to help end the pandemic. Slow vaccinations abroad will allow the virus to continue producing dangerous mutations, proponents say.
&#8220;To bring the pandemic to its quickest end and save the lives of Americans and people around the world, we ask that you prioritize people over pharmaceutical company profits by reversing the Trump position and announcing U.S. support for the WTO TRIPS waiver,&#8221; they said.
Sixty former heads of state and 100 Nobel Prize winners also backed the waiver in a letter sent to Biden on Wednesday. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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Senators urge Biden to back temporary WTO waiver of IP rights to speed vaccine access

BISHKEK, April 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Kyrgyzstan will use a herbal tonic to treat COVID-19, its health minister said on Friday after his president praised the remedy &#8211; despite warnings from a medical expert that it contained a potentially lethal poison.
Minister Alymkadyr Beishenaliyev drank a solution made from the roots of aconitum soongaricum at an online briefing to show that it was safe.
&#8220;Those with mild symptoms recover within a day, those with more acute form (of the illness) take it three to four days,&#8221; he said.
President Sadyr Japarov had personally provided doctors with a recipe passed on to him by his father, and they were already using it, Beishenaliyev said.
But Bermet Baryktabasova, a medicines expert and a former health ministry advisor, described aconitum as &#8220;the most poisonous plant in Kyrgyzstan.
&#8220;&#8230;Even the smallest doses of its extract have strong negative effect on the body and the person might quickly die,&#8221; she added. &#8220;We are falling back into the Middle Ages.&#8221;
While promoting aconitum soongaricum, Japarov also urged Kyrgyz citizens to wear masks and vaccinate, saying that so far only 4,000 people have received shots in a country of six million, a sign of &#8220;extreme indifference&#8221;.
Kyrgyzstan has reported over 90,000 COVID-19 cases with more than 1,500 deaths.
Several countries&#8217; leaders have relegated or eschewed vaccines as coronavirus treatments.
Tanzania&#8217;s former president John Magufuli, who died in March, denounced them as part of a Western conspiracy to take Africa&#8217;s wealth, while ex-U.S. president Donald Trump &#8211; in comments he later said were sarcastic &#8211; posited injecting bleach as a possible cure.
(Reporting by Olga Dzyubenko; editing by John Stonestreet)
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Kyrgyz health minister promotes herbal COVID-19 cure; expert says it’s poisonous

ABUJA, April 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Nigeria has given the green light to telecoms firm operating in the country to resume selling new SIM cards from Monday, four months after it suspended them to check compliance with registration rules, the government said.
Nigeria&#8217;s communications ministry said the sale of new SIM cards can resume as long as telecommunications firms, including giants such as Airtel and MTN, link them with identity registration numbers.
The new policy will commence on Monday, the government said in a statement.
In December, the communications regulator directed all telecommunications firms to stop selling SIM cards while it audited their compliance with registration requirements.
Investors watch telecoms subscriber numbers closely and use them to estimate average revenue per user (ARPU), a key metrics for measuring profitability. South Africa&#8217;s MTN has the highest number of subscribers in Nigeria.
Nigeria created SIM card registration rules in an attempt to stop terrorists and criminals from using unregistered SIM cards.
Rising insecurity has plagued the country in recent months; earlier on Tuesday, suspected Islamists attacked the northeast Nigerian border town of Damasak, killing at least eight people and causing hundreds to flee to neighbouring Niger.
Other Nigerian carriers affected by the announcement include 9mobile and Globacom Ltd.
The government has also directed mobile phone companies to add valid identification numbers to every SIM card registered in the country. Unregistered SIM cards will be blocked. (Reporting by Camillus Eboh; Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha)
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Nigeria says telecoms firms can resume new SIM card sales

