More than a million people, mainly Uighurs and Muslim minorities, are detained in camps in China’s western Xinjiang region, experts have said.

The United States on Friday banned imports from China-based printer maker Ninestar Corp and a chemical company over alleged human rights abuses in China, according to a post for the Federal Register.

Ninestar, whose website says it is the world’s fourth-largest laser printer manufacturer, and Xingjang Zhongtai Chemical Co Ltd, are being kept out of the US supply chain for participating in business practices that target China’s Uighurs and other persecuted groups, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement.

The companies could not immediately be reached for comment.

UN experts and rights groups have estimated that more than a million people, mainly Uighurs and Muslim minorities, have been detained in camps in China’s western Xinjiang region in recent years, with many saying they were subject to ideological training and abuse.

China has denied all accusations of abuse.

DHS said the actions were taken as part of the US Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act (UFLPA), which was signed into law in December 2021. The act prohibits imports into the US that are either produced in Xinjiang or by companies identified on a UFLPA Entity List, unless the importer can prove the goods were not produced with forced labour.

Twenty-two companies are now on the list, and DHS said it has examined more than $1.3bn worth of goods likely manufactured with forced labour nearly a year after the UFLPA was implemented.

Ninestar and its eight Zhuhai-based subsidiaries, along with Xinjiang Zhongtai Chemical, were added to the list for working with the government of Xinjiang to recruit, transport, transfer, harbour or receive forced labour of Uighurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, or members of other persecuted groups, out of Xinjiang, according to the posting.

“The Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force will continue to hold companies accountable for perpetuating human rights violations in Xinjiang,” DHS Under Secretary for Policy Robert Silvers, who chairs the task force, said in a statement.

The move comes after a passenger opened an emergency exit door midair, causing shock and panic on board.

South Korea’s Asiana Airlines has stopped selling some emergency exit row seats following an accident in which a passenger opened an emergency exit door midair causing panic on board.

The incident took place on an A321-200 plane, which was carrying nearly 200 passengers, as it approached the runway at Daegu International Airport, about 240km (150 miles) southeast of Seoul. The plane landed safely but several passengers were hospitalised. There were no serious injuries or damage.

The airline told the AFP news agency on Sunday the emergency exit seats – 31A and 26A – on its 14 A321-200 jets would no longer be offered for sale. “As a safety precaution, this measure will apply even if the flights are full,” it added.

It is however unclear how the move might stop passengers seated elsewhere on the plane from attempting to open the emergency door.

The man, in his 30s, was arrested by authorities in Daegu for allegedly breaking aviation security laws. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

He told Daegu police that he had been under a lot of stress after losing his job recently and that he opened the door because he wanted to get off quickly after feeling suffocated, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported on Saturday.

A Daegu police detective was quoted as saying: “He felt the flight was taking longer than it should have been and felt suffocated inside the cabin.”

Video footage apparently taken by a person on board and posted on social media showed passengers’ hair being whipped about by air rushing into the cabin when the emergency door opened.

It is still unclear how Lee was able to open the emergency exit door mid-flight.

Jin Seong-hyun, a former Korean Air cabin safety official, said as far as he knew, this case was unprecedented, although passengers have opened emergency exits without authorisation while planes were on the ground.

A South Korean transport ministry official said it was possible to open emergency exits at or near ground level because the pressures inside and outside the cabin were similar.

Air travel between Paris and regional hubs such as Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux will now be banned.

France has formally banned domestic flights on short routes that can be covered by train in less than two-and-a-half hours in a move aimed at reducing airline emissions.

The change, which came into effect on Tuesday, will mostly rule out air trips between Paris and regional hubs such as Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux, with connecting flights unaffected.

Max Boycoff, chairman of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said the French law will be a test case for governments around the world.

“While this material impact is quite minimal – only 2 percent of global emissions come from aviation – in symbolic ways, it has a lot of purchase,” he told Al Jazeera. “The way in which this generates conversations, much like the one we’re having now, can open up further possibilities for emissions cuts elsewhere.”

He noted rail travel represents about one-third of the hydrocarbon emissions compared with flights.

“Everything does count and the ways we get from place to place does matter, and transportation overall contributes to somewhere between one-quarter and 30 percent of global emissions. This demonstrates the power of climate policy action,” Boycoff said.

