By Djaffar al Katanty and Edward McAllister

YALOLIA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) – At a village clinic in central Congo, separated from the world by a tangle of waterways and forests, six-year-old Angelika Lifafu grips her dress and screams as nurses in protective suits pick at one of hundreds of boils that trouble her delicate skin.

Her uncle, 12-year-old Lisungi Lifafu, sits at the foot of her bed, facing away from the sunlight that pours through the doorway and pains his swollen, weeping eyes. When nurses approach, he raises his chin, but cannot look up.

The children have monkeypox, a disease first detected in Congo 50 years ago, but cases of which have spiked in West and Central Africa since 2019. The illness received little attention until it spread worldwide this year, infecting 77,000 people.

Global health bodies have counted far fewer cases in Africa during the current outbreak than in Europe and the United States, which snapped up the limited number of vaccines this year when the illness arrived at their shores.

But the outbreak, and death toll, in Congo could be much greater than recorded in official statistics, Reuters reporting shows, in large part because testing in underequipped, rural areas is so limited and effective medicines are unavailable.

During a six-day trip to the remote region of Tshopo this month, Reuters reporters found about 20 monkeypox patients, including two who had died, whose cases were not recorded until reporters visited. None of them, including Angelika and Lisungi, had access to vaccines or anti-viral drugs.

The shortage of testing facilities and poor transport links makes tracing the virus nearly impossible, more than a dozen health workers said.

Asked about undercounting, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledged that its data did not capture the full extent of the outbreak.

In the West, only about 10 people have died of monkeypox this year, figures from the U.S. CDC show. Europe and the United States have been able to vaccinate at-risk communities. Suspected cases are routinely tested, isolated and treated early, which improves survival rates, experts said. Case numbers in Europe and the United States have stabilized and begun to fall.

But in poorer African countries where many people do not have quick access to health facilities, or are not aware of the dangers, over 130 have died, almost all in Congo, according to the Africa CDC.

No monkeypox vaccines are publicly available in Africa.

Without treatment, Angelika and Lisungi can only wait for the illness to run its course. Ahead of them lies a myriad of possible outcomes including recovery, blindness, or, as was the case with a family member in August, death.

“These children have a disease that makes them suffer so much,” said Lisungi’s father Litumbe Lifafu at the clinic in Yalolia, a village of scattered mud huts 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) from the capital Kinshasa.

“We demand the government provides medicines for us poor farmers, and the vaccine to fight this disease.”

HISTORY REPEATS

The World Health Organization last year called out the “moral failure” of the COVID-19 pandemic response, when African nations found themselves at the back of the queue for vaccines, tests and treatment.

But those failures are being repeated a year on with monkeypox, the health workers consulted by Reuters said. This risks future flare-ups of the disease in Africa and globally, experts said.

While the sudden demand from Western countries sucked up available vaccines, poor countries such as Congo, where the disease has existed long enough to be endemic, have been slow to seek supplies from the WHO and partners.

Congo health minister Jean-Jacques Mbungani told Reuters Congo was in talks with the WHO to buy vaccines, but no formal request had been made. A spokesperson for Gavi, the vaccine alliance, said it had not received requests from African countries where the virus was endemic.

A WHO spokeswoman said that in the absence of available vaccines, countries should instead focus on surveillance and contact tracing.

“History repeats itself,” said Professor Dimie Ogoina, president of the independent Nigerian Infectious Diseases Society. Time and again, he said, disease containment in Africa does not get the funding it needs until wealthier nations are at risk.

“It happened with HIV, it happened with Ebola and with COVID-19, and it is happening again with monkeypox.”

Without adequate resources, the true spread of the virus is unknowable, he and other experts said.

“In Africa we are working blind,” said Ogoina. “The case counts are grossly underestimated.”

Monkeypox is spread through close contact with skin lesions. For most, it resolves within weeks. Young children and the immune compromised are especially vulnerableto severe complications.

The Africa CDC says that Congo has had more than 4,000 suspected and confirmed cases and 154 deaths this year, based in part on health authority data. That is far lower than the 27,000-odd cases recorded in the United States and 7,000 in Spain. African nations with outbreaks include Ghana, where there are about 600 suspected and confirmed cases, and Nigeria, where there are nearly 2,000.

“Yes, there is an undercount,” said Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, acting director of the Africa CDC. “The communities where the monkeypox is spreading generally don’t have access to regular health facilities.” He said the CDC could not currently say how big the undercount was.

Congo’s health minister Mbungani said testing capabilities were lacking outside Kinshasa but did not respond to a request for comment about missed cases.

