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Our future depends on us being able to have hard conversations about energy policy. But what Labor has shown so far in government is a refusal to make difficult decisions and a holier-than-thou approach to nuclear power.The cost-of-living issues talked about at length before the election have shirtfronted us in the aftermath of it.It has little to do with the change of government; the planets have just aligned in all the wrong ways.Inflation, rising interest rates and a gas crisis have all come to a head at the same time, and while they aren’t all directly linked, an increase in price of the third, feeds the first, which is usually dampened by an increase in the second. It's all rather unsatisfactory.I have some sympathy for Labor being served this proverbial sandwich so soon after winning an election.It’s not of their making, and in many respects, it’s largely not of the former government’s making either.But in a sense, it doesn’t really matter; Labor is in charge and they are responsible for managing the cost-of-living burden on Australians, and in particular, alleviating this gas crisis.And it seems that despite an almighty push to get into power, they don’t want to actually take any hard decisions now that they are in it.Energy policy is complex.If it was easy, it would have been sorted out long ago. But it isn’t easy; it’s a balancing act between private enterprise and public policy, state and federal governments, export volumes and domestic supplies, and national and international imperatives.With the goal posts on decarbonisation continually shifting, the appropriate approach to energy policy has changed significantly over time.The overhaul of our energy market, focused on moving away from fossil fuels, is a national issue which will affect Australia well into the future.Prudent planning requires a proper analysis of all energy alternatives to ensure we develop a balanced and reliable energy mix and that means a nose-to-tail approach on energy alternatives.Cost, reliability and risk must be assessed in relation to procurement, construction, use of existing infrastructure, generation, transmission, storage, life span, decommissioning costs, and disposal of waste.This will help us best appreciate the long-term cost and reliability of all energy sources - particularly in relation to baseload energy.Instead, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has dismissed nuclear energy outright as not ‘stacking up economically’ without actually having done the numbers.It’s a nice, easy way of pouring cold water on a non-preferred option and ignoring a power source often used by major manufacturing economies.This was followed up by an undergraduate performance from Climate Change and Energy minister, Chris Bowen, who scoffed at nuclear energy and said that renewable energy was the cheapest form of energy when you include transmission and storage.This only tells part of the story, and frankly, the ‘the sun is free’ argument is growing a little tired.Unfortunately, the myopic and unnuanced conversation around alternatives to coal and gas could potentially leave Australia at risk of introducing additional weakness into its energy system.The healthiest economies are manufacturing economies which skill-up their workforce and value-add in their production.Australia needs to extend itself beyond digging stuff out of the ground and ensuring manufacturing success means controlling input cost and risk.Access to cheap and reliable energy is a huge part of that equation.While it's unfair to expect Labor to overhaul Australia’s energy shortcomings within a month of taking government, it is incumbent on them to encourage an open, comprehensive and objective conversation about energy alternatives and how we develop modern energy security.Our future depends on us being able to have hard conversations because short-term politically expedient views on energy, regardless of political ideology, will lead us down the road to long-term failure.And that isn’t good policy or politics for anyone. | Energy & Natural Resources |
The following is a transcript of an interview with House Intelligence Committee chair Rep, Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio, that aired on Dec. 3, 2023.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Mike Turner.
REP. MIKE TURNER: Good morning, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Good to have you here. So our colleagues here at CBS have heard from more Israeli soldiers, mainly female, saying that they had reported up the chain of command warnings about a potential Hamas attack. The New York Times, the FT. They have details, specific ones going back a year. The White House says this wasn't shared with the U.S. intelligence. If this is America's closest Mideast ally, should that concern us?
REP. MIKE TURNER: Well, I think what you saw was just a general dismissal by Israel and Israel's intelligence community of the possibility of this level of a threat, which really goes to, you know, the complete breakdown that occurred here. It's been amazing to have our intelligence community now working closely with the Israeli intelligence community and see the gaps that they have. And this obviously could have been an institutional bias that the result of them dismissing it, but the other aspect that made this so dangerous, is that even when the October 7th began to unfold, their their forces didn't react, they didn't have the deployment ability to respond, not just the intelligence ability to prevent it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Which raises questions now about have those gaps been filled? How can you take Israeli assurances that everything they're doing is precise and targeted? And exact? Does the United States know where Yahya Sinwar, the-the commander, who was the architect of this is? Israel says that he's in South Gaza.
REP. MIKE TURNER: Well, certainly the United States is assisting in the location of Hamas leadership as Israel moves to eliminate the threat of Hamas. And I just received a briefing from CIA Director Burns on Friday, who just came back from the Middle East. He's been working diligently, he's doing a great job on negotiating for the release of hostages, and also in trying to make certain that our intelligence apparatus is working closely with Israel to try to fill some of those gaps that they clearly have.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, when it comes to what the United States is doing for our own standards for our own government, we have to have a nearly certain standard when it comes to counter terrorism, lethal operations, positive ID of the target, no civilian casualties. Should we hold our allies who we provide with weapons and intelligence to that exact same standard?
REP. MIKE TURNER: Well, I can tell you that- that we are being selective as to the information that's being provided. It's one thing to be able to look to try to identify a specific individual, and provide information as to their location and operations, and actually directing an operation. I mean, Director Burns has been very clear that we are not just providing direct access to our intelligence, and that certainly gives us the ability to have caution.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Is Israel though, operating on that intelligence to the level to the standard, that they should, that the United States holds itself to? Because we just heard from the defense secretary and the Vice President, that it certainly sounds the U.S. assessment is they're not
REP. MIKE TURNER: With respect to use of U.S. intelligence, I can tell you that that's certainly how the United States is operating and holding them to that standard. Now, broadly, as you've reported, the United States is very concerned to the extent that Israel is not doing enough to protect civilians. And certainly the issue goes even broader to the issue of humanitarian aid being provided to the Palestinians who are equally prisoners of Hamas.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Can aid, which is being bundled in the Senate with Ukraine aid, to Israel and Ukraine get through the Republican controlled House, if the stipulation, as I understand it from the Speaker of the House, is that it has to also include provisions regarding the U.S. border?
REP. MIKE TURNER: Sure. Speaker Johnson's doing a great job. And he is directly negotiating both with the White House and with the Senate on the aid package, which would include aid to Israel, aid to Ukraine, and also Southeast Asia. But more importantly, in the negotiation process, it would include changes in our southern border policy, which even director Wray has identified as a national security threat. Those negotiations are ongoing, and it's going to take the administration coming to the table and recognizing that their policy needs to change. America overwhelmingly wants the southern border addressed, it represents a national security threat, as his own security advisors are telling him. You know, we can't have millions of people continue to cross our border, and at all believe that we have, you know, a secure country with our national security.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What's the specific on that? Because the White House is asking for like $14 billion. Are you saying the money is not enough, you want an overhaul of immigration policy that hasn't happened in decades? And for that to happen in the next three weeks?
REP. MIKE TURNER: Well, actually, there have been things that happened. If you look back at the Trump administration, where they had positions that policies such as remain in Mexico, there were policies that were working, that were keeping the southern border controlled where the number of people–
MARGARET BRENNAN: And that's a specific ask now?
REP. MIKE TURNER: And that is a specific ask now with the number of people crossing is diminished. The administration can make changes which other administrations have enforced, that-that change the difference. It's the reversal of those policies that have caused Biden's southern border policies to be a failure and the millions of people to have entered our country.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So I want to ask you something else that Congress I know you think needs to get done in a very short period of time, and that is reauthorizing section 702. We talked about it there as directly related to America's own terror threat and being able to have warrantless surveillance powers. Mark Warner, your colleague over in the Senate, says the main challenge to getting this done, your Ohio Republican colleague, Jim Jordan, who he says wants to take the FBI out of the process. So can you get Jordan and the Freedom Caucus, of which your speaker is a member, on board with this?
REP. MIKE TURNER: Well, I think so. 702 is one of our most important tools for monitoring foreign individuals located outside the United States who pose a national security threat to our country.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And it's about to expire-
REP. MIKE TURNER: And that's about to expire at the end of the year. It does not monitor United States citizens. I think there are those who look at the behavior of the FBI and want to punish the FBI foolishly by cutting off one of our most important tools to target at foreign individuals. It certainly is also one of our most important tools that we're using to help Israel in this conflict.
MARGARET BRENNAN: How's that?
REP. MIKE TURNER: It allows us to monitor- Through this program, we monitor Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, some of our most ardent adversaries are monitored in this program. And certainly we shouldn't punish the FBI for what they've done in other areas to hinder our ability to track terrorists and our adversaries.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Has Speaker Johnson committed to taking this version that the intelligence chairs are proposing versus Jim Jordan's version that wants to take the FBI out of this?
REP. MIKE TURNER: Right. So we have a bill. Myself, Jim Himes, Darren LaHood, Brian Fitzpatrick, Senator Warner, Senator Rubio and Senator Cornyn have a bipartisan, bicameral bill that would address some of the past abuses of the FBI, prevent them in the future, and also reauthorized 702. The speaker is very supportive of that. We've just got to get it over the line.
MARGARET BRENNAN: How? What do you attach it to?
REP. MIKE TURNER: Well, and that's the problem, because so- I do think we've got substance on our side. Yeah, this is the way to go. The individuals who want to hinder this process, really, I think, fully don't fully understand how the process works, and are really not understanding the value and the importance of this to our national security.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But then what we do see is Speaker Johnson saying yesterday on Fox he's going to hold a vote on the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. You're talking about something of immediate national security, threat, immediacy in timing, needing to prioritize that but we're going to have an impeachment inquiry vote instead?
REP. MIKE TURNER: You know, this is some of the legacy of the chaos that has happened in Congress where the-those who wanted to shut down the government at the end of summer are some of those that want to stop the reauthorization of 702 .
MARGARET BRENNAN: Are you going to vote for this impeachment inquiry next week?
REP. MIKE TURNER: We'll have to see what the evidence and the- and the information is, and it has not yet been presented delivered a top priority, though, you know, you can have more than one priority. Certainly, I think, you know, protecting and enforcing our laws is a priority. But in this 702 is critical. It needs to be reformed and reauthorized. And the speaker is certainly committed to both those goals.
MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. It's always good to have you here in person, Mike Turner.
for more features. | Middle East Business & Economics |
SCOTTISH Liberal Democrats will focus on Scotland's ferry problems as they campaign in the Highlands this weekend in a bid to win back the Westminster seat currently held by Ian Blackford.
The party is seeking at the next general election, expected in 2024, to retake Ross, Skye and Lochaber which was held by former party leader Charles Kennedy from 1983 to 2015.
Mr Blackford, the former SNP leader at Westminster, ousted Mr Kennedy in May 2015 following a bitter local campaign marred by claims of bullying.
Mr Kennedy died less than a month after losing his seat with Mr Blackford holding onto it in 2017 and 2019.
But with Mr Blackford standing down at the next general election and with a long running police investigation into the SNP's overshadowing his party, the Lib Dems have identified an opportunity to win the seat back.
Former SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford. Photo PA.
Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton will be campaigning in Fort William today with Highland councillor Angus MacDonald.
Ahead of the visit to the town Mr Cole-Hamilton accused the SNP of overseeing "a complete dearth of infrastructure spend" and making do with an ageing ferry fleet.
"For years, the SNP have removed autonomy from Highland communities, cut council budgets and singularly failed to stand up for rural issues," Mr Cole-Hamilton said.
"Ian Blackford and the SNP have overseen a complete dearth of infrastructure spend and the north and west Highlands have had to make do with an ageing, creaking ferry fleet while new vessels fall ever further behind schedule and budget.
"Our Liberal Democrat candidate, Angus MacDonald, cares passionately about this area and its people."
He added: "Angus will protect jobs, create opportunities and secure a better deal for people right across the region.
"He is already campaigning tirelessly on the issues that matter, such as replacing the Belford Hospital, rejuvenating local high streets and improving the A82.
"The residents of Ross, Skye and Lochaber deserve so much better than a centralising SNP and years of nationalist neglect."
Prominent businessman Mr MacDonald was selected back in February this year to contest Ross, Skye and Lochaber for the Lib Dems at next year’s expected general election.
Speaking to The Herald then he said his “fury” over the neglect of the north west Highlands by both the Scottish and UK governments had motivated him to fight for the seat.
He claimed tens of billions of pounds had been spent in the Central Belt on new hospitals, motorways and projects including the Edinburgh trams while, “all we have got are two Calmac ferries, years behind schedule at triple the estimated price.”
He accused the SNP of moving powers to Holyrood and cutting funding for councils while “increasing their responsibilities” and vowed to stand up for rural issues.
He took direct aim at Mr Blackford, claiming he had failed to progress a plan first mooted 20 years ago to build a replacement hospital in Fort William and had done little to improve the safety of the A82, “one of the most dangerous roads in Britain.”
The businessman opened Fort William’s first cinema in 15 as a gift to his home town and also runs a bookstore while his son, Archie MacDonald jointly runs The Highland Soap Company, which opened a multi-million base in 2020.
Cllr MacDonald was named Scottish and UK Entrepreneur of the year in 2017 and founded The Caledonian Challenge endurance walk, which has raised £13million for local charities. He is also a published author.
Mr Blackford won the seat from Mr Kennedy after securing a clear majority of 9,443 in the May 2015 general election.
In 2021, a BBC Alba documentary claimed during the election campaign Mr Kennedy suffered “abuse and denigration of the worst kind” from SNP activists and supporters before he died on June 1 2015 at his home in Fort William at the age of 55.
Mr Kennedy led the Lib Dems from 1999 to 2006 and was the Member of Parliament for Ross, Skye and Lochaber from 1983 to 2015.
He was, at the age of 23, the youngest sitting MP at the time he was elected to the House of Commons.
On January 5 2006, he was informed that ITN would be reporting that he had received treatment for alcoholism; he pre-empted the broadcast by admitting that he had had treatment, and resigned as leader the following day.
Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown was among those who attended his funeral.
The SNP has yet to select its general election candidate for Ross, Skye and Lochaber. It was approached for comment.
Mr Blackford is one of eight SNP MPs standing down from Westminster at the general election. | United Kingdom Business & Economics |
U.S. Dollar banknote is seen in this illustration taken July 17, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSINGAPORE, Aug 18 (Reuters) - The dollar was on the front foot on Thursday after minutes from the Federal Reserve's July meeting pointed to U.S. interest rates staying higher for longer to bring down inflation.The greenback gained most against the Antipodeans, especially the Aussie, which was dragged down as weaker-than-expected wage growth weighed on Australia's interest rate outlook.The Australian dollar fell 1.2% overnight and on Thursday hovered at $0.6930, just above Wednesday's one-week low of $0.6912 and the 50-day moving average at $0.6923.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comAustralian labour market data is due at 0130 GMT.The New Zealand dollar also fell, losing nearly 1% to unwind an initial jump after the central bank hiked interest rates and steepened its projected rate-hike track. The greenback rose against the yen and sterling and was steady on the euro."The bigger picture for the dollar is that it's in a strong uptrend," said Matt Simpson, a senior analyst at brokerage City Index in Brisbane, adding it has now paused a weeks-long pullback"In some ways, bulls are looking to step back in and I think the Fed minutes gave them a reason to do so."The dollar rose 0.6% on the yen overnight and held at 134.90 yen on Thursday. The euro bought $1.0184. The U.S. dollar index was steady at 106.570.Federal Reserve officials saw "little evidence" late last month that U.S. inflation pressures were easing, the minutes showed. The minutes flagged an eventual slowdown in the pace of hikes, but not a switch to cuts in 2023 that traders until recently had priced in to interest-rate futures. read more "Once a sufficiently restrictive level has been reached, they are going to stick to that level for some time," Rabobank strategist Philip Marey said in a note to clients."This clearly stands in contrast to the early Fed pivot that the markets have been pricing in."Traders see about a 36% chance of a third consecutive 75 basis point Federal Reserve rate hike in September, and expect rates to hit a peak around 3.7% by March, and to hover around there until later in 2023.Sterling also slid overnight after double-digit inflation focused investors' concerns on recession risk.Britain's consumer price inflation rose to 10.1% in July, its highest since February 1982, official figures showed and after a brief blip higher sterling fell 0.4% to $1.2050.It also dropped below its 200-day moving average against the euro. read more "Do we get weaker sterling now, ahead of the inevitable recession? Or will sterling hold around here until rates peak and the economic disaster can dominate," asked Societe Generale strategist Kit Juckes in a note."I am confident that we will make a new cycle low this year," he said.========================================================Currency bid prices at 0032 GMTAll spotsTokyo spotsEurope spotsVolatilitiesTokyo Forex market info from BOJRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Tom Westbrook; editing by Richard PullinOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Interest Rates |
The United States aims to boost cooperation with African nations as President Joe Biden hosts dozens of regional leaders at the second US-Africa Leaders Summit this week in Washington, DC.
Beginning on Tuesday, the three-day summit will focus on key challenges, including the climate crisis, good governance, food security and global health, as well as bolstering US-Africa trade and investment opportunities.
“The summit … is rooted in the recognition that Africa is a key geopolitical player. The continent will shape the future not just of the African people, but also the world,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday afternoon.
Forty-nine African heads of state and leaders, as well as the African Union, were invited to the summit, Sullivan said during a news conference.
The talks – a follow-up to the first such gathering hosted by former US President Barack Obama eight years ago – mark the biggest international gathering in Washington, DC, since before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden has sought to rebuild Washington’s relationship with other countries, as well as to re-engage with global organisations like the United Nations, after four years of his predecessor Donald Trump’s “America First” approach to foreign policy.
The US role in Africa receded during that time, and Biden administration officials have stressed the need to strengthen ties with like-minded countries in the region. “Working closely with Congress, the US will commit $55bn to Africa over the course of the next three years,” Sullivan said on Monday. China, Russia competition
The summit comes as China, which the US views as its main global competitor, has consistently outpaced Washington in its investments in Africa. Russia is also trying to rally support on the continent in response to pressure from the US and its allies over the war in Ukraine.
However, in the lead-up to this week’s meetings, top Biden administration officials played down their growing concerns about China and Russia. Instead, they have stressed the importance of including African nations in global discussions.
“We need more African voices in international conversations that concern the global economy, democracy and governance, climate change, health, and security,” White House Adviser Judd Devermont said on December 9.
In August, the Biden administration released a new strategy document for sub-Saharan Africa, stressing the region’s importance and promising to extend defence cooperation with like-minded nations.
In November, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said Washington would have to do things differently to help Africa with its infrastructure needs. It was time to stop treating the continent as a subject of geopolitics, but rather as a major player on its own, Blinken remarked. The region needs billions of dollars a year for roads, railways, dams and power, and in the last decade, it has received huge sums from China, which generally does not tie money to political or rights-related conditions.
Washington has characterised Chinese lending as predatory and leading to potential debt traps. It has instead focused on facilitating private investment, but officials acknowledge that the US needs to do more to speed up assistance.
As part of this week’s summit, Biden will deliver a keynote address to the US-Africa Business Forum on Wednesday, before hosting a dinner for the world leaders assembled in the United States capital.
The US president is expected to back a permanent spot for the African Union in the Group of 20, a forum for major economies, during the summit. Sullivan said Biden also would express a commitment to UN Security Council reform, “including support for a permanent member” from Africa.
“It’s past time for Africa to have permanent seats at the table in international organisations and initiatives,” Sullivan told reporters.