Although the measure was included in a 2021 climate law and already applied in practice, some airlines had asked the European Commission to investigate whether it was legal.

The law specifies train services on the same route must be frequent, timely and well-connected to meet the needs of passengers who would otherwise travel by air – and able to absorb the increase in passenger numbers.

Laurent Donceel, interim head of industry group Airlines for Europe (A4E), said governments should support “real and significant solutions” to airline emissions, rather than “symbolic bans”.

A4E highlighted its own net zero by 2050 strategy, which includes switching from jet fuel to non-fossil sources and deploying battery or hydrogen-powered aircraft.

The step comes as French politicians have also debated how to reduce emissions from private jets.

Shou Chew says app will ‘never provide’ user data to Chinese gov’t and vows to fight ban in US state.

Doha, Qatar – TikTok is “here to stay”, the video-hosting company’s CEO Shou Chew has said while terming the US state of Montana’s decision to ban it as “unconstitutional”.

Various governments and organisations have moved to ban the Chinese-owned app on phones used by their officials, with some arguing that user data gathered by the app could be accessed by the Chinese government.

Chew, who claimed his company will win its lawsuit that it filed against the ban by Montana, said that some of the app’s users in the United States have also filed a separate lawsuit against the ban, which is set to come into effect on January 1 next year.

“The Montana billing is simply unconstitutional and we are confident that we will prevail [in the lawsuit],” Chew said at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on Tuesday.

Last month, Montana legislators passed a bill to ban the app from operating in the state by prohibiting mobile app stores from offering TikTok for download.

Chew claimed that the app has more than 150 million users in the US and more than a billion around the world. He added that it allowed users a window to discovery and “free expression”.

“It [TikTok] is a very different experience from the other apps that are available on the market. A lot of our users use TikTok to find their communities and there are five million small businesses in the US and millions more around the world that depend on TikTok,” he said.

‘Here to stay’

When asked to reveal his “plan B” in case TikTok is banned across the world, Chew said the app serves millions around the globe and is “deeply impactful”.

“It gives me confidence that we can have very thoughtful conversations with regulators around the world – and we are here to stay.”

In March, the Singaporean head of the Chinese technology firm ByteDance appeared before a US Congress committee and attempted to dispel concerns over the app’s ties to the Chinese government and its alleged inability to stem “harmful” content.

Chew said it was a good opportunity for the app to tell its side of the story and clarify the “myths and misconceptions” about it, which he said wasn’t available in mainland China.

“The Chinese government has never asked for US user data and we will not provide [it] even if asked,” Chew told the audience, some of whom could be seen posting Chew’s talk on the app itself.

Data protection plans

The 40-year-old businessman said his company has built an “unprecedented project” called “Project Texas” to protect the data of its US-based users.

“American data is stored on American soil by an American company and overseen by American personnel,” said Chew.

The $1.5bn plan, which he said was “a complicated project that would take time to finish” relies on contracts with the Texas-based tech company Oracle and uses a “firewall that seals off protected user data from unauthorised foreign access”.

“We believe that we have taken steps that are above and beyond what our industry has done to protect the safety of US user data,” Chew claimed.

He revealed that the tech company has been working on a similar plan in Europe, called “Project Clover”, over the past few months.

He warned that no tech company could promise that 100 percent of its data is safe from all threats.

Ron DeSantis, Florida governor and likely US presidential candidate, says programmes aim to impose an ‘ideological agenda’.

Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a bill to block federal and state funding to programmes that aim to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at public universities, boosting a conservative push against such initiatives.

DeSantis approved the measure on Monday, decrying DEI programmes as part of a “relatively recent” push to impose an “ideological agenda” on educational institutions in the United States.

“DEI is better viewed as standing for discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination. And that has no place in our public institutions,” DeSantis said during a news conference.

The law marks the latest effort by DeSantis, who is expected to announce a presidential run in the coming weeks, to champion conservative social causes, including in education.

DeSantis is widely seen as former President Donald Trump’s most serious challenger for the 2024 Republican nomination, but his poll numbers have faltered in recent weeks.

The Florida governor also has pushed greater restrictions on abortion and helped impose limits on discussions of sexuality and gender identity in classrooms.

Over the past few years, many US universities have embraced DEI programmes and training to bolster diversity in their ranks and better address the needs of minority students and faculty.