THE FRONT LINE

African countries hoped that the WHO’s decision in July to declare monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern would mobilise resources.

WHO dispatched some 40,000 tests to Africa, including 1,500 to Congo, said Ambrose Talisuna, WHO’s monkeypox incident manager on the continent.

This month, Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research began a clinical trial of the antiviral drug tecovirimat on monkeypox patients. While no vaccines are available for public consumption, trials are underway on health workers in Congo with Bavarian Nordic’s Imvanex vaccine, health minister Mbungani said.

But in central Congo, little has changed.

Yalolia, where Angelika and Lisungi are patients, is reachable only by motorbike tracks that thread tunnel-like through the dense jungle, or by canoes carved from felled tree trunks. An old road connecting to nearby villages was cut off years ago when a series of wooden bridges collapsed.

In August, Lisungi’s older brother developed a rash and had trouble breathing. The family thought it was smallpox. When his condition worsened, a doctor put him on an intravenous drip. He died before it was empty.

Grief stricken, Lisungi hugged his brother’s infected corpse. Two weeks later, in early September, he too developed a rash and his eyes swelled shut. Then Angelika fell ill.

Lisumbe took the children to Yalolia where they were diagnosed with monkeypox based on their symptoms. He sold his belongings to buy medicine to reduce their fevers.

The nurses caring for them seethe at the lack of treatments.

“If there is a vaccine, it is us who should have it. If there is a treatment, it is us who should have it,” said nurse Marcel Osekasomba.

None of the cases were reported to authorities until Reuters visited Yalolia with a local health official called Theopiste Maloko. He only went to the village at Reuters’ suggestion.

Without test results, they are now logged as suspected cases.

ISOLATED CASES

Tshopo, nearly as big as the United Kingdom, is heavily wooded and carved up by the Congo River and its many winding tributaries. Maloko’s job is to track cases over an area spanning 5,000 square kilometres. But he cannot afford gasoline and has no means of transport.

When nurses took samples from sores on Angelika’s leg and placed them in a polystyrene cool box strapped to the back of a motorbike, Maloko was sceptical.

To avoid spoiling, samples need to be kept cold and reach a laboratory within 48 hours, but they often do not, he said. The nearest testing lab is in Kinshasa; results take weeks or months.

“We are suffering. This is really our cry of alarm. We are raising our voices so that someone will hear,” he said.

Sometimes samples are not even taken.

The village of Yalanga is a day’s journey from Yalolia by land and boat. Surrounded by jungle, it has no phone network or electricity. When the light fades, patients at the health centre lie in the dark on beds of hard bamboo.

The clinic, a small building with a tin roof and five rooms, has had three cases in recent months. To notify authorities of a new case, nurses must travel half a day to get phone reception. When they are busy, getting away is impossible. The recent cases were recorded weeks late, said nurse Alingo Likaka Manasse.

Lituka Wenda Dety, a 41-year-old mother, thinks she got sick from eating infected bush meat. At the height of her illness in August, her throat was so sore she struggled to swallow her own saliva.

Round scars still dot Dety’s body, and her bones ache. She is grieving. When she was ill in hospital, her six-month-old son caught monkeypox and died. He is buried in a patch of sandy earth beside her mud brick home.

At the end of the day, Dety and her family gather around the small rectangular grave. She whispers prayers.

“We want there to be a vaccination campaign,” she said. “Going by what we have suffered, if many people catch this disease it will be catastrophic.”

(Reporting by Djaffar al Katanty in Tshopo and Edward McAllister in Dakar; Writing by Edward McAllister; additional reporting by James Macharia Chege in Johannesburg and Stanis Bujakera in Kinshasa; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)

By David Shepardson

(Reuters) -The United Auto Workers on Monday said it was seeking an election to represent workers at a General Motors/LG Energy battery cell manufacturing joint venture in Ohio after the companies refused to recognize the union.

The UAW said it had filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on behalf of approximately 900 workers at Ultium Cells after a majority of workers had signed cards authorizing the union to represent them.

“By refusing to recognize their majority will, Ultium – which is a joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution – has decided to ignore democracy and delay the recognition process,” UAW President Ray Curry said in a statement.

In August, the Warren, Ohio Ultium plant began production, the first of least four planned U.S. battery factories by the joint venture.

Ultium said it “respects workers’ freedom to choose union representation and the efforts of the UAW to organize battery cell manufacturing workers at our Ohio manufacturing site.”