On Thursday, Biden and the other heads of state and leaders will hold talks on promoting food security, after months of supply concerns and disruptions linked to the war in Ukraine. He will also discuss the 2023 elections in Africa and democracy with a small group of leaders, Sullivan said.
“One of the unique aspects of this summit is the collateral damage that the Russian war has inflicted on Africa in terms of food supply and the diversion of development assistance to Ukraine,” John Stremlau, a visiting professor of international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, told The Associated Press news agency.
“The opportunity costs of the invasion have been very high in Africa,” Stremlau said.
‘Great opportunities, some risks’
Meanwhile, local officials in Washington, DC, are warning residents to brace for roadblocks and intensified security as the dozens of invited leaders move around the city for the talks.
The US has invited all African Union members in good standing, meaning Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Sudan will not be represented. Attendees must also have full relations with Washington, which excludes Eritrea.
One of the most closely watched leaders expected in Washington will be Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a one-time US ally whom the Biden administration has accused of backing widespread abuses in the Tigray conflict. A breakthrough deal last month led to a cessation of hostilities.
The presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will also be in attendance, as Blinken exerts international pressure on Rwanda over its alleged support for rebels seizing control of territory in the neighbouring DRC. Other presidents due at the summit include Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Tunisia’s Kais Saied, who have both faced criticism for a lack of democratic rights in their countries, as well as Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who arrives days after the US called his latest election a sham.
The foreign minister of Zimbabwe, under US sanctions, is also expected to attend.
Analysts say that African leaders will be looking for Biden to make some major commitments during the talks, including announcing his first presidential visit to sub-Saharan Africa, as well as efforts to bolster the continent’s economy through private sector investment and trade.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, director of the Africa programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the US was entering the summit with a “trust deficit” due to the long wait since the last edition in 2014.
“The summit presents great opportunities, but it also poses some risks,” he said.
“This is an opportunity to show Africa that the US really wants to listen to them,” he added. “But now that we have high expectations, the question will be: What will be different now?” | Africa Business & Economics |
SINGAPORE, Sept 21 (Reuters) - A quadrillion yen is lying idle with Japanese households, ready to be shipped overseas when yields abroad turn more attractive, and that moment could arrive as soon as this week.Later on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will be raising rates again and by as much as a full percentage point. The following day, the Bank of Japan is certain to cement its standing as the lone global dove in developed markets by sticking to its negative rates.The difference in yields between the two markets will hit 300 basis points (bps): an inflection point that analysts say will prompt Mrs Watanabe, a moniker for the famed Japanese retail trader, to ditch the yen and move money out.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com"In terms of pure FX carry, the dollar will soon provide 3%, yen is still 0%, so that's a big difference," says Shusuke Yamada, chief forex and rates strategist at Bank of America in Tokyo. Those kind of yields are incentive for both institutional and retail investors to buy U.S. dollars and hold them, he says."Japanese households have a thousand trillion in yen deposits. I don't think it's going to move 1% a year, but even 0.1% is already one trillion, so even a small portion could have a meaningful impact. There is that potential," says Yamada.The blow to the already battered yen , that's down 20 percent versus the dollar this year, should be cause for concern for the Bank of Japan.Yield-seeking Japanese households have been notable absentees from global currency markets during the pandemic years as central banks pushed rates towards zero, squishing spreads between currencies and killing the pervasive yen-funded "carry" trade.But household savings have been building up in the world's largest creditor nation. As of June, households had 1,102 trillion yen ($7.7 trillion) in cash and deposits, while private non-financial companies had 325 trillion yen."There is a risk of what I call capital flight by Japanese households," said Tohru Sasaki, head of Japan markets research at J.P. Morgan Securities in Tokyo."We have been talking about that for a long time - actually more than a decade - but it never happened. But I think the current situation is really different."The generation is shifting, technology is improving, and Japan's situation is getting worse, so the possibility is getting higher of seeing a kind of capital flight.""GETTING SCARY"Citi's quant strategist Alex Saunders says carry trades in major currencies hadn't worked since 2008 as all rates converged to zero, and while they had revived this year, he hadn't seen much of that happening in the yen.Yen and carryThat could be changing. Sasaki points to the more rooted feeling among Japanese that they have been gradually losing purchasing power with such a weak currency, but also to how easy it has become even for the elderly to buy foreign currencies with a smartphone.He also highlighted recent developments such as the swift oil-driven widening in Japan's trade balance to a record deficit, and the yen's unprecedented weakness in real terms."And now yields start widening, and people start shifting their money abroad gradually. Basically whatever the level, there is a feeling that we need to hold some foreign currency, or that we need to hold dollars, to avoid the risk of a weak yen," said Sasaki."That's why I'm getting a little bit scared watching this. This time could be different ... so it's dangerous."At 300 bps, the "carry" on dollars funded by yen approaches levels last seen in the 2005-2007 bout of frenzied overseas investment by Japanese retail traders, and before that in 1996-1998. Anything less wouldn't compensate for the risks, although a weakening yen is a bonus.In January 2006, when spreads between U.S. and Japan were at their widest at roughly 440 bps, Japanese households had 1,631 trillion yen of assets. By June, that had shrunk by 22.5 trillion yen."Even if the FX rate doesn’t change, if you have this kind of yield spread, you’re going to reap a benefit," said Takuya Kanda, head of the research department at Gaitame.com Research Institute, which serves mainly retail investors."So this week particularly, when the BOJ looks set to keep interest rates at extremely low levels, and really it’s only Japan now that still has negative interest rates, that is a very conducive environment for money to flow overseas.”In a survey of Gaitame.com clients on Aug. 23, about 60% said dollar-yen will continue to climb, and many forecast a rise to 145, he said. On Wednesday, it was just off 144.Bart Wakabayashi, branch manager at State Street in Tokyo, says typical retail Japanese traders like to roll over yen-funded foreign currency holdings every day to earn interest but also sometimes play for FX gains, making them far more willing to take on risks that institutions can't.That makes it imperative the BOJ tries to stamp out speculation the yen is a one-way downhill bet, which it has with statements and monitoring of yen levels.“The Bank of Japan is trying to change the conversation. People are saying 145 is the line in the sand. I don’t believe that," said Wakabayashi."I think 150 is the line. I think 145 is the trigger that we go from stage 2, which is the official comments, to stage 3, which is the severe warnings.”Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comEditing by Kim CoghillOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
NEW YORK, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Turkey should tighten monetary policy and give its central bank more independence, a mission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Friday."To address (Turkey's) challenges, the mission recommended early policy rate hikes accompanied by moves to strengthen the central bank's independence," said the IMF in a press release."Such moves would help reduce inflation more durably and allow reserve buffers to be rebuilt over time."Forex reserves have dropped sharply in recent years due to market interventions and in the wake of a currency crisis in December. In the last three months, the central bank has cut its policy rate by a total of 350 basis points to 10.5%, while another cut is expected this month as President Tayyip Erdogan called for single-digit interest rates by year-end.Annualized inflation rose in October to a decades-high 85.5% while the lira, down 44% to the dollar last year, has lost another 29% so far this year.The IMF staff statement comes after the mission visit to Istanbul and Ankara last month. A report on the visit is scheduled to be sent to the IMF's executive board in January, after which recommendations would be made official.Reporting by Rodrigo Campos in New York
Editing by Karin Strohecker and Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Inflation |
Australia's largest ports operator is set to keep its sites closed for days as it recovers from a cyber-attack, according to government officials.
Operations at its container terminals in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth have been suspended since Friday.
DP World Australia manages around 40% of goods entering and leaving the country.
The move has not affected the supply of goods to major Australian supermarkets, the BBC understands.
DP World Australia, a unit of the Dubai state-owned DP World, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Darren Goldie, the government's Cyber Security Coordinator, said the operator was making "good progress" at bringing its sites back online.
"The company's advice... was that this would be the case of days, not weeks," Mr Goldie told ABC Radio.
He added that the government had not yet identified the perpetrators of the cyber-attack, which caused the firm to disconnect its ports from the internet.
DP World said it halted internet connectivity at its ports on Friday to prevent "any ongoing unauthorised access" to its network.
Going offline meant trucks were unable to transport containers in and out of the affected sites. That's according to DP World senior director Blake Tierney in statement issued on Sunday.
On Monday, Ports Australia, which represents authorities and companies in the industry, said "The current disruption is isolated to DP World terminals."
"Australia's ports and other terminals remain operational. DP World is collaborating closely with the government and working to restore normal operations," it added.
Double whammy
DP World has also been affected by industrial action, which has caused a delay in customer deliveries.
Since it began in October, workers have engaged in 24-hour strikes and refused to unload trucks.
The Maritime Union of Australia, which is negotiating pay increases for workers, announced last week that the industrial action would be extended to 20 November.
The cyber-attack added to fears that the supply of everything from medical equipment to Christmas toys could be disrupted.
However, a spokesperson from supermarket chain Woolworths said it was monitoring the situation and does not "anticipate any immediate impacts at this time".
The BBC understands that Woolworths' range of Christmas products has already arrived in Australia.
The disruption is also not expected to affect rival chain Coles, which is similarly monitoring developments at DP World.
Australia has seen a rise in cyber attacks since late-2022.
Earlier this year, the Albanese government announced plans to overhaul its cybersecurity laws, and set up an agency to coordinate responses to intrusions.
The government is expected to released details on its proposed rules next week - which will likely tighten reporting requirements for companies. | Australia Business & Economics |
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve on Wednesday intensified its drive to tame high inflation by raising its key interest rate by three-quarters of a point — its largest hike in nearly three decades — and signaling more large rate increases to come that would raise the risk of another recession.The move the Fed announced after its latest policy meeting will increase its benchmark short-term rate, which affects many consumer and business loans, to a range of 1.5% to 1.75%.The central bank is ramping up its drive to tighten credit and slow growth with inflation having reached a four-decade high of 8.6%, spreading to more areas of the economy and showing no sign of slowing. Americans are also starting to expect high inflation to last longer than they had before. This sentiment could embed an inflationary psychology in the economy that would make it harder to bring inflation back to the Fed’s 2% target.The Fed’s three-quarter-point rate increase exceeds the half-point hike that Chair Jerome Powell had previously suggested was likely to be announced this week. The Fed’s decision to impose a rate hike as large as it did Wednesday was an acknowledgment that it’s struggling to curb the pace and persistence of inflation, which has been worsened by Russia’s war against Ukraine and its effects on energy prices.Borrowing costs have already risen sharply across much of the U.S. economy in response to the Fed’s moves, with the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate topping 6%, its highest level since before the 2008 financial crisis, up from just 3% at the start of the year. The yield on the 2-year Treasury note, a benchmark for corporate borrowing, has jumped to 3.3%, its highest level since 2007.Even if a recession can be avoided, economists say it’s almost inevitable that the Fed will have to inflict some pain — most likely in the form of higher unemployment — as the price of defeating chronically high inflation.Inflation has shot to the top of voter concerns in the months before Congress’ midterm elections, souring the public’s view of the economy, weakening President Joe Biden’s approval ratings and raising the likelihood of Democratic losses in November. Biden has sought to show he recognizes the pain that inflation is causing American households but has struggled to find policy actions that might make a real difference. The president has stressed his belief that the power to curb inflation rests mainly with the Fed.Yet the Fed’s rate hikes are blunt tools for trying to lower inflation while also sustaining growth. Shortages of oil, gasoline and food are propelling inflation. The Fed isn’t ideally suited to address many of the roots of inflation, which involve Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, still-clogged global supply chains, labor shortages and surging demand for services from airline tickets to restaurant meals.Expectations for larger Fed hikes have sent a range of interest rates to their highest points in years. The yield on the 2-year Treasury note, a benchmark for corporate bonds, has reached 3.3%, its highest level since 2007. The 10-year Treasury yield, which directly affects mortgage rates, has hit 3.4%, up nearly a half-point since last week and the highest level since 2011.Investments around the world, from bonds to bitcoin, have tumbled in recent months on fears surrounding high inflation and the prospect that the Fed’s aggressive drive to control it will cause a recession. Even if the Fed manages the delicate trick of curbing inflation without causing a recession, higher rates will nevertheless inflict pressure on stock prices. The S&P 500 has already sunk more than 20% this year, meeting the definition of a bear market.Other central banks around the world are also acting swiftly to try to quell surging inflation, even with their nations at greater risk of recession than the U.S. The European Central Bank is expected to raise rates by a quarter-point in July, its first increase in 11 years. It could announce a larger hike in September if record-high levels of inflation persist. On Wednesday, the ECB vowed to create a market backstop that could buffer member countries against financial turmoil of the kind that erupted during a debt crisis more than a decade ago.The Bank of England has raised rates four times since December to a 13-year high, despite predictions that economic growth will be unchanged in the second quarter. The BOE will hold an interest rate meeting on Thursday.The 19 European Union countries that use the euro currency endured record inflation of 8.1% last month. The United Kingdom notched a 40-year high of 9% in April. Though debt service costs remain contained for now, rising borrowing costs for indebted governments threatened the eurozone with a breakup in the early part of the last decade.Last week, the World Bank warned of the threat of “stagflation” — slow growth accompanied by high inflation — around the world.A key reason why a recession is now likelier is that economists increasingly believe that for the Fed to slow inflation to its 2% target, it will need to sharply reduce consumer spending, wage gains and economic growth. Ultimately, the unemployment rate will almost certainly have to rise — something the Fed hasn’t yet forecast but could in updated economic projections it will issue Wednesday. | Interest Rates |
The contract for Clyde and Hebrides ferry services could be awarded to current operators CalMac without a competitive tendering process.
The Scottish government is to explore exempting the services from tender, saying CalMac would need to ensure improvements across the network.
A due diligence process has been launched to look at the award from financial, operational and legal perspectives.
A decision will be taken next summer.
Announcing the plan at Holyrood, Transport Minister Fiona Hyslop said she was "acutely aware of the vital importance of these lifeline services for our island communities" adding that a direct award would shift the emphasis away from the commercial towards treating ferries as a public service.
"This would help drive service improvements, deliver better communications with communities and introduce meaningful performance indicators that better reflect the experience of passengers using the services," she said.
"I want to be very clear that this will not be an extension of the status quo. I expect a direct award to be a catalyst for positive change on the Clyde and Hebrides network, based on a more efficient, flexible model in the delivery of this important public service," she added.
The move comes after a long period of problems for the CalMac ferry network.
This year has seen spells of significant disruption, including the cancellation of services to South Uist for almost the whole of June. Islanders on Mull have also complained of frequent disruption.
Adding to CalMac's challenges have been delays to the completion of two new ferries which are now running six years behind schedule and three times over budget.
Ferries system 'not working'
Scottish Conservative transport spokesman Graham Simpson MSP said: "Islanders hoping for some clarity on how ferries will be run, by whom and for how long will be bewildered by this statement.
"Scotland's ferries system is not working. Our ageing ferries are unreliable. The procurement and confused governance system is not fit for purpose.
"The minister says the status quo is not an option. I agree. But it is difficult to see how what was announced today is anything but the status quo. Far from announcing a new model which would give hope to islanders, the minister has kicked the can down the road," he said.
The general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union welcomed the news.
Mick Lynch said: "A long term direct award would bring much-needed stability and certainty to workers and passengers on CalMac operated routes and protect public investment.
"We will be meeting the transport minister... to argue that the next step should be a coherent and sustainable ferry plan underpinned by a permanently publicly owned people's CalMac, which has the confidence of ferry passengers, workers and communities alike."
The TSSA union also welcomed the news. Its general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust said a direct award would be good news for their members and for island communities.
"Many of the problems we have seen in recent years, especially over the resilience and replacement of CalMac's ageing fleet, have been a direct result of the contracting model that currently exists.
"Short term funding causes short-term thinking that leads to ageing and broken-down ferries. We need longer-term more stable funding and better investment in the service," she said.
Robbie Drummond, chief executive of CalMac, said:
"With under a year remaining on the current contract, we welcome the opportunity to work alongside the Scottish government and Transport Scotland to ensure continuity of lifeline ferry services and a focus on continual improvement for communities across the Clyde and Hebrides.
"Taking the uncertainty out of the contract would allow us to focus all our efforts on improving service delivery, without the distraction of a highly resource-intensive procurement process."
Some will see this move as a reward for failure.
CalMac has struggled to deliver. Many in our island communities have paid a price for that.
So why does CalMac look set to remain in charge of this key public service?
In usual times, the multi-million pound contract would be put out to tender. That way, rivals could bid to run the service.
The contract's due to expire next September, so a deadline was looming. But these are far from usual times.
CalMac's fleet is ageing and prone to breakdown. Some of its ferries are beyond retirement age and delivery of new vessels has been stalled for years.
The MV Glen Sannox is the most famous - or infamous - ferry in Scotland, and it's six years late. Proof, say critics, the ferry system is bust.
There's talk of root-and-branch reform of the bodies which run Scotland's ferries to ensure CalMac, Transport Scotland and the ferries procurement agency CMAL are no longer at loggerheads. But that's yet to happen.
With so much up in the air, why make matters worse with a drawn-out tendering process? We've learned that's the view of the Scottish government.
It wants a direct award of the contract to CalMac.
That way, ministers believe, the service for islanders will improve while new ferries join the fleet and the creaking system is reformed.
But some fear it means more of the same - and the crisis continuing. | United Kingdom Business & Economics |
People wait in a queue after receiving tokens to buy petrol due to fuel shortage, amid the country's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, June 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dinuka LiyanawatteRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comCOLOMBO, June 28 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka will allow companies from oil-producing countries to import and sell fuel, the power and energy minister said on Tuesday, ending a duopoly as it tries to overcome a shortage of petrol and diesel that is exacerbating an economic crisis.The Cabinet decision came as the minister, Kanchana Wijesekera, headed to Qatar and a colleague was due to arrive in Russia on Sunday for talks on energy deals with officials there.Sri Lanka is suffering its worst economic crisis since its independence, with foreign exchange reserves at a record low of $1.92 billion, according to the Central Bank, though analysts estimate a lower level of useable funds.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comThe island of 22 million people is struggling to pay for essential imports of food, medicine and, most critically, fuel.The government closed urban schools for about two weeks from Tuesday and allowed fuel supplies only to services deemed essential like health, trains and buses as stocks would only last only a week or so based on regular demand."Cabinet approval was granted to open up the fuel import and retail sales market to companies from oil-producing nations," Wijesekera said on Twitter."They will be selected on the ability to import fuel and operate without forex requirements from the CBSL (central bank) and banks for the first few months of operations."The state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) controls about 80% of the fuel market and Lanka IOC (LIOC.CM), a unit of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC.NS), the rest.The Cabinet also allowed bunkering companies already registered with the government to import jet fuel.Sri Lanka needs about 1.2 million litres of so-called A1 jet fuel a day to supply airlines but the CPC has been unable to meet the requirement, the government said in a statement."The Cabinet made this decision to ensure that flights are not disrupted due to the fuel shortage," it said.Wijesekera flew to Qatar late on Monday night while Education Minister Susil Premajayanth is due to arrive in Russia on July 3.Wijesekera hopes to find a long-term fuel supplier in Qatar who is "willing to work with Sri Lanka's foreign exchange and other challenges", said a ministry official, who declined to be identified as he is not authorised to speak to media.Wijesekera told reporters on Sunday Sri Lanka had been in talks with various countries, including Russia, for weeks on buying fuel.Traffic was light on Tuesday on the streets of the main city of Colombo, with city schools shut and most public and private sector employees working from home.But buses and trains were running and shops were open for groceries and other essentials.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Uditha Jayasinghe
Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Kim Coghill, Robert BirselOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Asia Business & Economics |
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As leaders, officials and activists descend on Dubai for United Nations climate talks to discuss saving Earth, another environmental crisis is nearby, and it’s raising concerns among summit participants.