PRETORIA, April 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Pakistan&#8217;s Fakhar Zaman struck a blazing half-century as they survived a scare to seal a three-wicket victory over depleted South Africa with a ball to spare and win the four-match Twenty20 International series 3-1 on Friday.
South Africa, missing most of their regular players either through injury or having been released to play in the Indian Premier League, were sent in to bat but could only muster 144 all out in 19.3 overs.
Fakhar then blasted 60 from 34 balls in Pakistan’s reply as he put on 91 for the second wicket with captain Babar Azam (24 from 23), and at that stage the tourists were cruising to victory needing 53 from 65 balls with nine wickets in hand.
But when both were out in one over from seamer Lizaad Williams (2-39), a flurry of wickets and some tight bowling brought South Africa back into the game.
The winning runs were eventually scored by Mohammad Nawaz (25 from 21) as he hooked Williams to the mid-wicket boundary for six off the penultimate ball of the match to complete a memorable series win.
Only three players reached double figures in South Africa’s innings, with Rassie van der Dussen (52 from 36) and Janneman Malan (33 from 28) the major contributors.
They were held in check by some excellent seam bowling from Faheem Ashraf (3-17 in four overs), Hasan Ali (3-40) and Haris Rauf (2-18) but, as has been the case throughout the series, there was also some poor shot selection.
Full-strength Pakistan also won the three-match One-Day International series 2-1. (Reporting by Nick Said; Editing by Ken Ferris)
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Cricket-Fakhar flays S.Africa as Pakistan seal T20 series with nervy win

Apr 16 (OPTA) &#8211; Scoreboard at close of play of 4th t20i between South Africa and Pakistan on Friday at Centurion, South Africa Pakistan win by 3 wickets South Africa 1st innings Janneman Malan c Fakhar Zaman b Faheem Ashraf 33 Aiden Markram lbw Mohammad Nawaz 11 Rassie van der Dussen c Mohammad Hafeez b Haris Rauf 52 Heinrich Klaasen c Shaheen Afridi b Faheem Ashraf 9 George Linde c Mohammad Rizwan b Faheem Ashraf 3 Wiaan Mulder c Babar Azam b Hassan Ali 6 Andile Phehlukwayo c Mohammad Rizwan b Hassan Ali 1 Sisanda Magala c Fakhar Zaman b Hassan Ali 7 Bjorn Fortuin c Babar Azam b Shaheen Afridi 8 Lizaad Williams Not Out 2 Tabraiz Shamsi c Mohammad Rizwan b Haris Rauf 0 Extras 4b 6lb 1nb 0pen 1w 12 Total (19.3 overs) 144 all out Fall of Wickets : 1-16 Markram, 2-73 Malan, 3-109 Klaasen, 4-112 van der Dussen, 5-119 Linde, 6-121 Mulder, 7-122 Phehlukwayo, 8-141 Magala, 9-142 Fortuin, 10-144 Shamsi Bowling Ov Md Rn Wk Econ Ex Shaheen Afridi 4 0 19 1 4.75 Mohammad Nawaz 4 0 40 1 10.00 Haris Rauf 3.3 0 18 2 5.14 Hassan Ali 4 0 40 3 10.00 1w 1nb Faheem Ashraf 4 0 17 3 4.25 &#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230; Pakistan 1st innings Mohammad Rizwan st Heinrich Klaasen b Bjorn Fortuin 0 Babar Azam c Tabraiz Shamsi b Lizaad Williams 24 Fakhar Zaman c Wiaan Mulder b Lizaad Williams 60 Mohammad Hafeez c Lizaad Williams b Tabraiz Shamsi 10 Haider Ali c Bjorn Fortuin b Andile Phehlukwayo 3 Asif Ali c&amp;b Sisanda Magala 5 Faheem Ashraf c Aiden Markram b Sisanda Magala 7 Mohammad Nawaz Not Out 25 Hassan Ali Not Out 2 Extras 0b 2lb 4nb 0pen 7w 13 Total (19.5 overs) 149-7 Fall of Wickets : 1-1 Rizwan, 2-92 Zaman, 3-98 Azam, 4-104 Ali, 5-110 Hafeez, 6-115 Ali, 7-129 Ashraf Did Not Bat : Afridi, Rauf Bowling Ov Md Rn Wk Econ Ex Bjorn Fortuin 3 0 26 1 8.67 1w Wiaan Mulder 2 0 14 0 7.00 1w Lizaad Williams 3.5 0 39 2 10.17 2w 1nb Sisanda Magala 4 0 33 2 8.25 1w 3nb Tabraiz Shamsi 4 0 21 1 5.25 1w Andile Phehlukwayo 2 0 11 1 5.50 1w George Linde 1 0 3 0 3.00 &#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230; Umpire Adrian Holdstock Umpire Shaun George Video Allahudien Paleker Match Referee Andrew Pycroft 
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Pakistan in South Africa 2021 Scoreboard