Ultium added it would comply with federal labor law that “protects our employees’ right to freely decide unionization through a voluntary election conducted by the NLRB.”

Ultium participated in meetings with the union about a process for certifying representation without going through an NLRB election, the UAW said.

GM deferred comment to Ultium. LG Energy did not immediately comment.

In May, President Joe Biden, in a trip to South Korea, expressed support for workers seeking to unionize joint venture battery plants. Detroit’s Big Three automakers all have battery plants in the works with Korean partners.

“For every joint venture that manufactures electric vehicle batteries would be made stronger by collective bargaining relationships with American unions,” Biden said.

South Korea and the Biden administration have sparred over a U.S. decision in August to revise a tax credit making all EVs assembled outside North America immediately ineligible for tax credits, including all current Hyundai GM.N and Kia EVs for sale in the United States.

GM and LG Energy are considering an Indiana site for a fourth U.S. battery plant expected to cost about $2.5 billion. They are already building a $2.6 billion battery cell plant in Michigan, set to open in 2024, and a $2.3 billion Tennessee plant to be completed in 2023.

The White House did not immediately comment on the UAW statement.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Mark Porter, Tomasz Janowski and David Gregorio)

By Siddharth Cavale, Steve Stecklow and David Gauthier-Villars

NEW YORK/LONDON/ISTANBUL (Reuters) -In March, clothing retailer Gap Inc joined numerous Western companies in announcing that it was halting deliveries to Russia to protest its invasion of Ukraine.

“As a values-led company, one that is proud to do the right thing over the past 53 years in business, at this time, we have also suspended deliveries to Russia, where we have a small franchise presence,” the San Francisco-based company announced in a March 10 message to its employees.

But Russian customs records reviewed by Reuters show that between March 11 and July 16, Gap’s franchisee in Moscow received 1,585 clothing shipments with a declared value of $5.2 million. More than three-quarters of the deliveries list the supplier as Gap Europe Ltd, a London-based unit of Gap Inc.

The Russian customs records are drawn from several commercial providers of trade data and go through Sept. 30. They provide details of Russian imports from customs forms, including suppliers, importers, product descriptions and declared values.

The Gap shipments included everything from “knitted children’s socks” and “children’s pajamas” to “textile blouses for women” and “textile shorts for men.”

Clothing, except for luxury items, generally doesn’t fall under the recent Western sanctions on Russia so as not to punish ordinary citizens. But the post-March 10 shipments appear to contradict Gap’s claim to its employees.

A Gap Inc spokesperson in San Francisco told Reuters in an email on Oct. 19 that “we stopped shipments to Russia as we announced in March and have not resumed.”

Reuters later provided Gap with Russian customs data showing the 1,585 shipments after March 10 to Gap Retail LLC, a Gap franchisee in Moscow. It is operated by Fiba Perakende Grubu, an Istanbul-based retailer that runs all the Gap stores in Russia, Turkey and Ukraine.

On Oct. 28, Gap acknowledged to Reuters that it had continued facilitating deliveries of clothes to Russia until April – a month after it told employees it had suspended all deliveries.

“Because orders are made many months in advance, our franchise partner collected its final order from our distribution center in April. Gap neither shipped nor sold any merchandise to our Russian franchise partner since their final order was processed,” the Gap spokesman said in response to questions posed by Reuters.

Gap didn’t respond to questions about exactly when the orders were placed, when they were fulfilled or why it didn’t cancel outstanding orders after its March 10 announcement.

Asked why the clothing shipments to Russia continued until July, a Fiba Perakende manager said in a statement, “These shipments were delayed due to longer transit times via Turkey, as well as additional handling time at Russian customs.”

But according to the Russian customs records reviewed by Reuters, the vast majority of the clothing shipments make no mention of Turkey as a transit point. Fiba didn’t respond to a question about the discrepancy. ‘SOME ITEMS ARE MISSING’

The Fiba Perakende statement added that “due to Gap Inc’s decision to indefinitely suspend delivery of Gap products to Russia, Fiba is in the process of winding down its Gap franchise business in Russia, upon depletion of any remaining on-hand stock in Russia.”

Along with its e-commerce website, gap.ru, Fiba Perakende said in its statement it had operated 23 stores in three major Russian cities.

Gap Europe disclosed $9.6 million in annual franchise sales for Russia in its last fiscal year, ending Jan. 30, 2021, down from $11.5 million the prior year, according to its annual report and financial statements. Gap Europe’s business has been struggling, and it closed dozens of its company-operated stores last year in the United Kingdom and Ireland. A Gap Europe director didn’t respond to a request for comment about the Russian shipments.