Devastated by a nearly two-month-long assault by Israeli airstrikes and ground fighting, large swaths of Gaza have been flattened, agricultural lands have been destroyed, olive trees that have stood for generations are scorched and dwindling water resources are contaminated. Experts warn that white phosphorus — a chemical illegal under international law that a human rights group says is in used in Israeli operations — could also be detrimental to the environment, including the air and soil. Palestinians are worried that the land could take years to recover, and activists at the summit are tying the plight of Gazans to climate justice globally.
The Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Jagan Chapagain warned during the summit that Gaza could “become an environmental catastrophe.”
WATCH: Israeli troops move south into Gaza’s 2nd largest city amid pleas to protect civilians
But with the destruction of much of Gaza’s infrastructure and an exceptionally heavy human cost — over 15,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed there since October — it’s impossible for the country to give climate and environment the attention it needs, said Hadeel Ikhmais, a climate change expert with the Palestinian Authority, at the summit’s first-ever State of Palestine Pavilion.
“We have policies, we have indices, we have … a lot of strategies and plans, well developed. But now we have to rethink all of what we’ve been working for the last ten years because what happened in Gaza destroyed everything,” she said. “We have to build the city all over again.”
She asked: “What kind of climate justice are we talking about while all the people in Palestine are endangered and their lives are lost?”
Gaza’s water has long been scarce — but the war has made it even more acute. Israel cut off water pipelines and electricity, meaning desalination plants couldn’t run, leading to a host of health and sanitation concerns for residents. Agriculture in Gaza, mainly olive trees and citrus fruits as well as other plants, has been decimated because of water shortages and the devastation of the land.
White phosphorus, that human rights groups say was used in densely populated areas, is illegal under international law when used on civilians. It can set buildings on fire and burn human flesh. It poses health risk for survivors and can get deep into soil and water.
WATCH: Palestinians freed by Israel reflect on time in prison the resumption of fighting in Gaza
War also raises climate concerns: Militaries worldwide are responsible for 5.5 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Conflict and Environment Observatory and Scientists for Global Responsibility, and militaries are under no obligation to report or reduce their carbon footprint.
Climate activists, who largely support calls for a ceasefire and justice for Palestinians, have centered the issue in protests at the U.N. talks. They say that climate justice — the idea that saving Earth from hotter temperatures is linked to more just world for everyone, especially the most vulnerable — is inextricably linked with security and freedom for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation because both crises are fueled by colonization and capitalism.
“The Palestinian struggle is a struggle for self-determination and climate justice is a struggle for self-determination,” said Katherine Robinson, a climate campaigner from South Africa. “There is no climate justice in occupied territories. There’s no climate justice during war and there’s no climate justice during apartheid.”
Rania Harara, from the MENA feminist task force, agreed that climate justice goes hand in hand with Palestinian solidarity.
“We cannot sit here and talk about climate justice without talking about human rights,” she said, to applause from the audience at an event on Saturday.
READ MORE: Should fossil fuels be phased out or slowly phased down? Leaders to discuss at COP28
The war on Gaza is also affecting how much funding can be diverted to climate initiatives, said Mohamed Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa, a Nairobi-based climate and energy think-tank.
Adow says wars and conflict are using up much needed climate cash that could have otherwise been very useful to help protect vulnerable communities from climate disaster. He used the example of Ukraine, where he says trillions of dollars were sent at a time that the international community was struggling to mobilize a hundred billion for climate finance.
“Demilitarization across the world must be a key component of climate justice,” Adow said.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry’s top diplomat for the Mideast, Oded Joseph, said Israel’s priority at the moment is fighting and protecting their civilians, with climate and environmental crises being dealt with “once we meet that objective,” he said.
The war began on Oct. 7 when an attack on Israel killed 1,200 people and was retaliated with a punishing weekslong air and later ground assault on the Gaza Strip with no end in sight. A nearly week-long temporary truce ended Friday.
But beyond the war, the wider occupation is still detrimental to efforts toward climate and environmental justice, activists say.
“Climate justice is inseparable from justice for Palestinians,” said Dylan Hamilton, policy coordinator for the Alliance of Non-Governmental Radical Youth. “There can be no climate justice on occupied land.”
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ISTANBUL, Oct 18 (Reuters) - The Turkish Central Bank said on Tuesday it raised the securities maintenance ratio required for foreign exchange deposits to 5% from 3% and that further steps as part of its "liraization strategy" will be taken this year and in 2023.The central bank started to promote the conversion from forex deposits to lira deposits under the strategy in December 2021, as it sought to support the ailing lira, resulting in an increase in the share of lira in banks' balance sheets."The practice has strengthened banks’ balance sheets, thereby supporting financial stability," the bank said.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comIt said in the statement that by the beginning of 2023 the level of securities which banks must hold will be based on the target for the share of Turkish lira deposits in total deposits.From 2023, banks whose lira deposits are less than 50% of their total deposits will have to maintain an additional 7 percentage points of bonds.The lira was little changed at 18.5890 against the dollar after the central bank announcement.The central bank is expected to cut its policy rate by 100 basis points to 11% this week, according to a Reuters poll, after President Tayyip Erdogan called for more easing each month and said rates should be single digits by year-end. read more The bank embarked on an easing cycle last autumn and also shocked markets with rate cuts in the past two months. As a result of the easing cycle, the lira weakened 44% last year and is down another 29% this year.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Nevzat Devranoglu and Birsen Altayli;
Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Christian SchmollingerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
In two weeks, more than 40 African heads of state, U.S. and African business leaders, civil society leaders, media, and members of the African Diaspora will converge on Washington, D.C., for the U.S. Africa Leaders Summit (ALS). This is only the second time that an American president has invested the political capital to host such a gathering, the first being by President Barak Obama in 2014. Meanwhile, the rest of the world — from China to the European Union, France, India, the Gulf States and Russia — has engaged Africa with regularity. The Summit is expected to provide meat-on-the-bones to the U.S. Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa, released last August, which called for reciprocity and partnership. Several signature initiatives are expected to be announced during the U.S. Africa Business Forum. The Biden administration deserves credit. The ALS comes at a moment of global fragility, which is gravely impacting Africa, including COVID-19’s health and economic shocks, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and some of the most catastrophic weather events in a decade. Yet business is getting done, and Africa is hopeful for a more engaged United States. Earlier this month, I traveled to Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, to participate in the Africa Investment Forum (AIF) established by the Africa Development Bank (AfDB) in 2018 to close the infrastructure financing gap estimated at $170 billion a year. The other founding partners include Africa50, the Africa Finance Corporation, the Africa Export-Import Bank, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the Trade and Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, and the Islamic Development Bank. The centerpiece of the three-day program was the “boardrooms,” where heads of state serve as CEOs to close complex transactions. It is an African innovation, bringing governments, financiers, and the private sector together to break-down the investment barriers that have plagued the continent, particularly perceptions of risk. This was the first in-person AIF since the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, so I thought it would be a good place to take the pulse ahead of the Biden Africa Summit from nearly 2,000 participants engaged in the high-stakes race to transform the continent’s economic landscape ahead of a demographic explosion where by 2050 one in four persons will be African. Here’s is what I took away. First, Africans increasingly know where they stand, believing that they have suffered from placing excessive trust in the West and in Western institutions — from poor vaccine access and the devastating economic consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine to a global climate consensus that strips them of energy agency essential for growth. Africans also feel that they are absorbing the cost of the rebalancing of political power in Europe, with inflationary pressures causing unrest, while compelled to operate within the rigidity of the Debt Service Suspension Initiative and the Common Framework for debt treatments. They look with dismay at the failure of the European Union and the United States to re-allocate their Standard Drawing Rights from the International Monetary Fund. In short, Africans are demanding a seat at the table in the institutions that were created when most of these young nations were under colonial rule. They feel that a new global framework must be developed, with financial and debt restructuring tools. Second, the disconnect between African governments and their private sectors is striking. You sense that African business leaders can see the future, which many are driving — from climate innovation, to the creative industries, to healthcare and digitization, entrepreneurship and trade — an almost infectious energy reflected in the private discussions, the board rooms, and captured in the public programming. This private sector dynamism is in stark contrast to the lethargy and inertia of many of Africa’s governments and political leaders, both those present and those not. Government malaise can be tallied in the post-COVID19 spike in military coups, in the presidential field of octogenarians in Nigeria, one of Africa’s largest and most dynamic economies, and with the coronation of a Central African president who is expected to extend his 43 years in office. Third, all bets are on the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) and the urgency of now. From the opening plenary, when Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo insisted that Africa must replicate the economic development and wealth creation model of the European Union (EU) where 75 percent of the trade is within the EU, through the closing session when deal commitments were announced, the AfCTA loomed large. Coming into force on Jan. 1, 2021, AfCTA is the world’s largest single market, with a population size of 1.3 billion people and a combined Gross Domestic Product of $3.4 trillion. It connects 55 countries, across a landmass of more than 30 million square kilometers. It has the potential to lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty. Conference participants candidly discussed how the lack of transparency, along with the high cost of foreign exchange and negative perceptions about doing business in Africa, are hampering the ambitions of this free trade vision. There was an acute awareness that each early investment dollar will matter and that the name of the game is to de-risk the financing of Africa’s infrastructure. And lastly, a hope that cross-border standardization could become an unstoppable force to modernize African public institutions and unshackle the continent’s future. Meanwhile, in the “boardrooms,” the real progress was being made as the final hurdles to the Abidjan-Lagos Highway were overcome. This megaproject will connect 75 percent of West Africa’s commercial activities through 15 nations. The Lagos-Abidjan stretch is projected to be the largest zone of continuous dense habitation on earth, with something in the order of half a billion people. So where does this leave us two weeks out from the Biden Africa Summit? In summary, with an African business community that is revolutionizing public-private partnerships while Western financial institutions largely sit on the sidelines; with African governments that are failing to keep pace with the changing expectations of their people, and finally, with a continent whose free trade agenda will increasingly shape its future, global economic prosperity, and the prospects for limiting the climate crisis. K. Riva Levinson is president and CEO of KRL International LLC, a D.C.-based consultancy that works in the world’s emerging markets, award-winning author of “Choosing the Hero: My Improbable Journey and the Rise of Africa’s First Woman President” (Kiwai Media, June 2016). You can follow her on Twitter @rivalevinson | Africa Business & Economics |
Jesse Watters: The problem with reparations Jesse Watters discusses President Biden’s $55 billion dollar plan that will provide Africa with solar panels and the problems with a potential reparations plan in the U.S. on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime.’Fox News host Jesse Watters points out that President Biden's plan to send billions of dollars worth of renewable energy sources to Africa and removing its coal industry would harm its economy on "Jesse Watters Primetime."JESSE WATTERS: Joe Biden just announced $55 billion in reparations for Africa. …Are the Dutch chipping in? What about the English? What about the African chiefs who sold slaves to the West? Nope. We're going to get this check. So, are they going to get reparations in cash? Gold? Bitcoin? No. Solar panels.BIDEN ROASTED FOR SENDING SOUTH AFRICA $8 BILLION TO SHUT DOWN COAL PLANTS: ‘WEAPON-GRADE LUNACY’ U.S. President Joe Biden delivers keynote remarks at a U.S.-Africa Business forum at the 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, U.S., December 14, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)…Sorry about slavery. Here is a solar panel. And, oh, if you work in a coal mine, you're fired. Is this what Africa needs right now? You can't run a continent on green. You can't just skip industrialization and go straight to windmills. Africa is never going to get out of poverty by killing coal. Let's get the African economy spinning first before we start installing electric car charging stations along the Nile. Renewables are just a side dish. Fossil fuels — the main course. And I'm open to listening to people who feel Black people are owed something from a country that enslaves their ancestors, but these green reparations are going to keep Africa in poverty. And what about slavery reparations in America? Because those are coming. Newsom in California wants to hand out half a trillion dollars in reparations, a quarter million to any Black person whose ancestors faced housing discrimination. That is a fortune. But a lot of California residents say that's not enough.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP | Africa Business & Economics |
Murrawah Johnson was on the phone with a solicitor, preparing for a historic court case, when she suddenly went into labour.
The 28-year-old Wirdi woman had been fighting a David-and-Goliath-type battle against a Clive Palmer-owned project for Australia’s largest thermal coal mine in the Galilee basin.
Johnson was not only heavily pregnant – she had also contracted Covid-19.
“I was in labour and I was on the phone with the lawyers right up to the last minute trying to organise the welcome to country,” she tells Guardian Australia.
“I was like, ‘oh I’m just here at the hospital. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t think I’m having my baby yet’.”
Within a fortnight, and after testing negative for Covid-19, Johnson spoke outside the Brisbane land court with her newborn baby ahead of the first hearings last year.
Months later, a Queensland court would make a historic ruling and recommend the refusal of the Galilee basin coal project on the grounds that it would infringe upon the human rights of future generations.
Johnson and her colleague Monique Jeffs are now being recognised for their backbreaking work on the case. As the co-directors of Youth Verdict, the pair have been awarded a Young Voltaire human rights award from Liberty Victoria for their landmark victory.
The $6.5bn proposal by Waratah Coal was rejected by the Queensland government in April. If approved, it would have removed 40m tonnes a year from four underground mines.
Jeffs, 23, says the matter set a powerful precedent as the first Australian case linking human rights and climate change.
“We were really happy and relieved when we won because there are so many stories of power, money and influence winning and community and the environment losing,” Jeffs says.
Youth Verdict’s case was first launched in 2020 and had initially stemmed from an ambition to test the state’s relatively new Human Rights Act. But it soon became clear that First Nations people needed to be involved.
“We [knew] First Nations justice can’t be separated from environmental justice. All of us were white settlers, non-Indigenous people. We were really conscious of that and thinking: how do we act in this space?” Jeffs says.
“The history of the climate movement is very white.”
Johnson was initially asked to provide evidence in the case by the Environmental Defenders Office, a non-profit that took up the case. But she knew she had more to offer the team.
“I wanted to be part of the decision-making and strategy … I wanted a court case that would win and knock it out of the park … I saw it as an opportunity to really break new ground,” she says.
As a youth spokesperson for the Wangan and Jagalingou family council, Johnson already had eight years’ experience under her belt fighting against another behemoth – Adani, now known as Bravus.
Under her stewardship, the case against Waratah Coal achieved another first, with the court travelling to take on-country testimonies from First Nations witnesses in Gimuy (Cairns) and the Erub and Poruma Islands of the Torres Strait.
“We had six court cases [against Adani] and lost every single one of them but ... if Eddie Mabo hadn’t gone to court, we’d still be living under the doctrine of terra nullius,” she says.
“When [the courts] work in our favour, it’s monumental and creates a swell for advancement in First Nations rights in this country.”
Youth Verdict now has its sights set on its next avenues of litigation. As a new mother, Johnson is determined to conserve the country for those inheriting it – like her now 18-month-old daughter.
“First Nations people, we’re the oldest surviving culture in the world so we have a lot to teach,” she says.
“It’s really about prioritising the future that younger people want to inherit … and it has to be guided by First Nations principles.” | Australia Business & Economics |
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said he would support a public holiday if the Australian women’s soccer team, the Matildas, win the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The New South Wales Premier, Chris Minns, has said he would support the idea, telling 2GB that a Women’s World Cup win would be life-changing for the state’s history.
“If the Matildas win the semi-final and then win the World Cup final, then yes we will pursue a public holiday in NSW, not just to celebrate the victory but also to have a massive civic celebration and allow the Matildas to celebrate with the people of Sydney what will be an amazing, like, life-changing and unbelievable event in the state’s history,” he said.
The Matildas are set to play against England in the semi-final on Wednesday, before the final on Sunday. Minns, who believes a public holiday could be an economic win for the state, said the day off would not occur on the Monday immediately after the game, but would happen within a week of the win – should it happen.
Though there is much excitement around the win and a possible public holiday, not everyone is in favour. National party leader, David Littleproud, said the move could be costly.
“I think we’ve just got to understand that someone’s got to foot that bill and businesses out there are doing it tough,” he told the ABC. “We live in a great nation – we can celebrate our wins – but we have to get on and pay the bills and make sure that the country keeps going.”
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews also called on his peers to “not jinx” the team ahead of the game.
The Australian Prime Minister has said the decision is ultimately up to the individual state and territory leaders, but would support it in Wednesday’s national cabinet meeting. | Australia Business & Economics |
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TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Seconds after Palestinian gunmen began shooting up a busy Jerusalem bus stop last week, Yuval Castleman raced toward the scene and opened fire on the attackers — only to be shot and killed by an Israeli soldier who apparently suspected he was also an assailant.
The shooting of Castleman, who in security camera footage is seen kneeling, raising his hands and flinging open his shirt to indicate he isn’t a threat, underscores what critics say is an epidemic of excessive force by Israeli soldiers, police and armed citizens against suspected Palestinian attackers.
“He took all the necessary steps so that he could be properly identified,” Castleman’s father, Moshe, told Israeli Army Radio on Sunday, “and they kept shooting at him.”
Castleman’s shooting mirrors previous incidents where Israeli security forces or civilians have opened fire on attackers who no longer appear to pose a threat, or on suspected assailants or unarmed civilians deemed to be threats.
The incident comes as tensions have been inflamed by the war between Israel and Hamas, with Israelis on edge and bracing for further attacks. It also coincides with a drive by Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, to ramp up the number of gun-toting civilians.
Palestinians and human rights groups have long accused Israeli forces of using excessive force, killing attackers who no longer posed a threat and even harming innocent people mistaken for attackers and then skirting accountability.
Early Thursday, as the entrance to Jerusalem was swelling with traffic, two Hamas militants exited their car at a bus stop and opened fire on waiting commuters, killing three. In security camera footage, Castleman is seen running from the other side of the busy highway, brandishing his gun and shooting at the attackers. Soldiers are also seen opening fire.
Castleman, a 38-year-old lawyer who was on his way to work, is seen appearing to flee the gunshots. He then kneels, raises his arms and opens his shirt before he is shot.
His family is demanding to know how the heroism of their son culminated in his killing.
Israeli authorities are investigating the incident and police said initial findings showed one of the soldiers “mistakenly suspected” Castleman was an attacker. Castleman, a resident of a Jerusalem suburb, had previously worked in the Israeli security forces, according to his father, and used his own gun against the attackers. He was shot in the jaw, chin and stomach.
The soldier, identified by Israeli media as reservist Aviad Frija, told Israeli Channel 14 TV that he was active among “hilltop youth” — a term used to refer to radicalized Jewish teen squatters on hilltops in the occupied West Bank who have been known to attack Palestinians and their property.
READ MORE: UN reports says West Bank settler violence has displaced over 1,100 Palestinians since last year
Frija was not asked about Castleman’s shooting. But he boasted about killing the attackers, saying doing so was every soldier’s goal.
Hilltop youth are politically aligned with Ben-Gvir, a disciple of a racist rabbi, who as the minister in charge of police has been leading a drive to proliferate arms among civilians by loosening the criteria for acquiring a gun permit. Ben-Gvir said Thursday’s attack proved his policies were needed.