Monday’s measure bans curricula that teach “identity politics” or “theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities”.

The legislation is aimed at curtailing education that looks at US history through the lens of racism, a view known as critical race theory.

Proponents of diversity programmes and critical race theory argue that they aim to counter institutional racism and teach an accurate version of history that highlights the hurdles African Americans and other ethnic minorities have faced.

Governor DeSantis just signed SB266/HB999 into law. Below is our statement from when the bill passed the House Floor. https://t.co/1ViUv23cfj

— Rep. Anna V. Eskamani (@AnnaForFlorida) May 15, 2023

Democratic Florida Senator Shevrin Jones rejected what he called DeSantis’s “overreach” into education. “Education ought to be about teaching kids how to think through issues, not what to think about issues,” Jones said.

“The exposure to wide-ranging experiences and fresh perspectives encourages understanding and creativity. By restricting what students can learn, the state is actively suppressing students’ academic and intellectual freedom.”

Florida House member Anna Eskamani also called the bill a “witch hunt” after it passed in the state legislature earlier this month.

“This is a destructive law that targets diverse students like me and our ability to thrive in higher education institutions,” Eskamani, who is of Iranian descent, said in a statement.

“It also suppresses academic freedom and inserts conservative political orthodoxy into the classroom.”

A Russian court has banned the use of Facebook and Instagram after labeling the activities of the apps’ parent company Meta as “extremist,” according to the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.

The move came after the Russian prosecutor general’s office appealed to the Moscow court for Meta to be designated an “extremist organization” for allowing users in some countries to call for violence against President Vladimir Putin and Russian soldiers participating in the country’s invasion of Ukraine. WhatsApp, which is also owned by Meta, is not part of the ban. Meta declined to comment on the record.

Individuals will not face criminal charges for using Facebook or Instagram. “The use of Meta’s products by individuals and legal entities should not be considered as participation in extremist activities,” a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office told state media outlet TASS. “Individuals will not be held liable just for using Meta’s services.”

Also citing the prosecutors, the Net Freedoms Project, a Russian human rights organization, said on its Telegram channel that paying for advertising on Instagram and Facebook can now be regarded as financing an extremist organization. Any person, business, or website with links to Facebook and Instagram, and anyone with a business card showing the apps’ logos may face felony charges, it said. “This is a public demonstration of the symbols of an extremist organization,” the organization said.

The ruling will allow Roskomnadzor, Russia’s government media watchdog office, to immediately block Meta’s social networks and shut down relevant offices in Russia.

Russia blocked access to Facebook earlier this month. One week later, Roskomnadzor declared it would also block Instagram in response to Meta’s announcement that it would allow Facebook and Instagram users in Ukraine to post “forms of political expression” that would normally violate the company’s rules against violent speech, such as “death to the Russian invaders.”

RIA Novosti wrote that what Russian prosecutors believe is “extremist information” being spread on Facebook and Instagram “threatens both individuals and society as a whole, and the company violated its own rules by allowing publication of calls for the murder of the Russian military.”

In February, Meta blocked access to Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik in the EU. Other American tech companies, including Google and Apple, have similarly responded to the invasion by blocking access to Russian state media.

Adam Tritt, a high school English teacher in Melbourne, Florida, was up at dawn on April 3. He worked a full day and then drove to meet his wife and a dozen volunteers who organised an event to distribute banned books to young people and their parents. They gave out 900 books that night.

Tritt has been hosting these events for the past year through his organisation Foundation 451, a reference to Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 set in a dystopian world in which the government burns illegal books. He has received death threats, but these only encourage him to give away more books.

At an event in July, he saw a teenager pick up a copy of This Book Is Gay. People walked over and she put it down. He saw her pick it up and put it down several times before taking another book and leaving. Later, she returned and asked, “Can I give this back and take the book I need?” Tritt said yes, and she began to cry.

Last year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB 1557, which LGBTQ rights advocates call the “Don’t Say Gay” law because it bans classroom discussion of sexuality or gender in kindergarten through grade three, and allows parents to sue if they believe a teacher has violated the law.

DeSantis also signed the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act, or the “Stop WOKE” Act, which prohibits the teaching of critical race theory in schools. The laws do not outright ban books, but due to their broad language, Florida schools are removing books that could be in violation. Teachers are stuck in the middle: they can distribute only approved books in the classroom or they could face dire consequences.

