Corn, soy outlook ‘bullish’ despite Argentine rain
Argentine rains may have staved off crop disasters, but will not prevent further gains in corn and soybean prices, Rabobank says
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Egypt sneezes, but Arab world has yet to catch a cold
Cairo, Egypt (TML) – Inspired and emboldened by popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, demonstrators have taken to the streets across the Arab world. But more than two weeks after Tunisia’s president was driven into exile and Egypt’s cabinet was dismissed, protests elsewhere have so far failed to gain enough momentum to threaten regimes.
Some 200 Jordanian demonstrators gathered across Prime Minister Samir Rifa’i's office in Amman on Friday, which has evolved over the last few weeks into the main day of the week for protest. In Yemen, 10,000 demonstrators took to the streets of the capital Sanaa’ in anti-government protests that passed peacefully on Thursday. A much smaller protest on Saturday turned deadly, but fewer than 100 people participated.
In Algeria, where turmoil emerged last month, as many as 10,000 marched peacefully in Bejaia, 100 miles east of the capital Algiers. Otherwise, the country was relatively calm over the weekend.
Observers said the persistence and determination of protestors in Tunisia, where demonstrations have roiled the country for six weeks, is unlikely to find an echo in other countries of the region. However, the unrest may well to lead to limited changes at the top, with some officials being forced out and reforms implemented.
Indeed, Fahed Khitan, a political analyst at Al-Arab Al-Yom daily, said the government and demonstrators alike preferred a quiet shake-up of the existing government, rather than the turmoil and violence that have occurred in Egypt over the past week.
An estimated 100 Egyptian have been killed in protests and businesses, schools and the stock market have been closed as police and demonstrators square off in Cairo and other Egyptian cities.
“There’s fear of a similar scenario taking place in Jordan, which is why everyone is demanding to change the government as soon as possible,” Khitan told The Media Line. “It’s almost certain that the government will be changed in the coming month.”
Mimicking demands in Cairo, they called for the resignation of the premier and his government and demanding to dissolve the parliament, elected in November in elections they claimed were rigged. Personally attacking the king is illegal in Jordan, so demonstrators have vented their grievances over poverty, joblessness and corruption at Rifa’i', calling his government “a bunch of thieves.”
In Egypt, the main opposition group — the Muslim Brotherhood — was crushed in November’s parliamentary elections, which left the party with no representation in parliament. Last week, before the demonstrations erupted, the Muslim Brotherhood called on Mubarak to dissolve the “fraudulent” parliament and conduct fair and transparent elections.
A Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood official tacitly threatened the Jordanian regime of a similar fate to that of Tunisia and Egypt’s authoritarian rulers.
“The Arab people are one inseparable unit,” Ali Abu-Sukkar, head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Shura council, told JordanDays.TV, a web TV site. “What happened to Zein-Al-Abidin [Ben Ali, Tunisia's deposed President] will happen to Husni Mubarak and to other Arab rulers when their Western patrons give up on them … these dictators will all join each other in the same hotel.”
Khitan said King Abdullah has been conducting intensive consultations with members of the parliament and the senate, as well as public figures, stressing his intention to conduct far-reaching political reforms. In addition to dissolving the current government, these reforms will include a new elections law that would ensure a more representative parliament, a crackdown on corruption and greater political freedom.
Assaf David, a Jordan expert at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace in Jerusalem, said the fact that Jordanian society was divided between the native east bankers and Palestinians from the West bank and what is now Israel helped buttress Abdullah’s rule
“The homogeneity of Egyptian society has helped the demonstrators there, whereas the societal rift in Jordan helps the regime,” he told The Media Line. “But if the Jordanian opposition is able to agree on a constitution which would limit the King’s authority, this would constitute a strategic change.”
Jordan’s new government won the support of parliament by an unprecedented majority of 93% of parliament members, which David says is bad news for Jordan’s political system.
“If no one believes the parliament is capable of managing, they will voice their frustration in the streets,” he said. “King Abdullah has brought himself to brink of disaster by doing this.”