(John Kemp is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own)
* Chart: https://tmsnrt.rs/2Qv2Pgq
By John Kemp
LONDON, April 16 (Reuters) &#8211; For policymakers in North America and Western Europe, energy policy is often viewed exclusively through the lens of climate change, which takes priority over everything else.
But for their counterparts in developing countries, where energy is still scare and expensive, and other social problems are pressing, it is only one of a number of competing objectives.
&#8220;Taking action to combat climate change&#8221; is one of the 17 high-level sustainable development goals agreed by members of the United Nations in 2015, with a target delivery date of 2030.
Others include poverty reduction; improvements in healthcare and nutrition; access to clean energy, water and sanitation; creating better employment; and reducing inequality (https://sdgs.un.org/).
For policymakers in advanced economies, combating climate change tends to take lexical priority over all these other objectives, but their counterparts in the developing world must take a more balanced approach.
Lexical priority is just a fancy way of saying &#8220;dictionary order&#8221;. In the dictionary, all the words beginning with A come before all the entries starting with B.
For many Western policymakers, reducing carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions takes precedence over all other aspects of energy policy, but prioritisation is more complicated for policymakers from developing economies.

ENERGY DIVIDE
Differences in access to energy and energy consumption between the advanced and developing economies remain stark (https://tmsnrt.rs/2Qv2Pgq).
Per capita energy consumption in the OECD economies is more three times higher than in non-OECD countries according to BP (&#8220;Statistical review of world energy&#8221;, 2019).
Per capita consumption in the European Union is one-third higher than in China, five times higher than in India and almost nine times higher than in Africa.
Similarly, per capita consumption in the United States is three times higher than China, 11 times higher than India and 19 times higher than Africa.
Some differences can be attributed to geography; energy consumption tends to be greater in countries at high latitudes that need more heating. But much of the gap reflects differences in comfort and consumption.
Residents of advanced economies enjoy more heating, cooling and lighting services; travel further and more frequently, for pleasure as well as work; and consume more energy embedded in goods and services.
If they are to achieve the other 16 sustainable development goals and increase their incomes and living standards, residents of developing economies will also need to consume more energy.
In many ways, the economic development process has always been about capturing and employing increasing amounts of energy.
The process of economic and social development in the OECD economies during the 19th and 20th centuries was very energy intensive, and it is likely to be the same for non-OECD economies in the 21st century.
While the demand for energy has levelled off in the advanced economies recently, it is still increasing rapidly in developing economies as they catch up.
Per capita energy consumption in the OECD economies fell slightly by 0.2% per year between 2009 and 2019, but in non-OECD economies it rose at a compound annual rate of 1.8%.

UNMET NEEDS
The enormous scale of unmet energy demand in developing countries poses a huge challenge for attempts to control carbon dioxide emissions.
Zero-emission energy sources must be scaled up by several orders of magnitude to replace existing fossil fuel combustion and satisfy the growth in energy demand implied by the development process.
Furthermore, the population of developing countries is still growing fast, and is projected to continue increasing through the next three decades, which will boost energy consumption even more.
The population of middle-income and low-income countries has risen by 2.2 billion since 1990, and is projected to rise by another 1.9 billion by 2050 (&#8220;World population prospects&#8221;, United Nations, 2019).
In 2019, zero-emission energy sources met only one-sixth of global energy consumption, with the remainder met by fossil fuels, most of which would eventually need to be replaced to achieve the net-zero emissions target.
By 2050, global energy consumption is likely to increase by another 25-75%, based on trends over the last decade, all of which increase would need to be satisfied from zero emissions sources to achieve the net zero target.
From an advanced economy perspective, the emissions problem is largely a static one, replacing existing fossil fuel combustion with zero-emission sources.
For developing countries, it is dynamic, replacing existing fossil fuels while also adding enough extra zero-emission sources to meet burgeoning growth in energy demand.