“Weapons save lives. We see this time after time. Everywhere there are arms, citizens, police, soldiers save lives,” he said at the scene, without referring to Castleman. Ben-Gvir has also pushed for a national guard force he says is meant to fill in gaps where police are spread thin. Critics say it would amount to his own personal militia.
Asked about the shooting on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he supported Ben-Gvir’s policy to increase access to weapons even if it meant civilians like Castleman could be killed.
“The presence of armed civilians many times saved the day and prevented a bigger disaster,” he told reporters. “It could be that we will pay a price for it. That’s life.”
Netanyahu rival-turned-wartime ally Benny Gantz called for an investigation into the proper use of guns and the regulations surrounding their use.
“That’s not ‘life,’ but a warning sign,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter.
After an uproar over his comments, Netanyahu reversed course on Sunday, calling Castleman’s death a “terrible tragedy.”
“He is an Israeli hero,” Netanyahu said. He promised a thorough investigation and said he had called Castleman’s father to offer condolences.
Thursday’s incident had echoes of previous ones that have shed light on Israeli open fire rules. Most infamous was the 2016 shooting death by an Israeli soldier of a badly wounded Palestinian assailant as he lay on the ground.
The shooting by Sgt. Elor Azaria, which came as Israel was battling a low-level wave of Palestinian attacks, divided the country. While Israel’s top generals pushed for the prosecution of a soldier they say violated the military’s code of ethics, large segments of the public, including politicians on Israel’s nationalist right, sided with Azaria. Even Netanyahu, in a nod to his nationalist base, gave only lukewarm support to his military.
Similarly, in 2015, after a deadly Palestinian attack at a bus station in the southern city of Beersheba, an Eritrean man was shot and beaten to death by a mob after being mistaken for an assailant. Two men charged with the death were acquitted, with the court siding with their claim that they believed he was an attacker.
Critics said Thursday’s incident was especially severe because Castleman took what they said were clear steps to prove that he was not an attacker.
“It was an execution,” wrote Shelly Yacimovich, a former leader of Israel’s liberal Labor Party, on the Ynet news site. “Against the law, against open fire regulations, the sanctity of arms. Immoral. And all that would be true even if he was a terrorist.”
Moshe Karadi, a former police chief, said he believed the background of the soldier who allegedly shot Castleman influenced his thought process. “The finger is lighter on the trigger there than in other places,” he said, referring to the West Bank, where settler violence has flared during the war.
Karadi said Ben-Gvir’s crusade to arm more civilians would lead to untrained and unqualified arms carriers. He said greater access to guns would spark increased violence against minorities and women and lead to more incidents like Thursday’s killing of an innocent civilian.
Diana Buttu, a Palestinian analyst, said the incident reflected a reality that Palestinians have long lived with. She said how Castleman died — arms raised, knees to the ground — didn’t surprise her given the heightened tensions since the war, coupled with what Palestinians see as the systemic use of excessive force and a drive to have more Israelis carry arms.
“It was really just a question of time until someone was gunned down in that way,” she said.
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MoneyWatch June 15, 2022 / 2:02 PM / MoneyWatch Biden administration takes on rising inflation Biden administration's economic team works to curb rising inflation 06:33 The Federal Reserve said on Wednesday that it is raising its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point, the sharpest hike since 1994, as it seeks to combat the fiercest surge in U.S. inflation in four decades. The U.S. central bank set its target rate in the range of 1.25 to 1.5%. The federal funds rate, which controls how much banks pay to borrow money from each other, affects borrowing costs for consumers and businesses. The Fed had previously suggested it was likely to boost rates by half a percentage point at each of its three meetings this year, but recent signals that inflation is accelerating spurred policymakers to move more aggressively to slow economic growth in a bid to tame prices. Overall, the economy remains strong, with unemployment near a 50-year low of 3.6% and businesses continuing to hire. But the steepest inflation since 1981 is hitting households hards and causing consumer spending to shrink, with the government reporting that retail sales fell in May. The 0.3% decline, the first such drop since December, is a sign that high gas prices may be forcing consumers to spend less on other purchases. Last week, a sentiment survey by the University of Michigan found that Americans' expectations for future inflation are rising, a worrisome sign for the Fed because expectations can become self-fulfilling. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell is set to speak to reporters at 2:30 p.m., explaining his outlook for the U.S. economy. This is a developing story. The Associated Press contributed reporting. Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | Inflation |
FILE PHOTO - Vehicles drive in front of the MetLife Inc. building in Manhattan, New York, U.S., December 7, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew KellyRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comAug 3 (Reuters) - U.S. insurer MetLife Inc (MET.N) reported a 22% fall in quarterly profit on Wednesday as weaker investment returns offset gains from rising premiums.Growing worries of a recession, geopolitical turmoil and rate hikes have dragged global equity markets, muddying a rebound in investment income from pandemic lows.Overall net investment income fell by 32% to $3.58 billion, hurt by changes in the estimated fair value of certain securities.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comThat led to a 16% fall in total revenues to $15.56 billion in the three months ended June 30.Adjusted earnings of the insurer's Latin America business saw a 175% jump, however, partially offsetting a 13% decline in its U.S. business and a 26% slump in Asia.MetLife also said its net derivative losses came in at $1.2 billion, compared with a gain of $421 million a year earlier.The insurer holds a book of derivatives to hedge against market volatility. Such gains do not indicate the actual performance of the company, but reflect the effect of accounting rules, an issue that has occurred in some previous quarters.Metlife reported adjusted earnings of $1.63 billion for the second quarter ended June 30, down from $2.1 billion a year earlier.Stripping one-off items, the company reported a profit of $2 a share, sailing past analysts' estimates of $1.45 a share, according to data from Refinitiv.The company's premiums, fees and other revenues came in at $13.9 billion, up 23% from last year.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Noor Zainab Hussain and Mehnaz Yasmin in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika SyamnathOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Banking & Finance |
Millions more Brits can now live and work in Australia after the age limit for working holiday visas went up to 35.
The age limit has been extended from 30 for all British citizens meaning 16 million adults are now eligible.
Popular with backpacker tourists, the changes are a key part of the free trade agreement struck between the two countries last year.
It will also be easier for Australians to work and travel in the UK.
It follows an agreement between New Zealand and the UK to expand working holiday visas up to 35-year-olds.
The scheme will allow Brits to work and live in Australia for up to three years from 1 July 2024, with various restrictions on the type of work that visitors are allowed to do to be lifted.
In a rule going back more than a decade, British working holiday makers had to complete 88 days of agricultural work if they wanted to stay in Australia, for every additional year they would like to stay on.
These rules are now being eased, allowing visitors to work more freely across industries.
The three-year allowance does not have to be consecutive and can be taken at any time up until the age of 35.
Sally Cope, UK regional general manager for Tourism Australia, said there had been lots of interest from foreign travellers recently in the big sporting events coming up in Australia over the next few years.
"It's an exciting time and these big sporting events, like the FIFA women's football world cup and Olympics in Brisbane in 2032, offer the temporary contract type work that young visitors want."
According to Tourism Australia, there are around 35,000 arrivals from the UK on working holiday visas each year and many stay on.
Restrictions are also easing for Australians. From February 2024 the age range will go up to 35, instead of 30, and they will be able to stay for three years instead of two.
Australia is a popular destination for young people, among Europeans.
Aside from lifestyle attractions, wages are slightly higher than many European countries.
Australia's minimum wage is currently $21.38 (£11.22) with the UK's minimum wage standing at £10.42, for those aged over 23 years old.
Are you over 30 and planning to apply for a gap year in Australia? You can contact us by emailing [email protected].
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Japanese yen and U.S. dollar banknotes are seen with a currency exchange rate graph in this illustration picture taken June 16, 2022. REUTERS/Florence Lo/IllustrationRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comHONG KONG, Sept 22 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The Japanese government has grudgingly responded to the Federal Reserve’s hiking cycle by moving to prop up the staggering yen, the first such intervention since 1998. The “decisive action”, in the words of Vice Finance Minister for International Affairs Masato Kanda, caused the currency to pop up to 140 per dollar. But the country’s economic outlook makes such intervention unlikely to work.Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda must be a frustrated man. There is no domestic case for him to hike interest rates; inflation is slightly above his 2% target, but for the wrong reasons, namely war in Europe and excess stimulus in the United States. Japanese growth, at 2.2% in the last quarter, is uninspiring. The BOJ would rather wait for the outcome of companies’ annual wage negotiations next year before leaping to policy conclusions.And yet. Runaway inflation in the United States has caught the U.S. Federal Reserve off guard, so Chair Jerome Powell has been forced to hike rates aggressively even as Kuroda maintained Japan’s ultra-loose monetary policy on Thursday. That further widens the gap between American and Japanese benchmark bond yields – already well over 3 percentage points – which further hurts the yen. The currency has lost 29% since a peak in December 2020, most of that since March. Even Japanese exporters that benefit from a weak currency are anxious about its volatility – what goes down can rebound just as quickly.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comThat’s why Tokyo has decided to deploy some of its $1.3 trillion in forex reserves to stem the slide. Yet Japan’s economic divergence from its western peers means the best the government can hope for is to moderate the slope of the yen’s descent.There is a worse scenario, however. Bond investors have already expressed scepticism towards the BOJ’s commitment to keeping the 10-year sovereign bond yield below 0.25%. They pushed the yield above that limit in June and again this week, Refinitiv data show. The Tokyo financial community is awash with rumours that foreign hedge funds have been vigorously shorting the yen in New York and London trading hours. That may explain the government’s decision to intervene. But if it doesn’t work – and unilateral interventions have a poor track record – then Japanese authorities’ credibility will take a major hit. That would make the Bank of Japan’s job even harder.Parting waysFollow @petesweeneypro on TwitterCONTEXT NEWSJapan intervened in the foreign exchange market for the first time since 1998 in an attempt to prop up the yen.The Japanese currency has depreciated nearly 20% against the dollar this year, as the Bank of Japan has stuck to its ultra-loose monetary policy even as other central banks have raised rates.The move initially sent the dollar plunging over 2% to 140.3 yen. The yen was at 141.11 to the dollar as of 1225 GMT.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comEditing by Neil Unmack and Oliver TaslicOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.Pete SweeneyThomson ReutersAsia Economics Editor Pete Sweeney joined Reuters Breakingviews in Hong Kong in September 2016. Previously he served as Reuters' chief correspondent for China Economy and Markets, running teams in Shanghai and Beijing; before that he was editor of China Economic Review, a monthly magazine focused on providing news and analysis on the mainland economy. Sweeney came to China as a Fulbright scholar in 2008, and in that role conducted research on the Chinese aviation industry and outbound M&A. In prior incarnations he helped resettle refugees in Atlanta, covered the European Union out of Brussels, and took a poorly timed swing at craft-beer entrepreneurship in Quito even as the Ecuadorean currency collapsed (not his fault). He speaks Mandarin Chinese, at the expense of his Spanish. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
The headquarters of the African Development Bank (AfDB) are pictured in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, September 16, 2016. Picture taken September 16, 2016. REUTERS/Luc GnagoRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comMARRAKECH, Morocco, July 19 (Reuters) - African countries need to leverage more private funds to meet infrastructure financing needs estimated at between $68 billion and $108 billion annually, the chief executive of Africa50, an infrastructure investment offshoot of the African Development Bank, said on Tuesday in Marrakech.Leveraging more private capital to finance infrastructure projects, as part of public-private partnerships, would help free public funds to projects shunned by the private sector, CEO Alain Ebobissé said on the eve of the launch of a U.S- Africa business summit.Since its creation six years ago, Africa50 has spent $5 billion on 16 projects in the fields of energy, transport, information and communication technologies, healthcare and education.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comAfrica50 has also signed on the same day a deal with a grouping of some of the richest African wealth funds to increase their involvement in African infrastructure investments.Since 2013, China has been the top foreign investor in Africa, unrolling billions of dollars on the continent’s infrastructure. The U.S. is stepping up efforts, but is still far from catching up.The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) had planned $26 million last year to fund feasibility studies of African investment projects with a potential to generate $17 billion in financing, the agency's director, Enoh Ebong, told Reuters."Sub-Saharan Africa is one of our largest portfolios at the agency," she said, adding that she sees demand growing on U.S. companies from the continent.While U.S. companies take care of feasibility studies funded by the USTDA, African partners "can get financing from any party whatsoever. We would like it that they do it with our fellow U.S. government agencies, but we do not put any condition on who finances that project," Ebong said."For every $1 spent on feasibility studies we see a return of $117, which translates into jobs in the U.S.,” Ebong said."We are absolutely competitive, and we see it in the partners who are picking U.S. companies in head-to-head competition with Chinese companies," she added, calling infrastructure "key to trade."Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Ahmed Eljechtimi; Editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Africa Business & Economics |
Today, Canada’s Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced additional measures aimed at attracting more global tech talent to Canada. These measures comprise the launch of what Fraser and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) are referring to as Canada’s first-ever Tech Talent Strategy.
IRCC will improve labour mobility in North America by creating a streamlined work permit for H-1B speciality occupation visa holders in the US to apply to come to Canada. Right now, many workers in high-tech fields are employed in companies with operations in Canada and the US, and those working in the US often have a H-1B speciality occupation visa.
As of July 16th 2023, H1-B holders in the US and their accompanying immediate family members will be eligible to apply to come to Canada. The approved applicants will receive an open work permit for up to three years, which means they can work for almost any employer in Canada. In addition, their spouses and dependents can also be eligible to apply for a temporary resident visa.
IRCC believes this will expand available opportunities for skilled workers to continue to pursue careers in the high-tech sector and contribute to economic growth in North America. This measure will remain in effect for one year or until IRCC receives 10,000 applications.
IRCC will develop a new Innovation Stream under the International Mobility Program to attract highly talented individuals. After consulting with tech industry stakeholders, there are still labour shortages in key tech occupations, and broadening Canada’s talent base should continue to be a goal.
The Canadian Government will therefore launch a new Innovation Stream by the end of 2023, that will create an exemption from the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) process to help employers and talented workers in support of Canada’s innovation priorities and high-tech industries.
IRCC is considering two options:
IRCC will also promote Canada as a destination for digital nomads. A digital nomad is a person who can perform their job remotely from anywhere in the world. In the months ahead, IRCC will collaborate with public and private partners to determine whether additional policies to attract digital nomads to Canada would be desirable.
Under current Canadian immigration rules, a digital nomad can remain in Canada for up to six months as a visitor while they perform their job remotely for a foreign employer. IRCC expects that some of these digital nomads who enter Canada will decide to seek opportunities with Canadian employers, bringing their skills to Canada by applying for a temporary work permit or permanent residence.
IRCC is also launching category-based selection draws for Express Entry candidates. IRCC will give preference to Express Entry candidates who have a strong French language proficiency or work experience in various fields, including the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professions.
The categories were chosen based on labour market shortages and projections, and input received from IRCC partners, provinces and territories and stakeholder across the country. Statistics Canada released a report at the end of 2022 stating that there is a gap in skills needed in Canada’s STEM labor force.
The Global Skills Strategy is designed to support Canadian employers seeking quick access to highly skilled talent around the world. IRCC processing times for these work permits have recovered to the two-week standard after delays throughout the pandemic. In addition, Employment and Social Development Canada is meeting the two-week standard for processing Global Talent Stream LMIA’s for employers.
The Start Up Visa (SUV) program is a path to permanent residence for foreign entrepreneurs who gain the support of a designated Canadian venture capital fund, angel investor organization or business incubator for their start up.
To address the lengthy wait times for applicants, more spots were allocated under this program, increasing from 1,000 to 3,500. This means targets have tripled the number of permanent residents expected in the Federal Business category for 2023, and this number is expected to increase even more for 2024 and 2025.
In addition, IRCC will change the temporary work permit option for SUV applicants and allow them to apply for an open work permit of up to three years, rather than a one-year work permit that limits them to work solely for their own start up.
This is in response to feedback from stakeholders that have made it clear that start-up entrepreneurs may not have the ability to make a full salary and being given the opportunity to earn additional income elsewhere can ease financial stress on these individuals and their families.
The work permit will be available to each member of the entrepreneurial team. Before this announcement, only members of the entrepreneurial team who were identified as essential and urgently needed in Canada could apply for a work permit.
IRCC will also prioritize applications that are supported by committed capital or endorsed by a business incubator that is also a member of Canada’s Tech network to move to the front of the processing line.
Sponsor ContentLive Webinar: Getting an Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) for Express Entry and the WES Process | Workforce / Labor |
CoinCorner, a global leader in Bitcoin and Lightning Network services, has partnered with Seed Group, a company of the Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, to facilitate Bitcoin transactions in The United Arab Emirates (UAE).“Apart from individuals, a large number of companies are ready to embrace Bitcoin and other digital currencies as legal tender for future transactions,” said Hisham Al Gurg, CEO of Seed Group and the Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum. “The UAE wants to offer a growth-oriented environment to fintech companies by establishing an ecosystem for digital currencies. Companies dealing in cryptocurrencies hold huge potential in the Emirates’ digital economy.”Seed Group will help CoinCorner expand their operations into the Emirates and wider Middle East, market their products and services effectively, reach their audience, and access the top decision-makers in the government as well as private sectors. CoinCorner will be focusing on establishing a user-friendly platform where UAE residents can buy, sell, send, receive, and store bitcoin, as well as offer local businesses solutions to dealing in bitcoin.“We are pleased to enter into a mutually beneficial partnership with Seed Group,” said Danny Scott, CEO of CoinCorner. “We are committed to making Bitcoin transactions the “new normal” in the UAE with the help of our unique solutions, facilitating instant and frictionless payments.”This partnership will give CoinCorner access to one of the fastest growing economies and further its opportunities to reach out to prospective clients based in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia regions.The UAE is amongst the world's top four countries that are primed for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency adoption, according to a recent study by Forex. The UAE’s bitcoin and crypto market is the third largest in the Middle East, with a transaction volume of around $26 billion. Over the previous financial year, the market there had grown an astounding 1,500% in 2020-21. | Middle East Business & Economics |
| June 13, 2022 09:39 AM | Updated Jun 13, 2022, 04:14 PM Stocks plunged into bear market territory on Monday as investors increasingly worry that a recession or stagflation is on the horizon. The S&P 500 fell nearly 3.9% at close to enter a bear market. A bear market is when an index drops to below 20% from a recent high. The S&P 500 has fallen nearly 22% since the start of the year, its most recent peak. The Chicago Board Options Exchange volatility index is intended to gauge fear in the markets. The index was up more than 110% since the start of the year, an enormous leap that shows the extreme anxiety investors have about the economy’s future. Stocks had previously entered a bear market last month, but they managed to claw back some of those losses before tumbling back into the red again on Monday. Also on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 875 points, and the Nasdaq composite shed about 4.7% of its value. NEW HOME SALES FALL TO PRE-PANDEMIC LEVELS The last sustained bear market was a short period of time at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, the last time the economy experienced a bear market was during the financial crisis more than a decade ago, which lasted for 517 days. A driving factor behind the rout in the stock market is the Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening. After years of loose monetary policy, with interest rates at near zero, the Fed is now working to raise rates quickly in an effort to crush the country’s spiraling inflation. Consumer prices increased an explosive 8.6% in May on an annual basis, the highest rate of inflation since the early 1980s. The Fed has indicated it plans to hike interest rates several times this year, which might mean the bear market will have some staying power. The inflation report came in hotter than expected and caused increased anxiety in the markets on Friday and Monday. The central bank increased its interest rate target by a quarter of a percentage point in March and subsequently hiked rates by half a percentage point earlier this month. The half-point hike is analogous to two simultaneous rate increases and shows that the central bank is growing increasingly more concerned about inflation. The last time the Fed made such an aggressive move was more than two decades ago. By raising interest rates, the Fed hopes to slow spending. Some market-watchers fear that because the Fed is now moving so aggressively, it will slow the economy down too much and cause a recession. Some investors have expected that if the stock market drops too precipitously, the Fed will intervene and pause its rate hike cycle or even slash rates, although given the historic levels of inflation, it appears that the central bank has no intentions of doing so, even if it means stocks will continue to crater. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George recently signaled that Fed leadership would not be drawn off course by stock market declines. “I think what we are looking for is the transmission of our policy through markets' understanding, and that tightening should be expected,” she said. “It is one of the avenues through which tighter financial conditions will emerge.” There are also concerns about stagflation. Stagflation, a portmanteau of stagnation and inflation, is when inflation is rising at the same time that economic growth and the labor market are struggling. The term is often used to describe the U.S. economy of the 1970s when both inflation and unemployment were high. At the time, many top economists thought such a situation was impossible because it was believed that high inflation could be traded off for lower unemployment. Bear markets and stock selloffs do not necessarily indicate a recession, but they often go hand in hand. The National Bureau of Economic Research, a private academic group, defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.” While the gross domestic product declined by a 1.4% annual rate in the first quarter of this year, most forecasters are projecting that there will be positive growth for the second quarter, a reassuring prediction for those fearing a recession. Still, many economists believe a recession could be right around the corner. Goldman Sachs assigns a 35% chance of a recession in the next two years, while Wells Fargo’s economic model projects a 30% chance of a recession occurring in the next six months alone. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER As the Fed continues to raise interest rates, all eyes will be on the stock market to see what happens next. Top Fed officials are set to meet in June and July, and many investors foresee more of the aggressive half-point hikes following those gatherings. | Stocks Trading & Speculation |
- Former Egyptian Foreign Affairs Minister Nabil Fahmy told CNBC that the U.S. is "losing a tremendous amount of credibility in the Arab world."