In Yemen, protesters, who included parliament members, journalists and social activists gathered near the journalists’ syndicate, calling on their president of 32-years, Ali Abdallah Salih “to leave while there is still a chance.”
Nadia Al-Sakkaf, editor in chief of The Yemen Times, an English-language daily, said that Yemenis lacked “the sense of self-determination” required for an Egypt-style uprising. She told The Media Line that demonstrations in the country were mainly organized by the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), a coalition of five opposition parties. However, she said, Yemeni students were more concerned with their studies than with regime change.
“There’s no urgency in the everyday life of a Yemeni that forces him to revolt,” she said.
Unrest in Algeria was intense in its early days, with five protesters reportedly killed and over 800 injured in demonstrations across the country in riots linked to rising food costs on January 9. In response, the government cut customs tariffs and taxes on basic commodities such as sugar and cooking oil, which immediately calmed the protests.
But Algeria’s grievances were by no means solely economic. The Bejaia called for regime change and on Saturday, the secretary general of the opposition Workers’ Party, Louisa Hanoun, urged President Abd Al-Aziz Boutafliqa to take “bold political and social decisions” and avoid “externally imposed policies,” favoring a more open debate on the nature of Algeria’s regime.
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IMF urges Washington to cut budget deficit
D.C., Washington, United States (AHN) – The International Monetary Fund urged Washington Thursday to reduce its budget deficit.
The multilateral agency pointed out unless the United States government acts quickly to control government deficits, it could face slower growth and more difficult policy choices in the future.
The warning came a day after the U.S. Congressional Budget Office released its mid-year assessment in which the watchdog forecast a $1.5 trillion budget gap for the current year.
IMF Fiscal Affairs Director Carlo Cottarelli stressed that while the U.S. has a lot of credibility, it could not last forever. Cottarelli chided U.S. leaders for reneging on its promise made to other leading economies to reduce by half its budget deficit by 2013.
In response to the IMF report, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the ballooning budget deficit was the result of many years of spending by different administrations, and the solution must come from joint efforts of Democrats and Republicans.
While President Barack Obama had called for a freeze on discretionary spending at the State of the Union address this week, the IMF said Washington needs to make more spending cuts on pension and health entitlement programs.
The CBO report led Republicans to seek large and immediate cuts in federal spending. The Republican Study Committee proposed a $2.5 trillion cut in spending over 10 years. Republicans in the Senate said they would pursue again a constitutional amendment mandating balanced national budget.
Democrats rejected the study committee’s proposal because it would result in cutting important programs and unemployment of more than one million workers.
The IMF said the U.S. is not the only world power that failed in reducing its deficit. The agency also cited Japan, which suffered Thursday a downgrade in its bond rating to AA- from AA from ratings agency Standard & Poor.
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Stocks up slightly but still below key 2008 levels
New York, NY, United States (AHN) – The Dow and S&P 500 breached the 12,000 and 1,300 early in the trading before closing below the key psychological levels on Thursday. Mixed economic data and corporate earnings kept the marks elusive to the two indexes.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was just 10 points shy of the 12,000 mark last hit on June 19, 2008 closing 4.46 points or 0.04 percent higher to 11,990 with GE, Home Depot, United Technologies and Caterpillar among the top gainers.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was just half a point away from 1,300 last hit on Aug. 28, 2008 gaining 2.91 or 0.22 percent to settle at 1,299.54 with movie distributor Netflix the biggest gainer after reporting that subscribers now number above 20 million.
Investors were unclear of the economic outlook Thursday reading the 2 percent jump in pending home sales in November as contradictory to the surprise jump in jobless claims.
The Nasdaq Composite Index, meanwhile, gained 16 points or 0.58 percent to end at 2,755.
Oil for March delivery declined $1.69 to settle at $85.64 a barrel.
Gold futures for February delivery was down $14.50 closing at $1,318 per ounce.