A woman who answered the telephone this week at a Gap store in central Moscow said it remained open. Asked about its clothing selection, she replied, “Yes, we have some choice. Of course, it depends what you are looking for. Some items are missing.”

Russian customs records show more than 1,200 shipments of Gap clothing to Russia between March 11 – the day after Gap Inc’s announcement that it was halting shipments – and June 21. In every case, the supplier was listed as Gap Europe with the Netherlands as the departure country and Russia as the destination – with no mention of Turkey as a transit point. In its most recent annual report, Gap Europe said it was changing its distribution center for its franchise business from the United Kingdom to the Netherlands.

Other shipments to Russia in June and July list the supplier as either “Ankara customs” or another Istanbul company that is linked to Fiba Perakende – suggesting the clothing may have passed through Turkey.

After July 16, the customs records show no shipments to Gap Retail in Moscow, indicating that the apparel flow to Russia had stopped.

Gap’s March statement that it had suspended deliveries to Russia also said it would donate $1 million worth of clothing to Ukrainian refugees. In its latest statement to Reuters, Gap said, “We stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.”

(Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in New York, Steve Stecklow in London and David Gauthier-Villars in Istanbul; Editing by Vanessa O’Connell and Chris Sanders)

(Reuters) – Twitter, which was acquired last week by billionaire Elon Musk, plans to let go of a quarter of its workforce as part of what is expected to be a first round of layoffs, the Washington Post reported on Monday, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Celebrity lawyer Alex Spiro, a long-time Musk legal representative, led the conversations about the job cuts, according to the report.

Twitter had over 7,000 employees at the end of 2021, according to a regulatory filing and a quarter of the headcount amounts to nearly 2,000 employees.

Musk denied a New York Times report about laying off Twitter employees at a date earlier than Nov. 1 to avoid stock grants due on the day.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Musk fired Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Finance Chief Ned Segal and Legal Affairs and Policy Chief Vijaya Gadde on completion of a six-month $44 billion buyout saga of the social media platform on Thursday, sources told Reuters.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

By Christian Akorlie and Cooper Inveen

ACCRA (Reuters) -Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo on Sunday said talks with the International Monetary Fund were going well and sought to reassure investors that the negotiations would not lead to a reduction in the face value of government bonds.

The president’s speech to the nation sought to reassure Ghanaians and the markets that the government can curb an economic crisis that has forced it to turn to the Fund for financial support.

The talks are “are at advanced stages, and are going well,” Akufo-Addo said.

“No individual or institutional investor … will lose their money as a result of our ongoing IMF negotiations. There will be no haircuts,” he said, denouncing as “false rumours” recent reports of a possible such restructuring.

Ghana launched talks with the IMF in July as foreign investors dumped its debt and street protests broke out over economic turmoil that has seen inflation and currency depreciation hit record levels despite repeated and severe lending rate hikes.

“I cannot find an example in history when so many malevolent forces have come together at the same time,” Akufo-Addo said.

The Ghanaian cedi has plummeted more than 40% this year, straining importers of both raw and processed materials, while consumer inflation hit a new 21-year high of 37.2% in September on the back of soaring import costs.

The president said the government aimed to restore macroeconomic stability within the next three to six years and to cut the debt-to-GDP ratio to 55% by 2028.

“I believe we can and we will find the means to achieve these goals, even if the immediate measures we have to take are painful,” he said.

The IMF estimates Ghana’s debt-to-GDP hitting over 90% by year-end.

(Reporting by Christian Akorlie and Cooper Inveen;Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Alison Williams, Barbara Lewis and Sandra Maler)

By Scott Murdoch, Kane Wu and Selena Li

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong aims to restore its reputation as a global financial hub by playing host to a bevy of top Wall Street executives this week, defying critics who say a talent crunch and geopolitical tensions will hobble its ambition.

The high-profile summit is the first in almost three years in the city since anti-government protests, the imposition of a sweeping national security law and strict COVID-19 curbs weakened its status as a premier financial centre.

The Global Financial Leaders Investment Summit begins on Wednesday with participants including Goldman Sachs Chief Executive David Solomon, Morgan Stanley boss James Gorman, HSBC’s Noel Quinn and Standard Chartered’s Bill Winters.

Alongside the main theme of “navigating through uncertainty”, the summit is widely expected to focus on Hong Kong’s ambition to remain a global financial centre after almost three years of border controls and pandemic restrictions.