- Hundreds of Palestinians anxiously hope to make the journey to Egypt via the Rafah crossing, the only exit point out of the Gaza Strip.
The current conflict in Gaza should provide a wake-up call to politicians in Washington, D.C, according to a former Egyptian foreign minister, who questioned the U.S.′ role in the region and the wider world.
The United States has been very vocal about the latest Israel-Hamas war, with President Joe Biden saying he will continue to support Israel's campaign against the Palestinian militant group.
It comes amid heavy international criticism of Israel's bombardment of the territory following the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas, which were also widely condemned.
Former Egyptian Foreign Affairs Minister Nabil Fahmy told CNBC that the U.S. is "losing a tremendous amount of credibility in the Arab world."
The "U.S. needs to take a serious look at its role. If it wants to support a stable world order based on rule of law, it has to demand everybody respect international law, whether friend or foe," Fahmy, who served as minister between 2013 and 2014, said in an interview.
A White House spokesperson told CNBC that "Israel has the right to defend itself in compliance with international law, including international humanitarian law, especially as Hamas terrorists have said that what happened on October 7th 'will happen again and again and again' until Israel is annihilated."
The Hamas-run health ministry says over 15,800 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the attacks on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people.
The U.S has faced criticism for its support of Israel's actions. Washington had previously vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that called for a humanitarian pause to allow for the delivery of aid into Gaza.
Domestically, Biden has been warned by some Muslim American and Arab American leaders in swing states that he is losing support from their communities, according to NBC News.
Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group, believes Biden is, on the global stage, probably as isolated on this issue as the Russians were when they first invaded Ukraine. He added that the Democrats are increasingly aligned with the Palestinian position.
"It shows just how challenging this war continuing is going to be for U.S. foreign policy," he told CNBC Tuesday.
The White House spokesperson told CNBC in an emailed statement that the U.S. continues to "urge Israel about the importance of preventing harm to civilians, and we are working with all partners in the region to increase the flow of additional life-saving aid into Gaza for Palestinian civilians."
Egypt – which borders Gaza – has played a key role in the humanitarian efforts surrounding the war to date, not least because it is home to the Rafah crossing, the only exit point out of the Gaza Strip.
Hundreds of Palestinians anxiously hope to make the journey to Egypt via this route. In the deal brokered by Qatar with Egypt, Israel, and Hamas, more than 500 foreign nationals were transported to Egypt in the first week of November. Egypt also accepted over 80 injured and sick people for treatment through the Rafah crossing in early November, which is mostly controlled by Egypt's intelligence ministry.
"We have a common border and we have allowed them to come to Egyptian hospitals until they can travel on to their homeland," Fahmy told CNBC.
Limited evacuations of fragile patients have been coordinated by the Palestine Red Crescent Society, the World Health Organization, and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The organizations have successfully evacuated premature babies from Gaza to Egypt.
As the closest and only functional border crossing, Rafah has been used to transport the most vulnerable Palestinians during the Israeli bombardment. The Palestine Red Crescent Society's spokesperson Nebal Farsakh said they had evacuated 28 premature babies via the crossing.
"They were transported to get treatment at Egyptian hospitals because the babies had health complications from the electricity being cut off which led the incubators to show down," she told CNBC from Ramallah, a city in the West Bank. | Middle East Business & Economics |
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington, United States. REUTERS/Yuri GripasJOHANNESBURG, Oct 21 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund said on Friday that it had reached a staff-level agreement with Malawi for up to $88.3 million in emergency financing, as the southern African country struggles with acute forex shortages.Reuters reported earlier this week that Malawi, which has been experiencing chaotic queues at fuel stations that are running dry due to a lack of foreign currency to make payments, was set to be the first African country to receive special IMF financing to deal with the global inflation crisis.The IMF said the money would help Malawi address urgent balance of payments needs, and support economic adjustment and structural reforms.Ukraine received $1.3 billion under the same new programme, known as the "Food Shock Window", earlier this month."Malawi's request will be discussed by the IMF's Executive Board as soon as possible," the Fund said, adding that Malawi needed to have started a credible debt restructuring process prior to the board's consideration.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWriting by Anait Miridzhanian;
Editing by Alexander Winning and Aurora EllisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Africa Business & Economics |
A person walks past a grocery store in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., March 28, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File PhotoRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWASHINGTON, June 14 (Reuters) - U.S. small-business confidence edged down in May as worries about high inflation persisted, according to a survey on Tuesday, which also showed demand for labor remained strong despite rising interest rates and tighter financial conditions.The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) said its Small Business Optimism Index dipped 0.1 point last month to 93.1. The share of owners expecting better business conditions over the next six months hit a record low.Expectations for better business conditions have deteriorated every month since January. Inflation remained the biggest challenge.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comHigh inflation has prompted an aggressive response from the U.S. Federal Reserve, leaving investors worrying about a protracted period of very slow growth or even a recession next year. The central bank is expected to raise its policy interest rate by another 50 basis points at the end of a two-day meeting on Wednesday. The Fed has increased the overnight rate by 75 basis points since March.The NFIB survey showed 51% of businesses reported job openings they could not fill, up four points from April. The vacancies were for both skilled and unskilled labor, with worker shortages most acute in the construction, manufacturing, retail, and wholesale industries. Small business job openings are more than 20 percentage points higher than the historical average.The government reported early this month that there were 11.4 million job openings across the economy at the end of April. The Fed is trying to cool demand for labor, without driving the unemployment rate too high.Despite the acute worker shortage, the appetite for wage increases is waning. About 46% of small business owners reported raising compensation, down three points from April. A quarter planned to do so in the next three months, down two points from April, but still a historically very high share.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by David GregorioOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Inflation |
With the planet warming at an unsustainable rate, two large Bay Area oil refineries are switching to liquid biofuels production — a seemingly cleaner alternative than fossil fuels. But those plans instead have run afoul of environmental groups that have filed lawsuits to bring the transition to a halt.
If successful, the lawsuits would reverse the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors’ approval last month for Marathon Petroleum and Phillips 66 to overhaul their facilities in Martinez and Rodeo to begin producing a more renewable energy source that’s processed from vegetable oils and animal fats rather than petroleum diesel.
Biofuels production represents a major shift for the refineries, which once provided thousands of East Bay union jobs and produced a significant portion of California’s gasoline supply. The supervisors last month found that the companies had satisfied the county’s review of whether the transition would comply with the state’s rigorous environmental laws.
But rather than embrace the transition away from the production of fossil fuels, identical lawsuits filed last week against the companies by the Center for Biological Diversity and Communities for a Better Environment allege the county treated the review as “a mere exercise” to usher through the corporate-run project, one that the petitioners suggest could strain food supplies and create just as many carbon emissions as crude oil. According to the lawsuits, large-scale processing of biofuels would require massive amounts of food crops, “which in turn require significant land dedicated to agriculture, fertilizer, pesticides, and other energy intensive resources.”
“There is broad (agreement) in scientific literature that increased demand for food crop biofuel feedstocks drives climate environmental harms and climate change,” the lawsuits state.
“I think what we’re seeing here in Contra Costa is that regulators are falling prey to the greenwashing of the (energy) industry,” Connie Cho of the Communities for a Better Environment, one of the lawsuits’ petitioners, said in an interview.
RODEO, CA – MAY 4: A Phillips 66 refinery facility is photographed on Wednesday, May 4, 2022, in Rodeo, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Bay Area environmental groups have long clashed with oil refineries — and lobbied for agencies to penalize them — over the hazards they pose to air quality and statewide carbon emissions.
The battles have intensified as environmental regulators across the region push to incentivize more electric vehicle use and fewer activities that pollute the air. At one point, the Marathon refinery in Martinez produced 18% of the state’s gasoline supply. In late 2020, however, the company paused operations at the refinery and laid off 700 workers, citing a decline in demand for gasoline during the pandemic.
While gas prices are surging once again, California is phasing out its dependence on gas. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in 2020 that starting in 2035 the state will no longer sell new gas-powered cars and passenger trucks.
Already sales of electric, hybrid and alternative energy vehicles are soaring: In February, the Newsom administration announced that the state’s 1 millionth electric plug-in car had been sold.
To keep up with the changing times, Marathon and Phillips 66 are championing biofuels as a viable path forward for the oil corporations as California looks to drastically reduce its carbon emissions by 2030.
The two companies plan to hire hundreds of workers and churn tens of thousands of barrels of vegetable oils and animal fats each day into fuel that will be largely used in commercial trucks and heavy-duty vehicles.
Their efforts to win permits to make the transition relied on a California Air Resources Board finding that biofuels meet its standard for what constitutes low-carbon fuel, and that transporting and distributing the product creates far fewer carbon emissions than crude oil.
A guard stands in front of the main entrance of the Tesoro Golden Eagle Refinery near Martinez, Calif., on Monday, March 10, 2014. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)
But the environmental groups allege that the companies’ promise of fewer emissions is dubious without more information about the kinds of feedstock that would be used or the amount of emissions created by transporting biofuels across large distances.
They argue that the board’s finding is too broad to be applied wholesale to the Martinez and Rodeo refineries’ projects, at least not without more specific analysis.
Due to agency policy, the state air board has not formally taken a position on the refineries’ biofuels proposal.
Richard Corey, the board’s executive officer, did say at last month’s hearing that biofuels generally create 30% less emissions than traditional petroleum diesel, but that certain feedstock blends are better than others.
At the same hearing, union workers showed up in large numbers to support the refineries’ proposal, urging the board to help transition their jobs to a climate-friendly economy.
But the environmental groups aren’t giving up. Cho said the county needs to reopen its environmental review and figure out if the types of feedstocks used and transportation involved in the biofuels project will actually cut emissions or create about the same amount.
“Workers and communities bear the same risk if these projects are not what the industry giants are saying that they are,” she said.
A Marathon representative declined to comment directly on the lawsuits but said in an email that the project’s environmental review was “researched, drafted and approved” under a rigorous process. The company plans to finish overhauling the Martinez plant and begin producing biofuels by the end of the year. | Renewable Energy |
Immigration Minister Sean Fraser on Tuesday said Canada is going after so-called “digital nomads” in STEM fields amid a “global race” for high-skilled workers — and at the same time, rolling out plans to help temporary foreign workers develop more skills while they work in Canada.
Speaking at the Collision Conference in Toronto on Tuesday, Fraser said Canada was preparing a roadmap to win what he called a “global race” to attract the best tech talent in the world.
“People and capital have been more mobile than they have ever been at any point in the world’s history,” he said.
“There’s no question that as borders opened up, that we are in a global race for the same pool of talent as our competitors around the entire world. I think Canada is winning that race, but we might be winning it by an even larger margin.”
Fraser said Ottawa would be launching a new and dedicated pathway for permanent residents that’s specifically available to employees and workers in the STEM sector, which covers science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
“Over the course of this year, Canada is going to be developing a specific stream for some of the world’s most highly talented people that will be able to come to Canada and work for tech companies, whether they have a job offer or not,” he said.
He also announced that Canada would be rolling out a “digital nomad strategy” for highly skilled workers in the tech sector.
“(The digital nomad strategy) is going to allow people who have a foreign employer to come and work in Canada for up to six months, live in communities in this country and spend money in communities in this country, and should they receive a job offer while they’re here, we’re going to allow them to continue to stay and work in Canada,” he said.
Fraser said Canada’s immigration strategy was informed by what’s happening in the United States.
He referenced “a public narrative around layoffs” even as there are “private conversations about opportunities.”
“Going forward, as of July 16, we will have a stream that will allow 10,000 H1B visa holders in the United States to come and work in Canada,” he said.
Fraser admitted that the startup visas program, which creates pathways to permanent residency for entrepreneurs who create companies that will hire Canadians, has not reached its potential due to “design flaws.”
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He added that for those in the queue, the government will issue open work permits while they wait for their startup visa applications to be processed.
And for tech workers applying under the new process, Fraser suggested “we expect we can process that work permit within two weeks, so companies can have access to the talent they need, when they need it.”
He did not offer any details about how Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is going to reduce processing times.
IRCC has been riddled with backlogs since the start of the pandemic. In April, there were 809,000 immigration applications in backlog. The figure included temporary resident applications, permanent applications and citizenship grants.
On June 16, the IRCC’s updated data revealed that the number of backlogged applications had risen to 820,000.
Nick Schiavo, of the Canadian Council of Innovators, said they had been calling for these reforms, specifically a digital nomad strategy, for some time now.
“When software engineers, data scientists, technology product managers and other key professionals are able to come to Canada, they will be snapped up by companies that are desperate for skilled workers,” he said.
“Easing the pathway to Canada for highly skilled technology professionals will allow Canadian companies to hire more swiftly, capitalize on market opportunities and move at the pace of business.”
Temporary foreign worker study program rules
In another significant announcement Tuesday, Fraser said temporary foreign workers (TWFs) who have valid work permits but no study permits will now be able to enrol in an educational institution without a limit on the length of the study program.
Fraser said the temporary measure went into immediate effect on Tuesday and will help TFWs develop their skills and seek better employment opportunities. He said foreign workers can study full-time or part-time while their work permits are valid or until the expiration of the policy, with no restrictions on the length of the program.
“Temporary foreign workers are incredibly important for the Canadian economy, and many have aspirations that go far beyond the work that initially brings them to Canada,” Fraser said.
“With this policy in place, we hope to empower foreign nationals to improve their skills in order to meet their career goals and achieve their dreams, while providing a future potential source of talent for our labour market.”
He added that this will help Canada fill labour requirements in key sectors of the economy such as health care and construction.
A recent Statistics Canada report said businesses across Canada were having difficulty filling job vacancies.
The report said 36.9 per cent of all businesses faced challenges, but a few sectors were the hardest hit. Recruiting high-skilled employees was a challenge for 49.5 per cent of Canada’s construction businesses, 47.4 per cent of manufacturing businesses and 46.3 per cent of businesses in the accommodation and food services industry.
The federal government’s strategy to deal with the labour shortage involves shoring up immigration. According to government data, while 50 years ago, there were seven workers for every retiree in Canada, today, that ratio is closer to three workers for every retiree.
And if Canada stays on its current trajectory, in the next 10 to 15 years, it will drop to two workers for every retiree.
The IRCC statement added that around 75 per cent of Canada’s population growth comes from immigration and by 2036, immigrants are projected to make up 30 per cent of the country’s population. | Workforce / Labor |
Some Australian rural communities suffer worse internet access than some “poor villages” in Africa, which is impeding decarbonisation and efficient production in regional Australia, the economist Ross Garnaut has said.
“Connectivity in the modern world is very important to efficient decarbonisation, but also to efficient production,” he said.
“It’s a tragedy that some rural communities in Australia have such poor access to the internet and potentially that it’s so much poorer than some poor villages I know in Africa.”
Garnaut is a professor of economics, a former Hawke government adviser and the author of a number of climate change policy reviews as well as the review of the wool industry. He has been the chairman of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and a director and chairman of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute, the world’s leading institution for research on rural development.
In a book published this month, The Superpower Transformation, he argues that connectivity is one of the hurdles standing in the way of low and zero-emissions economic growth that would disproportionately favour rural Australia if the regions seize the opportunities.
Weed-spraying technology to reduce chemicals, water monitoring, soil-moisture probes and robotic devices all need connectivity to take advantage of technological gains.
Since federation, economic growth had disproportionately favoured half a dozen big cities. However, that pattern could be reversed given the potential in renewable energy production, urea manufacturing, carbon sequestration and decentralised energy supply.
In a wide-ranging interview about the future of rural Australia, Garnaut said there were positive and negative factors pushing the regions towards the new economy.
He said labour shortages would continue to force all sectors, particularly agriculture, to “economise” the workforce. But he indirectly criticised Coalition plans for a special agricultural worker visa from south-east Asia.
“Australians invented mechanical shearing because labour was scarce,” Garnaut said. “We were faster in large-scale mechanical milking of cows than anyone else because labour was scarce.
“We were in the forefront of mechanical harvesting and sowing and the stump jump plough. And that’s the future of farming in Australia, improving technology with labour efficiency.
“And anyone who thinks that the future of Australian farming was to get cheap labour from the paddy fields of south-east Asia is dreaming as vividly as WC Wentworth when he put the same proposal to the New South Wales legislative council in 1850.”
The farm sector has a huge amount at stake in the face of global warming. Garnaut said that from late 2025 the European Union would place extra tariffs on goods coming from countries it considered were not pulling their weight on climate change, particularly countries that do not have a carbon price.
He predicted businesses that could show a zero-emissions supply chain would overcome the penalty for not having a carbon price in their country.
“Unless we’re really pulling our weight, then they’ll find ways of not only putting a penalty on us for not having a carbon price but adding a bit on and making it harder because the European Union loves some protectionism.”
Garnaut also sees commercial room for a dozen or so small-scale urea plants in country towns across Australia, each providing several hundred local jobs, to lower the cost of urea and increase the supply. Urea is used as an agricultural fertiliser and also as an additive, known as AdBlue, to reduce emissions in diesel engines.