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Mubarak pledges new government
Hosni Mubarak resisted calls to step down as Egyptian president on Friday night but pledged to dismiss his cabinet and form a new government.
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Grains rally ‘prompts rash’ in attempts at default
Attempts by UK farmers to renege on deliveries struck at lower prices have soared, a trader at a top merchant says, condemning the practice
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As deadline ends, consensus government elusive in Nepal
Kathmandu, Nepal (AHN) – A last ditch effort to form a national consensus government to carry on Nepal’s derailed peace process faced another jolt on Wednesday as Nepal’s major political parties failed to reach any tangible conclusion by the deadline set by President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav.
A meeting among the three major political parties’ – UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress and CPN-UML- hours before the expiration of the deadline to form a unity government could not yield any results. The top brass of the parties have spent nearly a year attempting to make headway by narrowing the differences that have been surfaced following the resignation of caretaker Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal six months ago.
“We could not agree on new government leadership,” said UML leader K.P. Oli.
Leaders expressed hope that they will arrive in a conclusion soon. However, according to the new parliamentary procedures, parties have to go for voting, which they have been trying to avert for the past few days.
The president, who is scheduled to embark on a 10-day trip to India on Thursday, will extend the deadline another couple of weeks in hopes of forming a government on a majority basis, which is the only alternative remaining.
“We will hold the talks. We have been trying to sort out the differences,” NC leader Ram Chandra Poudel said after the meeting. The push among the parties on power sharing issues has become a bone of contention as two other parties, Congress and UML, refuse to hand over power to the Maoists until completion of the peace process.
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Cyclone Wilma to hit Tonga
Wellington, New Zealand (AHN) – Tropical Cyclone Wilma, with winds of up to 68 miles per hour, was sweeping western American Samoa on Monday and will hit Tonga on Wednesday, according to Radio New Zealand International.
The storm downed power lines, caused landslides and damages homes in the eastern part of the South Pacific island. The Pago Pago International Airport was forced to close.
Wilma is expected to hit Nukualofa and Tonga’s outlying Neiafu island, the London-based organization Tropical Storm Risk forecast. By Thursday, it will hit Tongatapu.
The American Samoa’s Joint Typhoon Warning Centre initially tracked Wilma as moving in an east-southeast direction. But the storm changed course, moving northward overnight. It is now on a southwest track moving in the direction of Tonga.
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Vegas, Woodland tied in birdie-fest at Bob Hope Classic
LaQuinta, CA, United States (AHN Sports) – Jhonattan Vegas is playing in only his fifth PGA Tour event but that hasn’t stopped him from going really low at the Bob Hope Classic.
Vegas shot a second straight 67 Friday and got to 18-under par after 54 holes and found himself atop the leader board with Gary Woodland, who shot a third-round 64.
The two young bombers are leading an assault on par that could again yield a winning score of 30-under par come Sunday. They are one-shot ahead of Greg Chalmers, who shot 65 at LaQuinta and is alone in second at 199, 17-under par.
Martin Laird’s 64 on the Palmer course got him to 16-under, two shots off the lead. Jeff Overton is among a group of four players at 15-under 201.
Vegas used to hit rocks with a stick as a youngster in Venezuela and found himself hooked on golf when he watched Tiger Woods win the 1997 Masters on television.
He is unafraid of his position at the top.
“It’s a lot of fun. That’s the way I take it. I’m enjoying it as much as I can because we know how complicated golf can be.”
He said his position as co-leader won’t cost him any sleep either. “Leading a golf tournament is not going to cut into my sleep. I’m going to just keep doing what I’ve been doing,” he said.
Vegas has been accurate all week off the tee, and he’s been long as well. Same with Woodland, who is playing on a medical extension after recovering from shoulder problems.
Saturday is the final day of the pro-am format.. The pros will move on to the Palmer course on Sunday in a shootout for the title.
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Goldman lifts commodity hopes – notably for crops
The investment bank edges higher its estimate for returns on commodities this year, with prospects for crops particularly improved
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