CLIMATE AMBITION
In the run up to the 26th United Nations climate conference in November, top policymakers from North America and Western Europe have emphasised the need to set an ambitious strategy to reach net zero by 2050.
But the rhetorical priority on reducing emissions can often sound like a call to put climate change ahead of other development goals, postponing solutions to other problems until climate change has been tackled.
In reality, that sounds selfish, unfair, and politically impractical to many policymakers from developing countries, who must be sensitive to other objectives as well.
If the conference is to succeed in setting ambitious and credible goals for emissions reduction, it must demonstrate how they can be integrated with other development objectives.
Reducing CO2 emissions must go hand in hand with increasing energy consumption in middle and low-income countries, boosting their social and economic development, rather than becoming a substitute for it.

Related columns:
&#8211; Asia and the great reconvergence (Reuters, April 13)
&#8211; Global CO2 emissions far off net-zero trajectory (Reuters, April 12)
&#8211; Electricity access and climate change (Reuters, Dec. 15, 2019) (Editing by David Evans)
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COLUMN-CO2 emission limits and economic development: Kemp

* China is world&#8217;s biggest gold consumer
* Demand collapsed during pandemic but now recovering
* Central bank allows biggest imports since COVID &#8211; sources
* About 150 tonnes to be shipped in April/May &#8211; sources (Adds context, analyst quote)
By Xiao Han, Peter Hobson and Swati Verma
BEIJING/LONDON/BENGALURU, April 16 (Reuters) &#8211; China has given domestic and international banks permission to import large amounts of gold into the country, five sources familiar with the matter said, potentially helping to support global gold prices after months of declines.
China is the world&#8217;s biggest gold consumer, gobbling up hundreds of tonnes of the precious metal worth tens of billions of dollars each year, but its imports plunged as the coronavirus spread and local demand dried up.
With China&#8217;s economy rebounding strongly since the second half of last year, demand for gold jewellery, bars and coins has recovered, driving domestic prices above global benchmark rates and making it profitable to import bullion.
The local premium is now about $7 to $9 an ounce, according to gold traders in Asia, and would probably have increased further if more imports to satisfy demand had not been allowed.
About 150 tonnes of gold worth $8.5 billion at current prices is likely to be shipped following the green light from Beijing, four sources said. Two said the gold would be shipped in April and two said it would arrive over April and May.
The bulk of China&#8217;s gold imports typically comes from Australia, South Africa and Switzerland.
The People&#8217;s Bank of China (PBOC), the country&#8217;s central bank, controls how much gold enters China through a system of quotas given to commercial banks. It usually allows metal in but sometimes restricts flows.
&#8220;We had no quotas for a while. Now we are getting them &#8230; the most since 2019,&#8221; said a source at one of the banks moving gold into China.
The PBOC did not respond to a request for comment.
The size of the shipments signals China&#8217;s dramatic return to the global bullion market. Since February 2020, the country has on average imported gold worth about $600 million a month, or roughly 10 tonnes, Chinese customs data show.
In 2019, its imports ran at about $3.5 billion a month, or roughly 75 tonnes.



China&#8217;s absence made little difference to gold prices early in the pandemic when Western investors fearful of economic catastrophe stockpiled vast amounts of the safe-haven asset, pushing it to a record high of $2,072.50 an ounce.
But the investor interest drifted away as vaccines and government stimulus programmes revived economic growth and gold prices have sagged to around $1,750 an ounce.