This year, farmers and truck companies have faced high urea prices as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, uncertainty of Middle East supplies and Chinese restrictions on the export of fertiliser.
Australia currently uses 2m tonnes of urea while the world uses 180m tonnes. Australia’s single producer, Incitec Pivot, supplies 10% of the country’s needs and it has announced it will shut in late 2022.
As communities become more interested in generating their own renewable energy through decentralised microgrids, places such as Yackandandah have raised questions about the cost of infrastructure.
Garnaut said removing the regulatory burdens on community microgrids would be a start.
“It’s reasonable for rural communities to expect similar levels of subsidy to anything that’s happening to large-scale distribution of power. But within that framework, it will often be cheaper to provide power in a decentralised way in rural Australia than in the old centralised way.”
In spite of the climate wars that have dogged carbon policy in the past decade, Garnaut remains optimistic about the opportunities for generating carbon value from the land.
“We won’t be converting higher value agricultural cropping, or the best pasture land into carbon sinks – that will make no sense whatsoever. The economics won’t favour that. But there will be opportunities for poorer land, of which every property has got a bit, but also for restorative farming for increasing carbon in soils.” | Australia Business & Economics |
Labor will seek to avert a damaging internal split over the Israel-Palestine conflict by hardening its language on the Palestinian territories, with the federal government to officially refer to Israel’s settlements in the West Bank as “illegal” and the territories as “occupied”.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced the shift in Tuesday’s caucus briefing for Labor MPs, prompting the opposition to accuse her of showing more concern for factional tensions than international diplomacy.
The news was condemned by pro-Israel groups as one-sided, while Palestinian advocates celebrated the move but pressed Labor to go further.
The decision comes less than two weeks before Labor’s national conference, an event some party activists hope to use to strengthen Labor’s policy platform commitment to Palestinian statehood.
The government also announced that it would recall parliament for debate whenever Australia goes to war and establish a powerful new committee to scrutinise the Australian Defence Force and Defence Department.
Defence Minister Richard Marles said that, under new reforms announced on Tuesday, the decision to engage in an overseas conflict will remain with executive government but will now require parliament to be recalled for debate on the ramifications.
Wong said the government was “gravely concerned about alarming trends that are significantly reducing the prospects of peace” between Israel and Palestine.
“The Australian government is strengthening its opposition to settlements by affirming they are illegal under international law and a significant obstacle to peace,” she told parliament.
Wong said the decision brought Australia into line with the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the European Union, adding she had briefed the Israeli ambassador on the issue because Australia remains “a committed friend of Israel”.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said that the government’s decision had “everything to do with managing factional differences ahead of their national conference and nothing to do with advancing a lasting two-state outcome”.
“It’s clear the Albanese Government is undertaking more consultation with factional bosses than with those impacted by these changes, including the Israeli Government,” he said.
Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, said the government’s new stance was “one-sided” and rewarded “destructive Palestinian tactics”.
“This decision will make it extremely difficult for Australia to present itself as a credible and effective advocate for a two-state peace,” he said.
“The Government’s stance strains our long-standing bipartisan national policy of supporting a negotiated two-state peace and is detrimental to Australia’s national interests.”
Nasser Mashni, president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, welcomed the change as a “sensible, modest move by the Australian government”.
“Israeli settlements are in clear violation of international law and there is no doubt that Israel is occupying Palestinian lands,” he said.
“We look forward to the government taking the next step and honouring its commitment to recognise Palestine.”
In July, Wong and the foreign ministers of Canada and the UK condemned Israel’s expansion of settlement building in the West Bank but did not label the move illegal.
Wong has also previously referred to the Palestinian territories in official statements rather than the occupied Palestinian territories.
Past governments referred to the Palestinian territories as occupied but the Abbott government began describing them as “disputed territories” in 2014.
Labor’s party platform calls on the government to recognise Palestine as a state, but the government has so far given no indication that it will enact the policy.
Some activists in Labor’s national policy forum have attempted to strengthen the existing commitment by binding the party to recognise Palestine in a certain term of government, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has stressed in internal forums that he did not want specific timeframes inserted into the platform for controversial issues.
Former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr, a strong advocate of Palestinian recognition, welcomed the government’s change in language as moving Australia to the international mainstream.
“I expect national conference will reaffirm its commitment to recognise Palestine as the one way to salvage the two-state solution,” he said.
Wong last year infuriated the Israeli government and Jewish groups by announcing that Australia would no longer recognise West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, reversing a controversial decision by the Morrison government.
A new joint parliamentary committee will be set up to oversee the sprawling Defence department, which will be similar to the powerful Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, with membership of the committee to be appointed by the prime minister.
The move is part of a formal response to a committee, led by Labor MP Julian Hill, that looked at whether there was sufficient oversight of the process needed to take Australia to war. Legislation to establish the committee will be introduced later this year.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here. | Australia Business & Economics |
Oct 11 (Reuters) - The dollar loomed large over fragile financial markets on Tuesday, with worries about rising interest rates, global growth and geopolitical tensions unsettling investors, while the yen was testing levels that have prompted official intervention.The yen hit 145.80 per dollar overnight, just 10 pips short of the 24-year trough it made before the Japanese government stepped in to prop it up three weeks ago. Japan returned from a holiday on Tuesday and the yen sat at 145.65.Strong U.S. labour data and an expectation of inflation figures due on Thursday to remain stubbornly high have all but dashed bets on anything but high interest rates through 2023 and are driving the dollar back toward multi-decade highs.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comRussia rained missiles upon Ukraine's cities on Monday in retaliation for blast that damaged the only bridge linking Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula, with the escalation putting markets in a risk-averse mood.The risk-sensitive Australian dollar made a 2-1/2 year low of $0.6275 on Monday and hovered at $0.6296 early on Tuesday. Analysts at the National Australia Bank said the Aussie was the market's "whipping boy" in a sell off and that further lows were possible in the near term as sentiment is fragile.The New Zealand dollar also made a 2-1/2 year low at $0.5545 on Monday and is close to breaking its pandemic trough, with weak data from China further souring the mood."Our expectation for the world economy to enter recession next year is consistent with further gains in the dollar," said Commonwealth Bank of Australia strategist Carol Kong.U.S. dollar index was up 0.053% at 113.12, not far off the 20-year high of 114.78 it touched late last month.Britain's markets remain on edge and not exactly soothed by the Bank of England stepping up bond buying and finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng promising to bring forward some budget announcements.Gilts sold sharply overnight and sterling was wobbly, sliding to a 10-day low of $1.1027 on Monday. The pound was up 0.28% at $1.1090 on Tuesday.========================================================Currency bid prices at 0029 GMTAll spotsTokyo spotsEurope spotsVolatilitiesTokyo Forex market info from BOJRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Tom Westbrook in Sydney and Ankur Banerjee in Singapore; Editing by Lincoln FeastOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
Greens leader Adam Bandt has refused to stand in front of the Australian flag during a press conference, arguing it is “hurtful” to Indigenous people and that the country has "work to do" combatting racism.Adam Bandt has refused to stand in front of the Australian flag, saying the country has “work to do” on racism.ABC journalist Isobel Roe said prior to Mr Bandt’s arrival at a press conference, a Greens staffer put the Australian flag to the side of the room, leaving just the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags. Ms Roe said she asked Mr Bandt why he refused to stand in front of the flag.Stream more local news live & on demand with Flash. 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer ends 31 October, 2022.“He says the country has work to do on racism, and that the symbol is hurtful to many Indigenous Australians,” she wrote on Twitter.“He also says he usually has it removed before he speaks.”Mr Bandt was in Sydney to address the energy crisis impacting the nation, sating it was caused by coal and gas companies.“Australia is in an energy crisis that has been caused by the big coal and gas operations that have taken an essential service, made billions of dollars in profit out of it and are now holding homes and businesses to ransom,” he said.“Coal and gas co-operations are the cause of this energy crisis, they are not the answer. “The answer’s to stop these cooperations gouging the public and businesses and instead fast track the switch to renewables but help businesses and homes get off gas and onto cheap renewable electricity.”Earlier in the day Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the country is “through the worst” of the crisis.“The National Energy Market continues to function under pressure but nevertheless we are in a situation where more generation has come back on board,” Mr Bowen told reporters on Monday.He was also forced to concede the importance of coal in the short term when quizzed about fossil fuels – a position at odds with Mr Bandt and the Greens.“In the short-term, they play a very important role, absolutely,” he said.“And their failure has been by and large. There have been many factors including geopolitical, by and large what is driving the factors in recent weeks.”His comments come following Labor’s pledge to legislate its target to reduce emissions by 43 per cent by 2030.The Opposition has signalled it won’t be supporting it when parliament returns in July. | Australia Business & Economics |
Trader on the floor of the NYSE, June 7, 2022.Source: NYSEStocks fell sharply, bond yields rose and the dollar strengthened Friday as investors heeded the Federal Reserve's signal that its battle with inflation could result in much higher interest rates and a recession.The sell-off Friday was global, in a week where the Fed boosted rates by another three-quarters of a point and other central banks raised their own interest rates to combat global inflation trends.The S&P 500 was down 1.8% at 3,693 Friday morning, and strategists say it appears headed to test its June closing low of 3,666 Friday morning. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was careening toward a new low close for 2022 Friday.European markets were down more, with the U.K. FTSE down 2% and French CAC off 2.2%.Weak PMI data on manufacturing and services from Europe Friday, and the Bank of England's warning Thursday the country was already in recession added to the negative spiral. The U.K. government also shook markets Friday with the announcement of a plan for sweeping tax cuts and investment incentives to help its economy.Fed 'endorsing' a recessionStocks took on an even more negative tone earlier this week, after the Fed raised interest rates Wednesday by three-quarters of a point and forecast it could raise its funds rate to a high 4.6% by early next year. That rate is now 3% to 3.25% now."Inflation and rising rates are not a U.S. phenomena. That's been a challenge for global markets as well," said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors. "It's clear the economy is slowing yet inflation is ramping and the central bank is compelled to address it. Pivot to Europe, the ECB [European Central Bank] is raising rates from negative to something positive at a time when they have an energy crisis and a war in their backyard."The Fed also forecast unemployment could rise to 4.4% next year, from 3.7%. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell steadfastly warned the Fed will do what it needs to do to crush inflation."By basically endorsing the idea of a recession, Powell set off the emotional phase of the bear market," said Julian Emanuel, head of equity, derivatives and quantitative strategy at Evercore ISI. "The bad news is you are seeing and you will continue to see it in the near term in indiscriminate selling of virtually every asset. The good news is that tends to be that the end game of virtually every bear market we've ever witnessed, and it's coming in September and October, where that has historically been the normal state of affairs."Recession worries also sent the commodities complex lower, with metals and agricultural commodities all selling off across the board. West Texas Intermediate oil futures fell about 6% to just above $78 per barrel, the lowest price since early January.Europe, Pound impactAs the U.S. stock market opened, Treasury yields were off their highs and other sovereign rates eased as well. The U.K. government's announcement of a sweeping plan to cut taxes added to turbulence in that country's debt and hit British sterling hard. The 2-year British Gilt was yielding 3.95%, while the U.S. 2-year Treasury was at 4.16%, off a high above 4.25%."European bonds, while they're down, are bouncing, but U.K. gilts are still a disaster," said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group. "I feel like this morning might have been , for the short-term, a capitulation in bonds. But we'll see. Equity guys are obviously still very nervous and the dollar is still at the highs of the day."The Dollar index, largely influenced by the euro hit a new 20-year high of 112.427, while the euro sank to $0.9733 per dollar.Arone said other factors are at play as well globally. "China through their Covid strategy and common prosperity has slowed down economic growth," said Arone. "They have been slow to introduce easy monetary policy or additional fiscal spending at this point."Arone said around the globe, the common threads are slowing economies and high inflation with central banks engaged to curb high prices. Central banks are also hiking rates at the same time they are ending bond purchasing programs.Strategists say the U.S. central bank particularly rattled markets by forecasting a new higher interest rate forecast, where it believes it will stop hiking. The Fed's projected 4.6% high water rate for next year is considered to be its "terminal rate," or end rate. Yet, strategists still see that as fluid until the course of inflation is clear, and fed funds futures for early next year were racing above that level, to 4.7% Friday morning."Until we get a picture where interest rates come off and inflation begins to come down, until that happens expect more volatility ahead," said Arone. "The fact the Fed does not know where they're going to end up is an uncomfortable place for investors."Watching for signs of market stressBoockvar said the market moves are painful because the central banks are unwinding years of easy money, from even before the pandemic. He said interest rates were suppressed by global central banks since the financial crisis, and until recently, rates in Europe were negative."All these central banks have been sitting on a beach ball in a pool these last 10 years," he said. "Now they're getting off the ball and it's going to bounce pretty high. What's happening is developing markets currencies and debt are trading like emerging markets."Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex, said he thinks markets are beginning to price in a higher terminal rate for the Fed, to as high as 5%. "I would say the forces were unleashed by the Fed encouraging the market to reprice the terminal rate. That was definitely one of the factors that unleashed this volatility," he said.A higher terminal rate should continue to support the dollar against other currencies."The bottom line is despite our problems here in the U.S., the Fed revising down GDP this year to 0.2%, the stagnation, we still look like the better bet when you look at the alternatives," said Chandler.Strategists said they see no specific signs, but they are monitoring markets for any signs of stress, particularly in Europe where rate moves have been dramatic."This is like the quote from Warren Buffett. When the tide goes out, you see who is not wearing a swimming suit," said Chandler. "There are places that have benefited from low rates for a long time. You don't know about them until the tide recedes and the rocks show up." | Interest Rates |
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese travels Monday to the United States for a four-day visit, hoping to make progress on the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal.
Australia’s formal security ties with the United States date to the early 1950s.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters in Canberra Monday that “the alliance between Australia and the United States is central to Australia's foreign policy.”
His official visit to the U.S. will include Albanese’s ninth meeting with President Joe Biden in the past 16 months.
The Australian Prime Minister said he will hold talks with members of the U.S. Congress about the legislation that's needed to ensure the progress of the AUKUS alliance. Australian media have reported that some U.S. lawmakers have significant concerns about the pact.
AUKUS is a trilateral accord announced in September 2021 with the United States and Britain that would give Australia access for the first time to nuclear-powered submarines.
It is estimated the agreement could cost Australia up to $244 billion and is widely seen as a counter to China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Kevin Rudd is Australia’s Ambassador to the United States and a former Prime Minister.
He told the Australia Broadcasting Corp. Monday that the AUKUS partnership would be a key part of Albanese’s visit to Washington, along with talks on clean energy.
“Ensuring that all the relevant AUKUS legislation finds its way successfully through the U.S. Congress," Rudd said. "Two, broadening the economic relationship in information technology, defense technology as well as clean energy technology and beyond that again, to enhance our clean energy compact and new work together on critical minerals.”
China has previously criticized the AUKUS accord, accusing the United States, Britain and Australia of going “down a dangerous road for their own selfish political gains … in complete disregard of the concerns of the international community.”
Sunday, Albanese confirmed he would visit Beijing in early November to meet President Xi Jinping.
A dispute over Australian wine exports at the World Trade Organization has been suspended as both countries try to defuse long-running trade and diplomatic tensions.
China has agreed to review controversial tariffs on imports of Australian wine. In return, the government in Canberra is suspending its action in the WTO.
The tariffs were imposed in 2020 as bilateral relations rapidly deteriorated over various geopolitical disputes. Restrictions on other Australian commodities, including barley, have already been lifted. Albanese has taken a less confrontational approach to China than the previous conservative government he defeated in an election last year.
In Washington this week, Albanese will attend a state dinner and an Oval Office meeting with President Biden. | Australia Business & Economics |
The latest employment figures show inflation taking a record bite out of regular pay and an unexpected jump in the jobless rate at a time when people are seeking to better shield themselves from the cost of living crisis.The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that real wages - a measure of regular wage growth when inflation is factored in - had plunged by 4.5% during April.
That was the biggest fall since records began in 2001.It mainly reflected, the ONS said, the leap in headline inflation during that month when the unprecedented rise in the energy price cap drove the consumer prices index measure to a 40-year high.
The jobless rate rose to 3.8% in the three months to April, despite a new record high for employment. It was potentially explained by a rise in the number of students, who are measured as economically inactive, as the ONS has already reported record numbers seeking paid work or better-paid employment.
There has been a rush to secure higher take-home pay as inflation has surged. More on Cost Of Living David Buttress: New cost of living business tsar appointed by government Cost of living: Lloyds offers staff a one-off £1,000 payment to help with bills Scammers using cost of living crisis to target people - here are the most common tricks The squeeze on incomes from rising bills across the board has contributed to a marked slowdown in the economy and sparked a bitter union fight for pay awards to match inflation.Sam Beckett, ONS head of economic statistics, said: "Today's figures continue to show a mixed picture for the labour market."While the number of people in employment is up again in the three months to April, the figure remains below pre-pandemic levels."Moreover, although the number of people neither in work nor looking for a job has fallen slightly in the latest period, that remains well up on where it was before COVID-19 struck."At the same time, unemployment is close to a 50-year low point and there was a record low number of redundancies."Job vacancies are still slowly rising, too. At a new record level of 1.3 million, this is over half a million more than before the onset of the pandemic."She added: "The high level of bonuses continues to cushion the effects of rising prices on total earnings for some workers, but if you exclude bonuses, pay in real terms is falling at its fastest rate in over a decade." Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options The Bank of England is widely expected to hike its rate again on Thursday as it tries to stop the jump in inflation from turning into a longer-term problem if employers resort to increasing their pay sharply to fill vacancies.So-called secondary inflation is a major concern for policymakers as surging wages are seen as making inflation more stubborn.However, the rate-setters are facing down a challenge from unions who are widely campaigning for wage growth in line with inflation for their memberships.The main battlefront is on the railways where the biggest national strike since 1989 has been threatened by the RMT union later this month, with the action by 40,000 rail workers coinciding with strikes on London's Tube network on 21 June.TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "Working families deserve financial security."But real wages are falling off a cliff as the cost of living soars."Millions of workers are being forced to choose between paying their bills or feeding their families. That isn't right."We urgently need action to get people the pay rise they deserve. That means boosting the minimum wage, a real public sector pay rise, and the government supporting - not attacking - unions who are campaigning hard for fairer pay."Chancellor Rishi Sunak said of the ONS data: "Today's stats show our jobs market remains robust with redundancies at an all time low."Helping people into work is the best way to support families in the long term, and we are continuing to support people into new and better jobs."We are also providing immediate help with rising prices - 8 million of the most vulnerable families will receive at least £1,200 of direct payments this year, with all families receiving £400." | Inflation |
CIE Automotive India Q2 Review - Miss On Revenue, But Strong Europe Margin Dilutes The Pain: Motilal Oswal
Turns net cash in Q2, margin target at 18-19% for the India business.
BQ Prime’s special research section collates quality and in-depth equity and economy research reports from across India’s top brokerages, asset managers and research agencies. These reports offer BQ Prime’s subscribers an opportunity to expand their understanding of companies, sectors and the economy.
Motilal Oswal Report
CIE Automotive India Ltd.’s Q2 CY23 result disappointed due to weak revenue growth in both India and the Europe.
Going forward, it expects India business to report growth and the Europe business to stay muted. CIE India turned net cash at Rs 1.6 billion in Q2 CY23, driven by healthy operating cash flows and receipt of excess cash (Rs 2.6 billion) from the German CV forging business.