For foreign financial firms operating in China and Hong Kong, however, navigating tensions between the United States and China and a depleting pool of talent in what is touted as “Asia’s world city” will continue to prove challenging, analysts said.

“The Hong Kong government’s overarching goal is clear: to establish the narrative that the city has reopened,” said Chris Beddor, Gavekal Dragonomics’ deputy China research director.

Global banks are playing their cards reasonably well in the face of tougher political environment, he said, though there has been a shift among the expatriate workforce from Hong Kong to other locations, such as Singapore.

“The geopolitical situation has deteriorated rapidly over the past two years or so, and the political environment in China has clearly shifted as well, both of which present hard-to-quantify long-term risks.”

Underscoring the tension, two U.S. lawmakers last week urged top American bankers to cancel their attendance, saying participation would contribute to human rights abuses by China’s government. Beijing rejects accusations of rights abuses.

COVID-19 CONTROLS

The two-day summit, organised by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) – the de-facto central bank – saw at least two high-profile cancellations because of COVID-19.

Blackstone President Jonathan Gray will not attend after testing positive for the virus, and will be replaced by finance chief Michael Chae, a spokesperson said on Monday.

Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser will also not attend due to COVID-19 infection, Reuters reported on Thursday.

An updated programme, necessary because of replacement of a small number of speakers forced to cancel mainly because of “unexpected personal circumstances” will be released on Tuesday, HKMA said in a statement late on Monday.

The city’s Financial Secretary Paul Chan, one of the main speakers, also contracted COVID-19 during a visit to Saudi Arabia , the government said last week. Chan, however, later tested negative and is expected to return to Hong Kong on Tuesday, a government statement said on Monday.

Participants will look for reassurances of a return to pre-pandemic normality, making it easier for them to attract staff to Hong Kong.

HKMA head Eddie Yue told a local newspaper last week the event would send a clear message that “Hong Kong is back”, and it would be the “fireworks which draw the eyeballs of global talent”.

“I totally agree that the conference hopefully can be a very beautiful fireworks display,” said Gary Ng, Hong Kong-based senior economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis. “But it depends on what happens after.”

(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney and Kane Wu and Selena Li in Hong Kong; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee, Christopher Cushing, Kirsten Donovan and Tomasz Janowski)

By Jan Strupczewski and Balazs Koranyi

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Euro zone inflation surged more than expected in October, data showed on Monday, fuelling expectations that the European Central Bank will press on with big interest rate hikes despite economic growth slowing.

Inflation in the 19 countries sharing the euro accelerated to 10.7% in October from 9.9% a month earlier according to Eurostat data, beating expectations in a Reuters poll for 10.2% and way higher than the ECB’s 2% inflation target.

Eurostat also estimated that the euro zone’s gross domestic product, while slowing sharply from the previous quarter, rose 0.2% quarter-on-quarter for a 2.1% year-on-year rise.

Some economists saw that continued growth as creating space for the central bank to keep taking strong inflation-fighting steps.

“Today’s data increase the likelihood that the ECB will raise its key interest rates again by 75 basis points in December,” Commerzbank said in a research note to clients.

The growth is important because many economists believe the ECB would not want to keep raising rates during an expected euro zone recession, heralded by the growth slow-down in the July-September compared with the 0.8% quarterly and 4.3% year-on-year growth in the April-June period.

Some did not exclude that idea, however.

“We continue to forecast a round of 50 bp rate hikes in December, followed by further 25 bp hikes at the subsequent meeting in February,” said Ken Wattret, economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The ECB has raised rates a combined 200 basis points in the past three months and promised more hikes as soon as December.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have both expressed concerns that such tightening policies could intensify the region’s downturn.

After the October data, policymakers are likely to be concerned that underlying price growth, which filters out volatile food and fuel prices, continued to accelerate, pointing to broadening price pressures, which raises the risk that high inflation will get entrenched.

Indeed, inflation excluding unprocessed food and energy accelerated to 6.4% from 6.0%, while an even narrower measure that filters out alcohol and tobacco rose to 5.0% from 4.8%.

The surging inflation and slowing growth are mainly the result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent disruption of Russian gas deliveries to Europe. That has driven up energy prices and broader inflation, triggered rate rises and lead to a slowing of economic activity and falling confidence.

Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, bucked the wider growth trend in the third quarter with a slight acceleration of quarterly growth to 0.3% from 0.1% in the second quarter, though its economy still decelerated in year-on-year terms.

Belgium, Latvia and Austria all already recorded a quarterly fall in GDP in the July-September period.

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski and Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Mark John and Hugh Lawson)