India&#8217;s demand for bullion has also rebounded from a pandemic-induced slump, with record-breaking imports in March of 160 tonnes of gold, an Indian government source told Reuters this month. China and India typically account for some two fifths of the world&#8217;s annual demand for gold. Their recovery is &#8220;critical in setting the floor for gold&#8221; and should stop prices from falling further over the coming months, said Suki Cooper, an analyst at Standard Chartered. Jewellery sales in China during the Lunar New Year holiday in February were stronger than in 2019 and 2020 and manufacturers and retailers needed to replenish their stocks, said Philip Klapwijk at Precious Metals Insights, a consultancy in Hong Kong.
&#8220;A pretty decent recovery in gold demand this year will require a generally much higher level of gold imports (than in 2020),&#8221; he said.
(Reporting by Xiao Han in Beijing, Peter Hobson in London, Swati Verma and Arpan Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Veronica Brown, Shri Navaratnam and David Clarke)
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EXCLUSIVE-China opens its borders to billions of dollars of gold imports – sources

LONDON, April 16 (Reuters) &#8211; An Indian tender took at least five cargoes of Nigerian crude on Friday, while Angola is set to increase its exports in June.
* Angola will export at least 36 cargoes in June, up from 34 in May, a preliminary programme showed. The Gindungo plan has still not emerged and will likely make the total programme bigger.
* About 10 May loading cargoes of Angolan crude were still available. Angolan Clov and Nemba were last offered for around minus $1, Dalia for minus 50 cents and Cabinda at dated Brent flat.
* India&#8217;s IOC closed two buy tenders for June loading on Thursday. Chevron, Shell, Exxon Mobil and Total were the winners, traders said. Shell was said to have won with Bonny Light, Exxon a cargo of Qua Iboe, Total a cargo of Akpo and Chevron cargoes of Agbami and Escravos.
* IOC also took some Upper Zakum and Das Blend.

RELATED NEWS
* Global commodities trader Trafigura has agreed to buy Angolan state oil giant Sonangol&#8217;s 31.78% stake in loss-making Puma Energy for $600 million in a step towards raising its holding to more than 90%. (Reporting by Julia Payne; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli) ))
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W. Africa Crude-Angolan June programme emerges

LISBON, April 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Portugal has lifted its ban on flights to and from Britain and Brazil for work and studies but not for tourism, the government said on Friday, while restrictions on travel by land and sea to Spain will stay in place for another 15 days.
The country suspended all but humanitarian and repatriation flights to and from Brazil and the United Kingdom in mid-January to prevent the spread of COVID-19 variants and imposed border controls with neighbouring Spain on Jan. 28.
The interior ministry said the border restrictions with Spain, which has a higher infection rate than Portugal, would continue until the end of the month based on a bilateral agreement. The measures do not prevent Portuguese citizens or residents from entering the country.
&#8220;The suspension of flights to and from Brazil and the United Kingdom is lifted, for essential journeys only &#8211; as was already the case for flights from third countries,&#8221; it said.
Essential travel applies to those who enter or leave Portugal for professional, study, family reunion, health or humanitarian reasons.
Britain has not yet said when wider travel could resume and which countries would be on its green list of low-risk destinations after suspending all but humanitarian and repatriation flights in mid-January.
Passengers coming to Portugal from South Africa, Brazil or countries with a COVID-19 incidence rate equal to or higher than 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants must go into isolation for 14 days.
Portugal has been easing the lockdown it imposed in January to curb what was at that point the world&#8217;s worst COVID-19 surge by population.
Most Portuguese regions will enter the third phase of lockdown easing next week, but stricter rules will stay in place in municipalities where transmission rates remain high.
The nation of 10 million people has registered 829,911 infections and 16,937 deaths since the start of the pandemic. (Reporting by Patrícia Vicente Rua, Editing by Andrei Khalip and Hugh Lawson)
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Portugal allows some UK, Brazil travel, extends Spanish border restrictions

