Manchester Arena blast: 19 dead and about 50 hurt www.bbc.com

Nineteen people have been killed and about 50 injured in a suspected terror attack at Manchester Arena.
Police were called to reports of an explosion at the venue at about 22:35 BST following a pop concert by the US singer Ariana Grande.
The cause of the blast is unknown but North West Counter Terrorism unit is treating it as a possible terrorist incident, sources have told the BBC.
Greater Manchester Police is working to set up a contact number for relatives.
Officers have told the BBC there is a second suspect device near where the first explosion occurred.
Reporters were moved away from the scene and a controlled explosion has taken place.
BBC Home Affairs Correspondent Daniel Sandford said senior counter-terrorism officers were assembling in London and liaising with the Home Office.
British Transport Police say the explosion was in the foyer area of Manchester Arena.
Manchester Victoria station, which is close to the concert venue, has been closed and all trains cancelled.

The BBC's Tim Ashburner, who is at the scene, spoke to some volunteer paramedics who treated the injured for "shrapnel-like injuries".
A number of eyewitnesses have described the confusion in the aftermath.
Andy Holey, who had gone to the arena to pick up his wife and daughter who had been at the concert, said: "As I was waiting, an explosion went off and it threw me about 30ft from one set of doors to the other set of doors.
"When I got up I saw bodies lying on the ground. My first thought was to go into the arena to try to find my family.
"When I couldn't find them, I went outside with the police and fire and looked through some of the bodies to try and find my wife and daughter.
"I managed to find them eventually and they're OK.
"It was definitely an explosion and it was some force. It happened near the box office at the entrance to the Arena."

The police activity around the arena has been huge. There are blue flashing lights and cordons seemingly on almost every street corner.
A wide area around the venue itself has been completely taped off, and the crime scene appears to be widening, with police pushing people further and further back.
I've spoken to people who are shaken, scared and often tearful. One thing that's apparent is there are many, many young people, some of them with parents or guardians. One mother told me her priority was simply to get her daughters home.
Other people have been more candid and have described seeing people covered in blood, or being treated by paramedics. There's still a huge sense of confusion and people are constantly searching for information while letting their families know they're safe.
Robert Tempkin, 22, from Middlesbrough, said: "Everyone was screaming and running, there were coats and people's phones on the floor. People just dropped everything.
"Some people were screaming they'd seen blood but other people were saying it was balloons busting or a speaker had been popped.
"There were lots of ambulances. I saw somebody being treated. I couldn't tell what had happened to him."

Josh Elliott, speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, said he was shocked by news of the fatalities.
"A bang went off and everyone stopped and screamed... we basically hit the deck," he said
"It was bedlam… it was horrific.
"We got up when we thought it was safe and got out as quickly as possible.
"People were just crying and in tears... police cars were everywhere.
"We just wanted to get out as quickly as possible because we didn't know what was going on."
The background - Ian Youngs, BBC News entertainment reporter
Manchester Arena, formerly known as the MEN Arena, is the biggest indoor venue in the city with a capacity of around 18,000 for concerts.
The arena foyer connects with Victoria train and tram station, a major hub on the northern edge of the city centre.
The arena regularly hosts concerts by major stars like Ariana Grande - a 23-year-old American TV teen actress-turned-pop star.
She's a big draw for young fans, with hits including Problem, featuring Iggy Azalea, which hit number one in the UK in 2014; and Side To Side, featuring Nicki Minaj, which reached number four last year.
She's currently on a European tour - she's already played Birmingham and Dublin and is due to be at the O2 Arena in London on Wednesday and Thursday.
Michelle Sullivan, from Huddersfield, was attending the concert with her daughters, aged 12 and 15.
"It was really scary," she said. "Just as the lights have gone down we heard a really loud explosion... Everybody screamed.
"When we got out they just said 'keep on running, keep on running'."

Pat Carney, Manchester City Council's spokesman for the city centre, said the city's thoughts were with the families of those killed and injured.
"It's a very easy target - a concert hall where young people are enjoying music," he said.
"The public are really co-operating by staying away from what is basically now a crime site.
"The world we live in, police and the council have emergency procedures that we practise all the time.
"Obviously everyone in the city is shocked, having seen how young some of these people are
"The police are treating it as a live site, we don't know if this is the end or there are other incidents in that area... we don't know at the moment."

Within an hour of reports of the incident emerging, people began offering spare rooms and beds to people stranded in the city using the hashtag
Hundreds of tweets offering places to stay are being shared and re-tweeted thousands of times.

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Queensland Government completes Blair Athol Coal Mine lease transfer - mine set to re-open by end of June 2017 www.medianet.com.au

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Mongolia to export potatoes to Japan www.gogo.mn

This year, a total of 458.0 thousand hectares of land planned to be cultivated nationwide - grains at 381.6 thousand hectares, potatoes, and vegetables at 23.6 thousand hectares, fodder crops at 23.2 thousand hectares and oilseeds at 28.6 thousand hectares will be planted respectively.
Prime Minister J.Erdenebat stated during the meeting with farmers that Japanese companies submitted an order to purchase potatoes from Mongolia. Currently, we have sent two samples and both of them meet the standard of Japan. Our farmers, however, should more focus on the quality of vegetables as well as should supply high-quality products that meet the customer requirements.
The main topic discussed at the meeting was soil care. It is significant for farmers to protect, improve and restores soil in order to produce plentrous harvest. 
Minister of Food, agriculture and light industry P.Sergelen said that Mongolia to work with China in soil care. In regards, two countries agreed to establish a joint research laboratory of soil care. 
Meanwhile, farmers noted that cultivation is expected to be finished at the beginning of June. This year, we are having enough soil moisture for cultivation due to the Government approved a budget for cloud seeding. In addition, development of agriculture sector is improving year by year. We are seeing progress in training of workforce resource in developed countries.