We cut our consolidated earnings per share estimates for CY23/CY24 by 4%/2% as we factor in:
weaker-than-estimated growth in both Europe and India,
higher margin in the Europe, and
mark to market losses due to adverse forex movement.
Reiterate 'Buy' with a target price of Rs 600 (premised on ~18 times September-25E consolidated EPS).
Click on the attachment to read the full report:
DISCLAIMER
This report is authored by an external party. BQ Prime does not vouch for the accuracy of its contents nor is responsible for them in any way. The contents of this section do not constitute investment advice. For that you must always consult an expert based on your individual needs. The views expressed in the report are that of the author entity and do not represent the views of BQ Prime.
Users have no license to copy, modify, or distribute the content without permission of the Original Owner. | India Business & Economics |
WASHINGTON/LONDON/BEIRUT, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Facing a soaring death toll from Israel's renewed offensive in southern Gaza, the Biden administration is trying to pressure its ally to minimize civilian deaths while stopping well short of the kind of measures that might force it to listen, such as threatening to restrict military aid.
Top U.S. officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have urged Israel publicly to conduct a more surgical offensive in the south to avoid the heavy civilian casualties inflicted by its attacks in the north.
About 900 people in Gaza were killed in Israeli airstrikes between Friday when a truce ended and Monday, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, about the same number killed in strikes in Gaza over the four days following the Hamas cross-border raid on Israel on Oct. 7, though fewer than the 1,199 who died in the four days following the start of Israel's ground offensive on northern Gaza Oct 28.
Washington is for now ruling out withholding delivery of weapons or harshly criticizing Israel as a means of changing its tactics because the U.S. believes the existing strategy of privately negotiating is effective, according to two U.S. officials.
"We think what we're doing is moving them" a senior U.S. official said, citing how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shifted from refusing to allow aid into Gaza to allowing nearly 200 trucks of assistance a day, saying those improvements were the result of intense diplomacy, not threats.
The U.S. official spoke after three days of resumed aerial bombardments of southern Gaza left residents pulling the bodies of children and adults from the rubble.
But the U.S. official said reducing military support to Israel would carry major risks.
"You start lessening aid to Israel, you start encouraging other parties to come into the conflict, you weaken the deterrence effect and you encourage Israel's other enemies," the official said.
The United States has called its support unwavering. The Israeli government appears unmoved by international demands to change its strategy.
"I must admit I sense that the prime minister feels zero pressure, and that we will do whatever it takes to achieve our military goals," Netanyahu's foreign policy adviser Ophir Falk told Reuters last week when asked about the international pressure on Israel.
SIGNIFICANT U.S. LEVERAGE
The United States gives Israel $3.8 billion in military aid annually, ranging from fighter jets to powerful bombs that could destroy Hamas tunnels, and the Biden administration has asked Congress to approve an additional $14 billion.
Such support gives Washington "significant leverage" over how the war against Hamas is conducted, said Seth Binder, director of advocacy at The Project on Middle East Democracy.
"Withholding certain types of equipment or delaying refilling stockpiles of various arms would force the Israeli government to adjust strategies and tactics because they would not be guaranteed to have more in the pipeline," said Binder. "To date, the administration has demonstrated an unwillingness to use that leverage."
Weighing on Biden is the 2024 presidential election, even as senior aides have stepped up calls for Israeli restraint. Any attempt to cut aid could hurt the Democratic president with pro-Israel independent voters as he seeks re-election.
Biden also faces pressure from a faction of progressive Democrats who want the U.S. to set conditions on military aid to its closest Middle East ally, and for the president to support calls for an immediate ceasefire.
A senior Israeli security source said that so far there has been no change in U.S. support for Israel. "At the moment there is an understanding and there is continued coordination," said the source. "If the U.S. shifts course, Israel will have to speed up its operations and wrap things up quickly."
Fighting between Israel and Hamas resumed on Friday after a seven-day pause to exchange hostages and prisoners and deliver humanitarian aid. Israel is retaliating for an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants that it says killed 1,200 people and took about 240 hostages.
Gaza's health ministry, whose data the U.N. has deemed broadly reliable, said on Monday that at least 15,899 Palestinians, 70% of them women or people under 18 whom it defines as children, have been killed in Israeli bombardments over eight weeks of warfare.
SEEING 'EYE TO EYE' WITH ISRAEL
The Israeli military's offensive in northern Gaza began with intense aerial bombardment, then a large-scale ground incursion that ultimately saw Israeli forces surround and enter Gaza City, the largest settlement in the enclave.
Israeli officials say they are conducting operations in the south differently, allowing more time for non-combatants in combat areas to evacuate, but can't promise to eliminate civilian casualties.
"We are going to continue with our campaign to destroy Hamas, a campaign that the United States sees eye to eye with us about," Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said on Tuesday. He repeated Israeli accusations that Hamas uses woman and children as human shields.
On Friday, Israel's military began posting grid-based maps online ordering Palestinians to leave parts of southern Gaza, directing them towards the Mediterranean coast and Rafah, near the Egyptian border. Some residents said the so-called "safe areas" where they told to go also came under fire that caused casualties.
U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Monday that Washington expects the Israelis to follow through on not attacking those areas.
A second U.S. official said the fact that Israel was being more deliberate in saying what areas civilians should avoid was a sign U.S. pressure was working. The official said the U.S. wants Israel to be more precise with its strikes in southern Gaza, but it was too early to tell whether Israel had taken this advice on board.
Residents and journalists on the ground said intense Israeli airstrikes hit southern Gaza on Monday, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians.
"All indications and reports suggest that the same pattern – of dropping heavy duty bombs and using artillery in densely populated areas – is continuing” since Israel's offensive resumed, said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch.
On Tuesday, Amnesty International said it had found that U.S.-made munitions had killed 43 civilians in two Israeli air strikes in Gaza.
Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Jonathan Saul and Maggie Fick; Additional reporting by James Mackenzie in Jerusalem and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Don Durfee and Daniel Wallis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Middle East Business & Economics |
Oct 19 (Reuters) - IBM Corp (IBM.N) beat quarterly earnings estimates on Wednesday and said it expects to exceed full-year revenue growth targets as robust demand for the company's digital services helps cushion the blow from a strong dollar.The IT software and services provider has been focusing on the so-called "hybrid cloud" after spinning off its legacy IT-managed infrastructure business, and posted double-digit growth across all its segments and geographies on a constant-currency basis in the third quarter.IBM's shares rose 4.4% in extended trading.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comThe company's stock is proving to be a good place to hide in the current market turmoil, mainly due to IBM's revenue diversification, Haris Anwar, senior analyst at Investing.com, said.IBM, whose cloud revenue rose 11% to $5.2 billion in the quarter, now expects the company's annual sales to increase more than its previous estimate of mid-single-digit growth at constant currency.Enterprise spending is robust in the Americas, but IBM is seeing some softness in key areas such as new bookings and backlog churn in Western Europe due to the macroeconomic environment there, Finance Chief James Kavanaugh told Reuters.This year's more than 17% surge in the dollar that also have large international operations.IBM, which gets more than half its revenue from outside the United States, increased its full-year estimate for foreign exchange impact to 7% from 6%.The company booked a forex hit of $1.1 billion in the third quarter.Revenue came in at $14.12 billion, compared with $13.51 billion expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv data.On an adjusted basis, IBM earned $1.81 per share, beating estimates of $1.77.IBM's earnings are a sign that for enterprise-focused tech companies recessionary impacts will potentially be more of a lagging indicator, Futurum Research analyst Daniel Newman said.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Shounak DasguptaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
Before Australians last voted in a referendum on First Nations people in 1967, Uncle Bob Anderson set up a table and chair at a tram stop in central Brisbane.
From his rail-side office, he’d tell anyone who would stop and listen that Australia counted its horses, cows, sheep and goats, but not its Indigenous people. “My question to you is, do you think they should be?” he’d say.
Some 56 years later, the Ngugi Elder sat on a chair under the hot Brisbane sun on Sunday, his wispy white hair covered in a straw hat, his presence a sign of support for another referendum concerning his people.
Nearby, thousands of people gathered for “Walk for Yes” rallies in multiple cities around Australia ahead of the October 14 vote.
On that day, some 17.5 million registered voters will be asked whether Australia should change the constitution to include a permanent body made up of First Nations people to advise the government on matters affecting them.
Now 94, Anderson says a Yes vote isn’t just important for him but the country.
“By talking and walking together as a nation and as a society, we will share a common destiny,” he said.
A vocal No
But less than four weeks out from the vote, polls suggest the split between the supporters and opponents is widening, in favor of no change to the constitution.
Veteran grassroots Aboriginal activist Wayne Wharton wore the reason for his objections on his T-shirt, as he shouted at Yes supporters on a bridge in central Brisbane.
“You’re a thief, a liar and a gatekeeper,” he yelled, to a mix of ages and races walking by. “Give back what you stole, give back what you stole, give back what you stole.”
The 62-year-old Kooma man told CNN on the phone that fundamentally people are being asked the wrong question.
“In a well-meaning country and a country seeking justice, this question would never have been raised or tabled. The question that would have been offered would have been a question about [a] treaty or just occupation,” he said.
Like Anderson, Wharton remembers the curfews that confined First Nations people to the outskirts of town between sunset and sunrise, the racial slurs hurled at him and his family, the abuse of his ancestors forced to live in missions, and the theft of First Nations children under policies of assimilation that later prompted a national apology.
Wharton said he wants “liberation, freedom and restitution” delivered through negotiation by the hundreds of Aboriginal nations with people occupying their land.
“I’ve seen many things change in my 60 years, and as the White bigots that created this continent of privilege die, the next generations have a greater sense of fairness and justice,” Wharton said.
“I believe in my children’s time a lot of this will be overcome. And that’s why I want to make sure that the door of opportunity is always going to be there for those people when the opportunity comes to create a just occupation, that the mechanism will be there and that it wouldn’t have been hijacked by some desperates in 2023 that changed the constitution.”
A Yes for change
Other First Nations people see it differently, including Nick Harvey-Doyle, who at 31 is half the age of Wharton, and a third of the age of the Aboriginal Elder Anderson.
From his New York apartment, Harvey-Doyle, an Anaiwan man from New South Wales, co-organized a walk across Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday, attended by more than 350 people, mostly Australians, calling for a Yes vote.
“I’m from a really small country town that has about 10,000 people and I think there’s about 8,000 Australians in the New York tri-state area. To me, that’s almost essentially a whole country town worth of votes,” he said.
Harvey-Doyle is a former lawyer who is studying at New York University with a Roberta Sykes Scholarship that provides funding for Indigenous students to undertake postgraduate research abroad. Sykes, who died in 2010, was the first Black Australian to study at Harvard, and fought for a Yes vote in the 1967 Referendum.
That referendum, to count Indigenous people in Australia’s Census figures, passed with over 90% approval.
Harvey-Doyle implored Australians living overseas to cast their votes to improve the life outcomes for First Nations people, who have lagged behind the country’s non-Indigenous population in heath and welfare statistics for decades.
“We as Aboriginal people don’t feel like we have carriage over our most intimate and important personal affairs,” he said.
“I think Aboriginal people do have a different way of life from non-Indigenous people and the current structures and institutions we have in place, don’t always acknowledge that and aren’t always in the best cultural place to service our needs.
“Actually having a body that exists that is enshrined in the constitution that allows us empowerment, to give advice over our own lives and our own issues is actually super important.”
According to the Australian Electoral Commission, as of Sunday, more than 96,000 registered voters were outside Australia – including those living abroad and some 58,000 who have notified the commission that they’ll be traveling on October 14.
While voting is compulsory within Australia, being overseas is considered a valid reason not to vote. More than 100 polling centers will be open worldwide to enable people to vote in person, or they can return a postal ballot. Overseas voting starts early, on October 2.
To pass, the referendum needs the majority vote across the country, as well as the majority of people in at least four states.
Indigenous people won’t determine the outcome of this vote – that will be up to millions of other non-Indigenous Australians, some of whom object to Indigenous people being given a special place over others within the constitution, calling the vote “divisive.”
Wharton says the concept of millions of non-Indigenous voters deciding what’s best for 3% of the population is racist in itself.
However, Harvey-Doyle says he’s wary of the message a no vote would send in the country and beyond.
“If we vote No, it says that we are really happy to be apathetic towards the poor life outcomes that some average Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience, and I feel like that goes against what it means to be Australian to give everyone a fair go,” he said.
“It’ll be a really sad global position for us to put ourselves in, if we do vote No.” | Australia Business & Economics |
SYDNEY, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Support for a referendum to constitutionally recognise Australia's Indigenous people slipped further, with the landmark proposal set to fail in a national vote roughly three weeks away, two opinion polls showed on Monday.
Support for a "Voice to Parliament", an Indigenous committee to advise parliament on matters affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people, fell to 33%, down 15 points since May, the Australian Financial Review (AFR)/Freshwater poll showed. The 'No' vote had reached 50%.
Despite the Anthony Albanese-led Labor government's campaign drive to win undecided voters, opposition to the referendum rose three points to 56%, a Newspoll conducted for The Australian newspaper showed. Support dipped to 36% from 38% in the previous poll on Sept. 3.
Altering the constitution requires a national referendum in Australia and only eight have passed since 1901 when the country was formed. The proposal must get a majority of votes nationwide and at least four of the six states must back the change.
Australia, which will hold the referendum vote on Oct. 14, has no treaty with its Indigenous people, who make up about 3.2% of its 26 million population. They were marginalised by British colonial rulers and are not mentioned in the 122-year-old constitution.
The referendum debate has divided opinions with supporters arguing the Voice will bring progress for the Aboriginal community, while opponents say it would be divisive. Others have described it as tokenism and toothless.
Voters who had switched their stance to reject the proposal in the past five months said the Voice was creating distraction from their top two issues - the cost of living and the cost of housing, the AFR survey said.
It also showed the approval ratings for Albanese, who has staked significant political capital on the referendum, fell 5 points to 46%.
In the Newspoll survey, Albanese's ratings improved slightly to 47% though that remained at historically low levels, while on a two-party preferred basis, Labor enjoyed a 54-46% lead against the conservative opposition coalition.
Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Lincoln Feast.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Australia Business & Economics |
SYDNEY, Oct 6 (Reuters) - The dollar fought for a footing in choppy trade on Thursday, with support from upbeat U.S. data and hawkish policymaker comments, while the prospect of higher energy prices helped exporters' currencies and weighed on those of importers.The dollar rose 1% on the euro and 1.3% on sterling overnight and was trying to hold those gains in bumpy early trade in Asia. The euro has now made two unsuccessful attempts to regain parity this week and last bought $0.9916. Sterling's rebound from record lows has paused just below $1.15.The U.S. services industry posted another month of expansion in September, data showed overnight, while labour market figures were solid and the trade deficit narrowed. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly reiterated policymakers' focus on inflation fighting and dismissed market hopes for rate cuts in 2023.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com"I think that just reminded people that you might be a bit premature in trying to price in rate cuts in the U.S.," said Westpac currency strategist Imre Speizer."That pushed up rates and pushed up the U.S. dollar," he said, as the Federal Reserve's aggressive moves to rein in inflation sets the pace for central banks around the globe."Its one trade for the whole world," said Speizer. "No one currency's interest rates are really able to go off and do their own thing independently."Bond markets globally sold sharply. Interest rate futures imply more than 130 basis points of tightening ahead for the Fed before the middle of next year.The U.S. dollar index wobbled 0.06% lower to 110.86, off lows near 110 from earlier in the week, though some distance below last week's 20-year high of 114.78.Sterling last bought $1.1367, while the Australian and New Zealand dollars each rose about 0.4%, taking the Aussie to $0.6518 and the kiwi to $0.5772.The yen , which has been held steady by the risk of further Japanese intervention, sat at 144.57 per dollar.The Saudi Arabia-led cartel of oil producers agreed to steep production cuts on Wednesday, lifting Brent crude futures to a three-week high of $93.99 a barrel."Higher energy prices would have a much more direct impact on the European region given the more direct relationship to their finances," said NatWest Markets' strategist Jan Nevruzi.Later on Thursday the European Central Bank releases minutes from last month's policy meeting. Traders are also awaiting Friday's U.S. labour market data to gauge how fast and far the Fed might be willing to lift interest rates.========================================================Currency bid prices at 0058 GMTAll spotsTokyo spotsEurope spotsVolatilitiesTokyo Forex market info from BOJRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Tom Westbrook.