By Libby George
ABUJA, April 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Nigeria has sweetened the terms of a sweeping oil reform bill in a bid to attract much-needed investment to its oil industry, four people closely involved with the legislation said and a letter from oil companies, seen by Reuters, showed.
The proposed changes signal a shift by Africa&#8217;s largest oil producer and show the impact of an increasingly competitive environment in the energy business after 2020&#8217;s global oil price collapse and an expected shift to renewables.
Nigeria in 2019 had fast-tracked a law to boost its take of offshore oil revenue, a move industry experts said at the time could put billions of dollars of offshore oil investments at risk.
Now Nigeria has changed its stance in an attempt to balance its immediate revenue demands with the need to lock-in long-term investment for its oil industry.
The reform bill has been in the works for two decades, but the contentious nature of changes to Nigeria&#8217;s oil sector, which provides 90% of foreign exchange and nearly half the national budget, have scuppered previous versions.
In January, a fist fight broke out between local community leaders during one of the public hearings on the bill.
But with political alignment between President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly, the measure is expected to pass this year, though likely not before late May, the people said.
Key changes to the bill would lower the royalties for new production from deepwater oilfields to 5% from 7.5% and boost the production level that triggers higher royalties from 15,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 50,000 bpd.
For onshore and shallow water oilfields, it would reduce the hydrocarbon tax to 30% for converted leases, down from 42.5% in the original bill.
The changes would also guarantee that state oil company NNPC&#8217;s assets and liabilities would transfer to a limited liability corporation. This will help oil companies to collect money owed by NNPC.
The Ministry of Petroleum declined to comment. NNPC did not respond to a request for comment.
In the letter seen by Reuters, oil industry executives pushed for more changes, particularly around gas development and &#8220;fiscal term stability&#8221; which provides assurance that there will not be any unexpected changes in the royalties and tax regime.
The executives said that &#8220;terms are not sufficiently competitive to stimulate the desired new investments.&#8221;
Oil companies have noted that Nigeria got just 4% of the $70 billion invested in sanctioned projects in Africa between 2015 and 2019.

NEED TO ATTRACT INVESTMENT
Last year, oil industry analysts Wood Mackenzie had said Nigeria&#8217;s oil output could fall sharply without reforms.
Gail Anderson, research director with consultancy Wood Mackenzie, said of the changes to the bill: &#8220;It shows that (the government) listened. They recognise the need to attract investment, not just in the Nigerian context but globally in the energy transition,&#8221; Anderson said.
&#8220;The competition is going to be more intense, and this is a move in the right direction to attain and attract investment.&#8221;
But Anderson also said that not all the gas terms in the bill were good enough to spur development, which Nigeria has said it wants for its &#8220;decade of gas.&#8221;
President Buhari originally sent the bill to the National Assembly in September. The legislative body has held two public hearings, but there have been a series of private consultations with stakeholders, including oil companies and community leaders that culminated in dozens of amendments.
Legislators worked over the Easter holidays to consider the amendments, which the executive submitted in March.
One proposed change, which would have instituted a mandatory review of fiscal terms every seven years, was removed after a backlash from companies concerned about stability of terms for projects with decades-long investment cycles. (Additional reporting by Camillus Eboh; Editing by Veronica Brown and Jane Merriman)
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EXCLUSIVE-Nigeria refines energy reform bill to attract more Big Oil cash

Dakar, April 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Food prices in West Africa have jumped more than 30% since last year to their highest levels in nearly a decade due to coronavirus lockdowns and a decline in cereal production, the World Food Programme (WFP) said Friday.
More than 31 million people are expected to become food insecure between June and August, raising the risk of a health emergency as the region contends with conflicts and COVID-19, the U.N. organisation said in a statement.
&#8220;Soaring prices are pushing a basic meal beyond the reach of millions of poor families who were already struggling to get by,&#8221; said Chris Nikoi, WFP&#8217;s Regional Director for West Africa.
Across the region, prices of local staples such as rice are nearly 40% higher than five-year averages and in some countries staples cost more than double their average price, WFP said.
Attacks by Islamist militants have escalated in the Sahel region, an arid belt to the south of the Sahara Desert, driving people off farmland in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and cutting access to supplies.
WFP said almost 6.5 million people in those countries faced crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity in coming months.
The Sahel region alone accounts for approximately half of the 10 million children under five in West Africa who are acutely malnourished in West Africa, WFP said.
About 800,000 of the nearly 2.7 million people WFP has identified as being at risk of famine are in Nigeria&#8217;s arid northeastern states, where millions have been displaced by the long-running Boko Haram insurgency.
Up to 65,000 people in Nigeria&#8217;s northeast are currently on the run after an attack by armed groups on Wednesday killed at least eight people and injured a dozen more. (Reporting by Cooper Inveen and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Bate Felix and David Clarke)
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Food prices soar in West Africa amid conflicts and COVID, WFP says