Ambassador O.Och meets CEO of Netherlands Development Finance company www.en.montsame.mn

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Ukraine says no to Russian coal, gas – favours nuclear power www.mining.com

In spite of a blockade on shipments of anthracite coal from occupied Donbas to Ukrainian thermal power plants (TPPs) since this past winter, the country has thus far avoided blackouts. Moreover, Ukraine has managed to increase power generation by 2.1 percent year over year in January–April (Interfax-Ukraine, May 13). This was mainly thanks to heavy reliance on nuclear energy, but warm weather and lower consumption by industry also helped. Ahead of the next heating season, which kicks off in October, Ukraine is going to replace Donbas-sourced anthracite with imported coal, while also converting its thermal power plants to use alternative fuels.

Ukrainian nationalists began to block roads leading into the Moscow-backed so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR, LPR) at the end of January, protesting against what they saw as profiteering from the war by Ukrainian tycoon Rinat Akhmetov at consumers’ expense (see EDM, February 24, 28). They claimed that the government agreed to pay for coal extracted at Akhmetov’s mines, located in the Russia-controlled areas, according to the so-called Rotterdam-plus formula, so it was as expensive as if it were shipped from the Netherlands (Zn.ua, February 17). Because of the blockade, Ukrainian TPPs were left without anthracite from the DPR and LPR territories, and the government warned in February that almost a third of Ukraine would face blackouts by April. Still, the protests gained momentum, and in March Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko banned all cargo traffic with the occupied eastern territories. As a result, five out of the six Ukrainian TPPs that used to burn anthracite stopped operations in April (see EDM, March 29).

But even with many of its TPPs offline, Ukraine was not plunged into blackouts, thanks to a combination of factors. February and March were unusually warm, so less coal was used for heating. Industry also consumed less power because the Donbas blockade not only affected power generation, but also subdued output in metallurgy and the engineering industry. For example, after growth last year and in January, metal production plunged year on year by 4.3 percent in February and by 2.2 percent in March (Ukrstat.gov.ua, accessed on May 16). Also, thermal power was partially replaced with nuclear power, so the share of nuclear plants in power generation jumped from 52 percent in 2016 to 57 percent in January–April (Interfax, May 15). However, Ukraine cannot continue to heavily rely on nuclear reactors, as it will be necessary to shut them down for scheduled maintenance later in the year. Meanwhile, domestic power consumption is likely to grow, as the economy continues to expand.

To remedy this situation, Ukraine plans to increase coal imports, while adapting its TPPs to use lower-quality G-grade coal, which is extracted outside the occupied areas and can be easily imported, in place of anthracite. The Ukrainian government does not want to increase coal imports from Russia on principle, because of the war, so Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman suggested buying coal from as far as the United States, South Africa and Australia (Ukrinform.ua, March 21). However, that might be prohibitively expensive, given the transportation costs involved.
On April 25, Sakhnakhshiri, a company based across the Black Sea in Georgia, won a tender to deliver 700,000 tons of coal to Ukraine to the state company Tsentrenergo, which runs two of the five power plants stopped due to the coal shortage. Sakhnakhshiri is to deliver coal to Ukraine in May–December. However, there have been doubts about this supplier, showing the pitfalls Ukraine may encounter while looking for a replacement to Donbas anthracite. Sakhnakhshiri faced only one competitor in the tender, a little-known firm registered in Poland but linked to a Ukrainian citizen, whose bid price was only $38 higher than Sakhnakhshiri’s. So there was little or no competition (Liga.net, April 26). Furthermore, Georgia’s former president Mikheil Saakashvili said on his Facebook page on April 27 that Sakhnakhshiri might end up buying coal for Ukraine in Russia, and he questioned the transparency of the deal. Georgia, said Saakashvili, could not produce so much coal of the quality asked by Tsentrenergo. Coal bought from Russia may turn out to be coal that was originally shipped to Russia by the DPR-LPR authorities.

Meanwhile, both the government and Akhmetov’s DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest private energy company, are working to convert their TPPs to G-grade coal. DTEK CEO Maksym Tymchenko said in an interview that one of his firm’s TPPs was currently being converted, and conversion of another plant was already planned (Epravda.com.ua, April 27). DTEK also began to buy anthracite from South Africa (Dtek.com, April 13). Energy Minister Ihor Nasalyk told a recent government meeting that power units at two of Tsentrenergo’s TPPs would use G-grade coal by the end of 2017. Along with the construction of new power transmission lines from nuclear plants and new hydropower units, this should allow Ukraine to replace about four million tons of Donbas anthracite in power generation, Kyiv hopes (Mpe.kmu.gov.ua, April 26).

Ukraine has learned to survive without natural gas purchases from Russia’s Gazprom (see EDM, February 11, 2016). This year, it is learning to live without coal from the areas controlled by Russia-backed militants. This is vital for Ukraine’s highly energy-dependent industry, which is expected to increase production this year, supporting GDP growth for the second year in a row, after deep recession in 2014–2015.