India: Officials Consider 5 New Plans to Rescue Men from Tunnel

Rescue workers stand at an entrance of the under construction road tunnel, days after it collapsed in the Uttarkashi district of India's Uttarakhand state on November 18, 2023. (Photo by AFP)
Rescue workers stand at an entrance of the under construction road tunnel, days after it collapsed in the Uttarkashi district of India's Uttarakhand state on November 18, 2023. (Photo by AFP)
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India: Officials Consider 5 New Plans to Rescue Men from Tunnel

Rescue workers stand at an entrance of the under construction road tunnel, days after it collapsed in the Uttarkashi district of India's Uttarakhand state on November 18, 2023. (Photo by AFP)
Rescue workers stand at an entrance of the under construction road tunnel, days after it collapsed in the Uttarkashi district of India's Uttarakhand state on November 18, 2023. (Photo by AFP)

Indian authorities were exploring five new plans to rescue workers trapped inside a collapsed tunnel in the Indian Himalayas after a week of failed attempts.
Forty-one men, stuck in the highway tunnel in Uttarakhand state since Nov. 12, are safe and being fed through a pipe, the authorities say. The cause of the accident has not been determined, although the hillside region is prone to landslides, earthquakes and floods.
Rescuers had been drilling horizontally through the debris toward the trapped workers in the 4.5-km tunnel until the auger drilling machine broke on Friday and a new one was flown in.
Drilling was suspended and it would take four or five more days "to get the good news", Bhaskar Khulbe, officer on special duty for the tunnel project, said on Friday.
Now the rescue team is considering alternatives including a perpendicular tunnel with two proposed routes and insertion of a pipe 15 cm wide as a lifeline, according to a government document reviewed by Reuters.
The trapped workers have received Vitamin C and medicines including anti-depression tablets, said RCS Panwar, a health official involved in the rescue efforts.



Russia Hits Back with Multi-billion Penalty on Austrian Bank

The logo of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) is seen at its headquarters in Vienna, Austria, March 14, 2023. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File
The logo of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) is seen at its headquarters in Vienna, Austria, March 14, 2023. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File
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Russia Hits Back with Multi-billion Penalty on Austrian Bank

The logo of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) is seen at its headquarters in Vienna, Austria, March 14, 2023. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File
The logo of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) is seen at its headquarters in Vienna, Austria, March 14, 2023. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File

A Russian court's order for Austria's Raiffeisen Bank International to pay 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in damages for a collapsed deal shows Moscow's determination to strike back at the West, with companies bearing the brunt of the fallout.

Monday's ruling, delivered to a courtroom where armed men in balaclavas sat among those involved in the case, is a blow to the biggest Western bank in Russia, which has made billions of profits there during nearly three years of conflict with Ukraine.

It marks a watershed for the bank that has provided a payments bridge for Russia's middle class and companies into the West, requiring Raiffeisen to set aside a substantial amount for the loss even as it seeks to challenge the ruling, Reuters reported.

The judgement, made as Donald Trump was being sworn in as US president, serves as a warning to others, and prompted accusations by Raiffeisen's lawyer that the court was biased and that the masked men were there to intimidate.

The Russian lawyers taking the action against Raiffeisen said the men in the courtroom were bailiffs there to ensure order, accusing their opponents of "bombarding the court with unfounded petitions".

The penalty, issued by a court in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, follows the collapse of a deal involving Raiffeisen to release a Russian-owned stake in an Austrian builder, which unravelled under pressure from Washington. Now Raiffeisen has been lumbered with the bill.

"This is a final warning to all Western companies that you cannot do business with Putin's Russia," said Helmut Brandstaetter, a liberal Austrian lawmaker in the European Parliament.

The move also coincides with a deterioration in relations between Russia and Austria, long close to Moscow but which has gradually been unwinding its ties, abandoning a multibillion-dollar deal in recent weeks to buy Russian gas.

"Raiffeisen was long enough warned to pull out," said Brandstaetter. "It also shows that any continued bond between Austria and Russia will lead to disaster."

INEVITABLE RETALIATION

The ruling adds to worries for Western firms still operating in Russia, which include the likes of food companies PepsiCo , Procter & Gamble and Mondelez, and Italian bank UniCredit.

Ian Massey of risk consultancy S-RM said it was part of "pressure tactics, including increasingly punitive exit terms, asset seizures, and now ... huge fines."

"In the context of Russia's increasing diplomatic and economic isolation, retaliation against Western corporate symbols was nigh-on inevitable."

Monday's decision sees Russia follow through on previous threats to target privately-owned assets.

Last May, Moscow said it would identify US property that could be used for compensation over losses from the seizure of frozen Russian assets in the United States.

Moscow has already seized some assets and forced through sales to hand-picked buyers, as was the case for French yoghurt maker Danone and Danish brewer Carlsberg.

The Kremlin controls which companies are allowed to sell up and demands a heavy discount on the sale price.

Almost three years after Russia sent troops into Ukraine, Raiffeisen's continued presence in Russia underlines the lingering ties between Moscow and Vienna - with Vienna having served as a hub for cash from Russia and former Soviet states.

That bond put Raiffeisen and Austria on the front line of a global push by the United States to isolate Russia.

The court dispute followed the failure of a deal that Raiffeisen hoped would allow it to unlock some of its frozen billions in Russia.

The case was centred on a claim by Russian investment company Rasperia against builder Strabag, its Austrian shareholders and the Russian arm of Raiffeisen.

Raiffeisen had sought to buy a stake in Vienna-based Strabag from Rasperia, which Strabag had linked to Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska.

Washington identified Rasperia as part of a group of Russian companies still controlled by Deripaska, when it imposed sanctions on some of those involved, scuppering the deal.

A spokesperson for Deripaska reiterated that he had no links with the company at the heart of the dispute with Raiffeisen.

Raiffeisen has around 6 billion euros in Russia, earned from international payments and from billions of euros of Russian deposits, a person with knowledge of the matter has told Reuters.