School districts have reported removing 175 books from schools across the state. DeSantis claims he is restricting books in the classroom that contain “pornography and sexual material”, including This Book Is Gay. The governor asserted most of the removed books were identified as pornographic, violent or inappropriate for their grade level.

Book bans are surging in the US, according to a recent report by the American Library Association. A record 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship in 2022, the ALA reported. Free speech group PEN America also recorded a rapid expansion of book bans in schools across the US. Even as these laws proliferate, educators and librarians are finding creative ways around them.

Librarians and teachers told Al Jazeera the restrictions mostly target books and curriculum relating to LGBTQ+ issues and topics on race, and the growing censorship is a backlash to African Americans, gay and transgender people demanding equal treatment.

Thousands of banned books

In May 2022, Tritt received an email from the Florida Department of Education that made his blood boil. It asked him and other teachers to remove Slaughterhouse Five and The Kite Runner from their shelves. When he got home, he channelled his anger into setting up a GoFundMe to buy copies of the two books and make them available. Within a week, he had raised more than $15,000.

Almost a year later, the flood of books forced Tritt and his wife to get a trailer to store them. They have set up four little free libraries in churches and businesses. Recently, a teacher realised she could not hand out 40 copies of The Stars Beneath Our Feet to her students because the story involved an LGBTQ character, so she gave the whole box to Tritt. He estimated his crew has distributed 3,000 books to date.

“What happens when these specific books are no longer available is, it decreases representation remarkably, and when you are not represented, you know that you do not have power,” he said.

Making digital books available

The surge in book bans may look alarming, but for those who can connect online, digital library cards are allowing anyone to access ebooks and audiobooks.

Last year, Linda Johnson, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Public Library, felt disturbed by the proliferation of book bans and wanted to combat censorship in other states. The library reached out to schools and libraries in Texas to try to partner with them, but they were hesitant because they feared losing accreditation or funding. “We decided, well, we’ll do this ourselves,” Johnson said.

The library launched Books UnBanned, a programme that allows anyone aged 13 to 21 in the US to access banned books by requesting a free digital library card. The library offers 350,000 ebooks and 200,000 audiobooks with no waitlist for cardholders.

A year later, Johnson said the library has issued cards to people in every state. “We’ve issued about 7,000 cards and we’ve circulated almost 90,000 books.”

However, teachers who refer their students to online material can face consequences. In Oklahoma, a teacher covered up her book shelf in response to a new law banning teaching of critical race theory. She posted the QR code to the Brooklyn Public Library with the message: “Definitely don’t scan this.” She was forced to resign as a result. “We actually ended up hiring her,” Johnson said.

Many of the online books tell stories of LGBTQ characters, deal with critical race theory, or explain the history of the holocaust, she said.

“These are the very stories that kids and teenagers who are feeling isolated really want to get their hands on. So we’ve been able to help them,” Johnson said.

A 14-year-old from a small, southern town wrote to request a library card, saying their local library had LGBTQ books “in stock” but they could never actually find them. Their school library also had books removed. They wanted to read The Hate U Give but could not find it anywhere. “The last time I went to the local library to look at books about LGBTQ+ I was told that I didn’t need to get those kinds of ideas in my head,” they wrote.

Johnson emphasised that not everyone has internet access at home, so the digital programme is not solving the problem for those people. She added that it is important to challenge these censorship laws because they can result in a more limited curriculum, and that also limits the books that people are craving because they do not know what they are missing.

Devastating consequences

Jesse Hagopian, a high school teacher in Seattle and organiser with the Zinn Education Project, hosts virtual study groups across the country to teach students and teachers about structural racism. He said the group recently heard from a teacher in Florida who said they were terrified to say anything about enslavement because it might make students uncomfortable.

Hagopian believes the wave of legislation that “imposes gag orders on teachers” is a backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement and the increasing numbers of people embracing their transgender identities.

“These book bans are part of a political repression campaign in this country, and we don’t respect that assault on basic democratic rights,” he said.

The project has partnered with the New Press to send free books to teachers in states facing book bans. The programme started in February and already all 56 copies of a book on critical race theory had been claimed.

Hagopian said the current censorship movement is an effort to bring back the Senator Joseph McCarthy era of the 1950s that sought to systematically expel communists and LGBTQ+ people from public institutions. “They want to drag us back in time to that period when it was criminalised to be queer or to organise for racial justice,” he said.