By Carl O&#8217;Donnell
NEW YORK, April 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Wealthy governments are looking to COVID-19 shots from Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc to keep their vaccination programs on track, as safety concerns and production problems sideline vaccines from AstraZeneca Plc and Johnson &amp; Johnson, public health experts and industry analysts say.
Countries in Europe and Asia, as well as South Africa, are limiting or halting use of AstraZeneca&#8217;s shot over safety concerns. Rollout of J&amp;J&#8217;s one-shot vaccine was paused in the United States and Europe this week over a handful of cases of very rare but dangerous blood clots in the brain, much like AstraZeneca&#8217;s safety issue.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was studying whether the technology behind both vaccines was connected to the clotting cases. Both use a modified cold virus as a vector to deliver coronavirus proteins into cells and prompt an immune response.
Combined, the two vaccines are supposed to account for more than 25% of global supply in 2021, according to a Reuters tally of public statements and media reports.
The vaccines from Pfizer with German partner BioNTech SE and Moderna use a different method to protect against COVID-19 that relies on messenger RNA (mRNA) to program cells to generate immunity to the coronavirus.
Those two shots were already viewed as a preferred choice among wealthy countries, analysts said, based on clinical trial data showing they were more than 90% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19. About 120 million Americans have received a Pfizer or Moderna shot so far with no major safety issue identified.
Now, the United States and European Union are pushing to stock up on even more of the mRNA vaccines. Japan is also working to secure 100 million doses of Pfizer’s shot by the end of June.
&#8220;Right now, (mRNA-based shots) are the Lamborghinis or McLarens of COVID-19 vaccines,&#8221; said Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, referring to ultra high-end luxury automobiles.
J&amp;J and AstraZeneca did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Both Moderna and Pfizer said they are working to increase output above their 2021 production targets of up to 1 billion and 2.5 billion shots, respectively.
Pfizer this week said it is targeting a 10% increase in U.S. dose deliveries through May and 50 million more doses for Europe in the second quarter of 2021. The EU is also negotiating for up to 1.8 billion Pfizer doses for 2022 and 2023.
German biotech CureVac, which is testing its own mRNA vaccine, on Thursday said requests for its shot have increased over the past few days following the J&amp;J pause. It expects to file for European authorization in late May or early June.

&#8216;NOT CHEAP&#8217;
The higher cost, production limits and demanding requirements for shipping and storage could limit mRNA-based vaccines&#8217; availability in lower income countries, experts said.
“The raw materials needed for mRNA manufacturing and production are not cheap right now,” said Hartaj Singh, a biotechnology analyst at Oppenheimer &amp; Co.
&#8220;In the second half of this year, we&#8217;ll see the conversation change to, ‘okay, how can we help the developing world get their hands on mRNA vaccines,’” Singh said of countries like the United States, which has pledged to do so.
Moderna Chief Executive Stephane Bancel reiterated this week that his company would be able to significantly increase production in 2022.
Reuters on Wednesday reported that Moderna was talking to a U.S. company with capacity to produce 30 million doses of its shot each month.
But poorer countries will likely still have to rely on the vaccines from J&amp;J, AstraZeneca and others from China and Russia that unlike the mRNA shots can be stored in a standard refrigerator, making them a better option for rural and hard to reach areas.
That could change, said Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
&#8220;Hopefully, there will be innovation around the storage of mRNA vaccines that allows them to be used more widely,&#8221; he said.
(Reporting by Carl O&#8217;Donnell, Additional reporting by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt and Allison Martell in Toronto; Editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)
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ANALYSIS-Countries seek more Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 shots as concerns mount over rival vaccines

TUNIS, April 16 (Reuters) &#8211; At least 21 migrants from Africa died when their boat sank off Tunisia as they tried to cross the Mediterranean to the Italian island of Lampedusa, a Tunisian official said on Friday.
&#8220;The boat sank during a trip that started late on Thursday from (the town of) Sfax&#8230; So far, the coastguard has recovered 21 bodies and the search is still continuing,&#8221; Mouard Mechri, director of Tunisia&#8217;s civil protection service, told Reuters. (Reporting By Tarek Amara Editing by Gareth Jones)
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