Without access to curriculum and books about identity and history, he said, “the consequences are devastating”. Young people will lose access to stories that will affirm their lives, and help them build a more just society.

Tritt encouraged teachers and parents in states with book bans to attend school board meetings and speak to principals to take a stand against censorship. He asked parents to stick up for teachers, who are in a vulnerable position. “We need a flood of parents writing emails to the principals and school boards, because emails are public record,” he said.

France joins a growing list of states that say TikTok lacks sufficient levels of cybersecurity and data protection.

France has banned the “recreational” use of TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and other apps on government employees’ phones because of concerns about insufficient data security measures.

The ban is to come into force immediately, the Ministry of Public Sector Transformation and the Civil Service wrote on Twitter on Friday.

“In order to guarantee the cybersecurity of our administrations and civil servants, the government has decided to ban recreational applications such as TikTok on the professional phones of civil servants,” Stanislas Guerini said on Friday.

He added that for several weeks, several of France’s European and international partners have adopted measures to restrict or ban the downloading and installation of or the use of the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok by their administrations.

Guerini said recreational applications do not have sufficient levels of cybersecurity and data protection in order to be deployed on administrations’ equipment, adding that exemptions can be given for professional reasons, such as institutional communication of an administration.

Widening ban

A string of governments and institutions have banned TikTok in recent weeks, including the White House, the UK parliament, the Dutch and Belgian administrations, the New Zealand parliament, and the governments of Canada, India, Pakistan, Taiwan and Jordan.

Concerns regarding alleged security risks posed by TikTok have most prominently been raised by US lawmakers and national security officials who say that user data gathered by the app could be accessed by the Chinese government.

Calls to ban TikTok from government devices gained momentum after FBI Director Christopher Wray said in November it poses national security risks.

Late last month, the European Union’s two biggest policy-making institutions – the Commission and the Council – banned TikTok from staff phones for cybersecurity reasons.

Concerns have mounted globally about the potential for the Chinese government to access users’ location and contact data through ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company.

The company’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, pushed back on assertions that TikTok or ByteDance are tools of the Chinese government during questioning by US lawmakers on Thursday. The company has been reiterating that 60 percent of ByteDance is owned by global institutional investors.

A law China implemented in 2017 requires companies to give the government any personal data relevant to the country’s national security. There’s no evidence that TikTok has turned over such data, but fears abound due to the vast amount of user data it collects.

Beijing has accused Washington of spreading disinformation and suppressing TikTok.

Earlier this month, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the US has yet to present evidence that TikTok threatens its national security and was using the excuse of data security to abuse its power to suppress foreign companies.

Media regulator bars TV channels from broadcasting the former prime minister’s speeches and news conferences.

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan’s media regulator has banned television channels from broadcasting speeches and news conferences by Imran Khan, accusing the former prime minister of attacking the state’s institutions and promoting hatred.

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) imposed the ban late on Sunday after Khan gave a speech in the eastern city of Lahore, where he alleged that former army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa was behind his removal from power in April last year.

The cricketer-turned-politician made the speech after police from the capital Islamabad made an attempt to arrest him in a corruption case. Khan, who denies the charges, evaded the arrest.

In its notification, the PEMRA said Khan was “levelling baseless allegations and spreading hate speech through his provocative statements against state institutions and officers which is prejudicial to the maintenance of law and order and is likely to disturb public peace and tranquillity”.

This was the third time the PEMRA has banned TV channels from airing Khan’s statements since he lost the premiership and started holding mass rallies to demand immediate national elections.

News channel suspended

Nearly two hours after the ban, the media regulator also suspended the licence of ARY News, a private news channel, for broadcasting Khan’s Lahore speech.

The PEMRA said the news channel – considered sympathetic to Khan – violated its order. But an ARY official rejected the allegation.

“The PEMRA statement came after 8pm and almost all the channels ran clippings of Imran Khan’s speech in their 9pm bulletins. However, the regulatory authority suspended only our licence,” the ARY official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Al Jazeera.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan condemned the regulator’s decision to ban the airing of Khan’s speeches on electronic media.

“We have always opposed measures to curb voices in the past – whether under the previous government or earlier – and we continue to stand by our commitment to freedom of speech, irrespective of the person’s political opinion,” it said in a statement, demanding that the ban be “lifted immediately”.

‘PEMRA is a tool’

Hammad Azhar, a politician belonging to Khan’s Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, said the country was “fast descending into darkness” and there were “concerted efforts” by the government to put its democracy under threat.

“This [ban on Khan’s speeches] is not only unconstitutional as it goes against freedom of expression … There cannot be a blanket ban on speeches of politicians. Other than questions of legality, it is also extremely anti-democratic in nature,” he told Al Jazeera.

“This regime is petrified of Imran Khan and his ever-soaring popularity, he is now seen as a prime minister-in-waiting. We are seeing police action against Khan and the party workers. There is a media crackdown. We are fast becoming a fascist state.”

Former PEMRA chief Absar Alam said the implementation of law in Pakistan is flawed and the media regulator needs to improve itself.

“PEMRA has become a tool; whoever can use it often does it for their interest,” he told Al Jazeera.

Alam, however, added that the TV channels should take responsibility for what they broadcast.

“There is so much polarisation in Pakistan that one person’s virtue is another person’s sin. Unfortunately, media has amplified this a lot and they are not following media ethics or showing professionalism,” he said.

Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) last year ranked Pakistan 157 among 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index list.

Move comes after the bloc found new supplies of diesel from the US, Middle East and India to replace Russian energy supplies.

Europe has imposed a ban on Russian diesel fuel and other refined oil products, slashing energy dependency on Moscow and seeking to further crimp the Kremlin’s fossil fuel earnings as punishment for invading Ukraine.

Sunday’s ban comes along with a price cap agreed by the Group of Seven (G7) allied countries – the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada.

The goal is allowing Russian diesel to keep flowing to countries such as China and India and avoiding a sudden price rise that would hurt consumers worldwide while reducing the profits funding Moscow’s budget and war.

Diesel is key for the economy because it is used to power cars, trucks carrying goods, farm equipment and factory machinery. Diesel prices have been elevated because of recovering demand after the COVID-19 pandemic and limits on refining capacity, contributing to inflation for other goods worldwide.

The new sanctions create uncertainty about prices as the 27-nation European Union finds new supplies of diesel from the US, Middle East and India to replace those from Russia, which at one point delivered 10 percent of Europe’s total diesel needs. Those are longer journeys than from Russia’s ports, stretching available tankers.

Neil Atkinson, a former International Energy Agency analyst, told Al Jazeera the EU sanctions on Russian products were unlikely to have a big impact on prices, at least initially.

This is because companies worldwide have been building up stocks of Russian products ahead of the well-advertised ban, Atkinson said.

“There is the possibility that if demand growth is very strong in the Asian economies … we could find that the lack of investment in parts of the oil industry infrastructure could lead to shortages and spikes in prices,” he said.

G7’s price cap

The G7 price cap of $100 per barrel for diesel, jet fuel and petrol is to be enforced by barring insurance and shipping services from handling diesel priced over the limit. Most of those companies are located in Western countries.

It follows a $60-per-barrel cap on Russian crude that took effect in December and is supposed to work the same way. Both the diesel and oil caps could be tightened later.

The diesel price cap will not bite immediately because it was set at about what Russian diesel trades for. Russia’s chief problem now will be finding new customers, not evading the price ceiling. However, the cap aims to prevent Russian gains from any sudden price spikes in refined oil products.

Analysts say there might be a price bump initially as markets sort out the changes. But they say the embargo should not cause a price spike if the cap works as intended and Russian diesel keeps flowing to other countries.

Diesel fuel at the pump has been flat since the start of December, costing 1.80 euros per litre ($7.37 per gallon) as of January 30, according to the weekly oil market report issued by the EU’s executive commission. Pump prices in Germany, the EU’s largest economy, fell 2.6 cents to 1.83 euros per litre ($7.48 per gallon) as of January 31.

The ban provides for a 55-day grace period for diesel loaded on tankers before Sunday, a step that aims to prevent ruffling markets. EU officials say importers have had time to adjust since the ban was announced in June.

Russia earned more than $2bn from diesel sales to Europe in December alone as importers appear to have stocked up with added purchases ahead of the ban.

Europe has already banned Russian coal and most crude oil, while Moscow has cut off most shipments of natural gas.