Editing by Shri NavaratnamOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C. – Republican Rep. Tom Rice says his vote to impeach then-President Donald Trump "was the conservative vote.""I told you I was going to protect the Constitution. I meant what I said, and I upheld my oath, even when it’s hard," the five-term representative in South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District said to polite applause from supporters gathered at Hog Heaven Barbeque on Pawleys Island on the eve of the state’s primary.Rice was one of just ten House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump on charges that he fueled the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol perpetrated by right-wing extremists and other Trump supporters aiming to disrupt congressional certification of now-President Biden’s Election College victory in the 2020 election.Fast-forward a year and a half and Rice is facing a half-a-dozen primary challengers, including one from state lawmaker Russell Fry, who enjoys Trump’s backing."Republicans are supposed to protect the Constitution. We take an oath to protect the Constitution, not a man," Rice emphasized in an interview with Fox News Digital. "And so what I did was take a conservative vote. If you want a conservative, I’m the guy."Fry, speaking with Fox News at his Myrtle Beach campaign headquarters, said he wouldn’t be challenging Rice if the congressman hadn’t voted for impeachment."I think the impeachment is the big elephant in the room and the voters are incredibly frustrated by that," he said.REP. NANCY MACE FACES TRUMP-BACKED PRIMARY CHALLENGE IN SOUTH CAROLINASix of the 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump are running for reelection, and Rice is the first to face a challenger endorsed by the former president. Trump, nearly a year and a half removed from the White House, continues to hold immense sway over the GOP. And while his endorsed candidates have had great success in Republican primaries this year for open seats, he’s yet to knock off an incumbent. All of which adds to the stakes in Tuesday’s primary.The district, which covers the northeast corner of South Carolina and includes the Myrtle Beach metropolitan area, known as the Grand Strand, and the interior Pee Dee region, is Trump country. He won the district by 19 points in his 2016 presidential election victory and by 18 points in 2020 defeat. Rice has carried the district by double digits in each of his five congressional victories, including by nearly 24 points just two years ago.Rice noted that "I have a very conservative voting record. I’ve voted with Donald Trump 95% of the time, more than anyone else in the South Carolina delegation until the impeachment vote.""I think I’m much more aligned with the Republicans in this district in terms of what their views are," he highlighted. "The question for them is the impeachment vote."He argued that the Trump "aura is wearing a little thin" and that the former president should "absolutely not" be the leader of the GOP going forward.Rice is a throwback to the kind of Republicans who dominated the party before the rise of Trump. CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST 2022 PRIMARY RESULTS FROM FOX NEWSThe congressman, who’s backed by such organizations as the Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, and the NRA, told his supporters gathered at Hog Heaven that when he first ran for Congress back in 2012, "I told you I was going to work in three things – jobs, jobs, jobs."He then spotlighted that "unemployment in my tenure in this district is down 75%. Poverty is down 30%." He emphasized, "I really need your help pushing me across the line."He highlighted his work on the fiscally powerful House Ways and Means Committee, as well as his part in hammering out the 2017 tax overhaul and the revision of the North America Free Trade Agreement. Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina speaks with supporters at Hog Heaven in Pawleys Island, S.C. on June 13, 2022 (Fox News)"I’ve delivered for you. I’ve delivered lower taxes for hard-working families and small businesses. I’ve delivered jobs and higher wages and less poverty. I’ve delivered for tourism, farmers and flood victims. I’ve delivered hundreds of millions for schools, broadband, new roads and more," Rice says in his TV ad in the final days of the primary campaign. "Let’s put progress over pettiness. Let’s put results over revenge."Showing his displeasure with the transformation of his party under Trump, Rice told Fox News that "we used to call ourselves… Chamber of Commerce Republicans. Now they’re scared to do it. That’s some kind of purity test. Guess what. I’m a Chamber of Commerce Republican because I want everybody to have an opportunity. "CHECK OUT OUR LATEST FOX NEWS 2022 POWER RANKINGSFry says the former president "continues to show that he’s the leader of our party."And he said that Trump’s endorsement of his campaign was "huge. We were tracking well, trending well, for a long time. After that endorsement, it’s been lights out. The energy is real. It’s incredible."Trump held a South Carolina rally in late March for Fry and for former state lawmaker Katie Arrington – whom Trump is backing as she challenges GOP Rep. Nancy Mace in the First Congressional District primary. Last Tuesday the former president held a tele-rally for both candidates. Clips of Trump from the in-person rally declaring that "Russell is a conservative warrior who will give no quarter to the socialist left" top Fry’s campaign commercial.Rice took aim at Fry, charging that "the only thing he can tout is that Donald Trump endorsed him. That’s the only thing that he’s got to run on. I think that Donald Trump’s crack investigative team didn’t do enough work on him before they endorsed him. If you look at his record, he says he’s a conservative warrior, but that’s a bunch of bunk like pretty much everything else he’s said."Fry fired back, arguing that "Rice for months has tried to discredit our record. What we have a record on is leading in South Carolina while he’s failed." He also claimed that voters feel that Rice is "not attentive to the needs and the desires of the people."CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPWith a crowded field of candidates, it’s likely no candidate will top 50% and that Rice and Fry will most likely face off again in a runoff election in two weeks.Asked if he hopes Trump will return to South Carolina if there’s a runoff, Fry quickly answered, "we’ll take any help from the president that he’s willing to give." Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire. | Unemployment |
The huge blue and red hull of the SCF Primorye came into port at Vadinar, western Gujarat, India, earlier this month. The 84,000-tonne oil tanker, built in 2009 and sailing under the Liberian flag, had arrived from the port at Ust-Luga, a settlement in Russia near the border with Estonia.Until 2017, the Vadinar oil refinery was controlled by Essar – the Indian owner of the Stanlow refinery in Ellesmere Port. Since then a consortium including the sanctioned Russian state-owned oil firm Rosneft and the commodities trader Trafigura, which holds a 24.5% stake, have owned Nayara Energy, which runs the refinery.The tanker’s arrival came as India ramped up imports of Russian oil. The Asian nation’s willingness to snap up Russian crude at discounts of up to 30% has undermined efforts from the US, Europe and the UK to deplete Vladimir Putin’s war coffers by curtailing imports. Russia raked in $20bn from oil exports in May, bouncing back to pre-invasion levels. Now, concerns are growing that India is being used as a potential back door into Europe for Russian oil supplies,given the surge in imports.Before the invasion of Ukraine, India’s imports of Russian oil were negligible due to high freight costs. But recently, imports of Russian oil to India have increased. Vadinar’s owner, Nayara, purchased Russian oil in March – just before international restrictions on its exports were introduced – after a gap of a year, buying about 1.8m barrels from Trafigura, Reuters reported.india oil importsThe volumes that India has been buying and exporting, however, suggest that some of the refined Russian crude may ultimately be used in Europe’s filling stations. It is not clear where the Russian crude brought into Vadinar on the SCF Primorye will be used. Vadinar’s owner’s declined to comment on the shipment or whether it was shipping Russian oil to Europe.In May, about 800,000 barrels of oil per day in May were imported from Russia and the rating agency Fitch predicts that imports could soon increase further to 1m barrels per day, or 20% of India’s total imports. India, China and the United Arab Emirates have picked up the slack as Russian crude oil imports into the EU fell by 18% in May.Putin told the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) business summit this week that “Russian oil supplies to China and India are growing noticeably”.India’s 1.4 billion-strong population gives it reason to seek cheap supplies. But it’s a dangerous political game. “India is walking a tightrope,” said Alan Gelder, the vice-president of refining, chemicals and oil markets at Wood Mackenzie. “If you take too much, you do not want the west to sanction the rest of your economy.”The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air said Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat received 27% of its oil from Russia in May, up from 5% in April. The centre said about 20% of exported cargoes from Jamnagar left for the Suez canal, indicating that they were heading to Europe or the US. Shipments were made to France, Italy and the UK. However, there is no evidence that these shipments included Russian oil.The UK has committed to phasing out Russian oil by the end of the year. Britain did not import any petrol before the war but diesel accounted for 18% of total demand. While trading Russian oil remains legal, the stigma attached to it means some international companies involved in fuel supplies may attempt to mask its origins. Some energy firms rushed to cut shipments from Russia but industry watchers said some drivers in the south-east of England were still likely to be filling up with diesel refined in Russia.State processors of oil are attempting to secure six-month supply contacts for Russian crude to India, Bloomberg reported this month. The trio of state refiners – Indian Oil Corp, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum – declined to answer questions on whether they were importing Russian oil or exporting it to Europe.Industry sources said tracking shipments of Russian oil to Europe via India is proving very difficult. “You’ll find that several shipments of crude will arrive at a port from different countries and be blended together. Tracking a hydrocarbon is basically impossible.”There are several tactics shippers are using to hide the origin of Russian oil, sources said. Financially, paying in Chinese currency – rather than the industry standard dollar – is an option. Yuan-ruble trading volumes have surged 1,067% since February’s invasion of Ukraine. Transfers of oil cargoes from ship-to-ship have also spiked, suggesting oil is being switched from Russian flagged-vessels to other ships. Increasing numbers of ships have been “going dark” by switching off their automative identification systems as thousands of gallons of the black stuff are transferred on the waves.A third, more niche option to hide Russian transactions is to cut out using a currency and trade oil directly for other products, such as gold, food or weapons. Iran has previously taken payment from trading partners in gold rather than dollars.“If a country or oil operator wants to hide the source of crude or oil products, it can very easily do so,” said Ajay Parmar, an oil market analyst at ICIS.Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk“Indian refiners are clearly taking significant volumes of discounted Russian crude and then re-exporting a material proportion of refined product back out of the country,” said the Shore Capital analyst Craig Howie. “Given the obvious strength of petrol and diesel prices, this presumably supports robust refining margins for Indian downstream players. The commercial rationale here is of course understandable, but does seem to run contrary to the west’s clear objective to hamper the Russian economy and war machine.”Oleg Ustenko, the chief economic adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is more forthright. He told the Guardian: “We call on countries everywhere to show solidarity with Ukraine by rejecting Russia’s blood oil. But let’s be clear, the British and EU energy, shipping and insurance companies who are helping Putin complete this pivot to new markets out of pure greed are complicit in his war crimes.“European leaders must get serious about their sanctions regimes and ban not just the import of Russian fossil fuels, but also heavily tax their trade, otherwise the tragedy ongoing in Ukraine will continue and even spread.”For the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, the trade with Russia remains a political balancing act. While the oil price remains high, and there’s pressure on consumers at the pump, the risk of a western backlash will be weighed against the cost of cheap oil.Trafigura said it “unconditionally condemns” the war and has “substantially reduced its purchases of Russian crude” . It said it ceased all trading with Russian organisations prior to EU sanctions introduced last month. Trafigura said it does not have “operational control” of Nayara Energy or Vadinar. Reliance declined to comment.Sign up to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am BST | Asia Business & Economics |
President Biden said the U.S. was in relatively good standing to overcome inflation President Biden appeared to get defensive when asked during a Thursday interview if his energy policies were to blame for inflation. In his first interview with The Associated Press, the president – running contrary to what many economists are forecasting after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates – said a recession was "not inevitable." President Joe Biden speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, June 16, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci / AP Newsroom)"We’re in a stronger position than any nation in the world to overcome this inflation," Biden said, pointing to 3.6% unemployment rate and America’s relatively strong standing in the world. At the notion that his administration’s policies were responsible for the worst inflation in 40 years and record-high gas prices, the president reportedly bristled. GOP REP. JOHNSON SAYS BIDEN NOT DOING NEARLY ENOUGH ON INFLATION DESPITE SIGNING SHIPPING BILL "If it’s my fault, why is it the case in every other major industrial country in the world that inflation is higher? You ask yourself that? I’m not being a wise guy." Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy pressed White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre later Thursday to explain Biden’s inflation comments, noting that the U.S. has higher inflation than Germany, France, Japan, Canada, India, Italy, and Saudi Arabia. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX BUSINESS APPThe latest figures on inflation for these countries indicate the following: Germany at 7.9%, France at 5.2%, Japan at 2.5%, India at 7.04%, Canada and Italy at 6.8%, and Saudi Arabia at 2.2%. Meanwhile, data released last week showed that U.S. inflation rose in May to a four-decade high of 8.6%.The Associated Press contributed to this report. | Inflation |
U.S. One dollar banknotes are seen in front of displayed stock graph in this illustration taken, February 8, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSINGAPORE, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Major currencies held steady on Wednesday with traders reluctant to place large bets ahead of U.S. inflation data, which markets will scrutinise closely for guidance on how steeply the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in the coming months.The figures are due later in the global day at 1230 GMT. Economists expect year-on-year headline inflation (USCPNY=ECI) to be running at a scorching 8.7%, a small retreat from June's whopping 9.1% figure. Core inflation is expected at 0.5% month-on-month (USCPF=ECI). read more Currency market moves have been slight in the lead up, and for previous releases, reactions have been more muted than in the volatile bond market. The greenback was broadly steady overnight, having paused a bit from a retreat that began in the middle of July.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comIt bought 135.02 Japanese yen and sat at $1.0215 per euro . The Australian and New Zealand dollars were also calm, with the Aussie last at $0.6956 - just above its 50-day moving average. The kiwi traded at $0.6291.Traders expect reaction to turn on the core inflation figure."The market will initially get more excited by a downside core CPI surprise than an upside surprise," said Deutsche Bank strategist Alan Ruskin, feeding in to hopes that falling commodity prices mean inflation can quickly recede."It will also play to the market's recent proclivity to buy risk dips, and will be a broad-based negative for the U.S. dollar," he said."An upside core CPI surprise will fit with the pattern of the last three releases...the purist long dollar trade in this instance is versus the yen," he said, adding dollar/yen could rise into a 135-139 per dollar range.A quick reading on policymakers' reaction may come from Fed officials Charles Evans and Neel Kashkari who are due to make speeches at 1500 GMT and 1800 GMT, though they will have another set of price data in August before September's policy meeting."A one-off sharp drop in CPI at this point should not mean that much to the Fed," said NatWest Markets' rates strategist Jan Nevruzi."They need to see at minimum a consistent multi-month trend to turn around, while acceleration in inflation means that a lot more has to be done on the tightening front."Chinese inflation data released earlier in the day showed a small increase in consumer inflation, to 2.7%, and a slowdown in factory-gate price growth. HSBC analysts said the still muted CPI print indicated "ongoing pressure in the consumption recovery". read more In offshore trade, the yuan lost a little ground to 6.761 per dollar.In emerging markets, the Bank of Thailand is expected to lift interest rates from record lows and the baht hung on to recent gains.Bitcoin , rattled by a drumbeat of cryptocurrency fund wipeouts and thefts over recent months, was at $23,000 on Wednesday.========================================================Currency bid prices at 0538 GMTAll spotsTokyo spotsEurope spotsVolatilitiesTokyo Forex market info from BOJRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Lincoln Feast & Shri NavaratnamOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
JERUSALEM, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Israeli authorities are investigating claims by U.S. researchers that some investors may have known in advance of a Hamas plan to attack Israel on Oct. 7 and used that information to profit from Israeli securities.
Research by law professors Robert Jackson Jr from New York University and Joshua Mitts of Columbia University found significant short-selling of shares leading up to the attacks, which triggered a war nearly two months old.
"Days before the attack, traders appeared to anticipate the events to come," they wrote, citing short interest in the MSCI Israel Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) that "suddenly, and significantly, spiked" on Oct. 2 based on data from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
"And just before the attack, short selling of Israeli securities on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) increased dramatically," they wrote in their 66-page report.
In response, the TASE referred Reuters to the Israel Securities Authority, which said: "The matter is known to the authority and is under investigation by all the relevant parties."
A spokeswoman for the securities regulator did not elaborate, and Israeli police did not immediately comment.
The researchers said short-selling, in which investors expect the share price to fall, allowing it to be bought back at a lower price at a profit, prior to Oct. 7 "exceeded the short- selling that occurred during numerous other periods of crisis."
That includes the recession following the financial crisis in 2008, the 2014 Israel-Gaza war, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
They wrote that for Leumi (LUMI.TA), Israel's largest bank, 4.43 million new shares sold short over the Sept. 14 to Oct. 5 period yielded profits of 3.2 billion shekels ($862 million) on that additional short-selling.
"Although we see no aggregate increase in shorting of Israeli companies on U.S. exchanges, we do identify a sharp and unusual increase, just before the attacks, in trading in risky short-dated options on these companies expiring just after the attacks," they said.
"Our findings suggest that traders informed about the coming attacks profited from these tragic events, and consistent with prior literature we show that trading of this kind occurs in gaps in U.S. and international enforcement of legal prohibitions on informed trading."
The professors referred to patterns in early April when it was reported that Hamas was initially planning its attack on Israel. "Short volume in EIS (the MSCI Israel ETF) peaked on April 3 at levels very similar to those observed on Oct. 2, and was far higher by an order of magnitude than other days prior to April 3," they said.
The story of the new study was first reported on Israel's financial news website The Marker.
($1 = 3.7120 shekels)
Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Howard Goller
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Stocks Trading & Speculation |
Optus chief executive officer Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has resigned in the wake of November 8's nationwide outage.
Key points:
- Kelly Bayer Rosmarin says she has resigned after "some personal reflection"
- She leaves the Optus CEO role after a major cyber attack in 2022 and November 8's nationwide outage
- Optus's parent company says the organisation needs to regain customer trust
She said it "had been an honour to serve" but that "now was an appropriate time to step down".
Ms Bayer Rosmarin was the focus of intense criticism after a nationwide outage left 10 million Optus customers without mobile or internet service earlier this month.
During Friday's Senate hearing into the outage, Ms Bayer Rosmarin rebuffed suggestions she was under pressure to step down.
"On Friday, I had the opportunity to appear before the Senate to expand on the cause of the network outage and how Optus recovered and responded," she said in a statement on Monday.
"I was also able to communicate Optus's commitment to restore trust and continue to serve customers. Having now had time for some personal reflection, I have come to the decision that my resignation is in the best interest of Optus moving forward."
Ms Bayer Rosmarin will be replaced in the interim by chief financial officer Michael Venter.
Yuen Kuan Moon, the chief executive of Optus's Singaporean parent company Singtel Group, said the company understood her decision to resign.
Ms Bayer Rosmarin held roles with the Commonwealth Bank before joining Optus as deputy CEO in March 2019. She became the telecommunications giant's chief executive in April 2020.
Optus experienced a major cyber attack in September 2022, which led to more than 2 million customers having their personal identification documents compromised by hackers.
Optus needs to 'regain customer trust', Singtel CEO says
Mr Yuen said Singtel recognised "the need for Optus to regain customer trust and confidence as the team works through the impact and consequences of the recent outage and continues to improve".
He said Optus's priority was about "setting on a path of renewal for the benefit of the community and customers".
"Optus is an integral part of our group's business. We view the events in recent weeks very seriously," he said in a statement.
"We fully recognise the importance of Optus's role in providing connectivity services to the community and the importance of network resiliency and security. That is a top priority in all markets where our companies operate in."
Singtel said Optus had also created a new chief operating officer position, which would be carried out by former Optus Business Managing Director Peter Kaliaropoulos.
Bayer Rosmarin defended Optus's response to nationwide outage
Optus said "changes to routing information" after a "routine software upgrade" was behind November 8's nationwide mobile and internet outage, which affected 10.2 million Australians and 400,000 businesses.
Ms Bayer Rosmarin told Friday's Senate hearing that the company intentionally did not contact customers directly during the outage, and instead prioritised posting on social media and doing live media interviews.
She said Optus did not want to comment publicly on the cause of the outage until the company had investigated it thoroughly.
"I appreciate how frustrating it was for all our customers not to know what the issue was or when it would be resolved, but it's not because we were withholding information … it's because we ourselves did not know what the issue was," she said on Friday.
Optus has offered at least 200GB of extra data to affected customers, but is also facing investigations and calls for class action lawsuits over the incident.
Next CEO 'needs to get on the front foot'
Telecommunications expert Mark Gregory, an associate professor at RMIT University, said Ms Bayer Rosmarin would be remembered as "another CEO in a technology company that really isn't suited for the role".
"Unfortunately, Australia has a very bad habit of [having] CEOs and senior management teams [who] are running our technology companies, especially our essential services, and these individuals are not really aware of the technology sides of their organisations," he said.
"Yes they're accountants or lawyers, but unfortunately they don't have that technology knowledge, so that when something goes wrong they're actually able to communicate clearly what the problem was and how the company is going to deal with that problem."
Mr Gregory said the next Optus CEO would first need to deal with the outage.
"The new CEO needs to get on the front foot and talk to its customers, and offer them more than a meaningless data handout," he said.
"They need to offer the customers some sort of reduction in their next monthly bill, but also for the 400,000 business customers that were affected by this outage.
"They need to talk to them individually and work out compensation solutions so they don't end up with a class action, because if they don't do that I can see a class action happening very soon, and really that will be Optus in the courts over two major matters, and for the company and the brand of the company, we don't need that as a nation." | Australia Business & Economics |
BEIJING, Sept 30 (Reuters) - China's foreign exchange regulator named and shamed 10 banks that had assisted illegal capital outflows, vowing to crack down on fake forex transactions in authorities' latest effort to stabilise the sliding yuan.The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) listed 10 "typical" cases of misdeeds in a statement on its website on Thursday, involving money flowing overseas illegally through bank businesses such as offshore loans, trade finance, and outbound investment.The misconduct involved local branches of 10 lenders that included some of the country's top banks, between 2017 and 2020, the regulator said.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSAFE said it will "strengthen the supervision of the forex market and crack down on illegal and unlawful behaviours with a focus on false and deceptive forex transactions."Publishing the 10 cases is aimed at sending a warning to market players, the official Shanghai Securities News said on Friday, citing an unnamed SAFE official.China's central bank said on Wednesday that stabilising the foreign exchange market is the top priority, and warned against one-way currency bets. The yuan has tumbled against a surging dollar over the past month.The People's Bank of China has also asked major state-owned banks to be prepared to sell dollars in offshore markets, sources told Reuters.SAFE will strengthen oversight of cross-border trade and investment against illegal forex transactions to safeguard national economic and financial security, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Friday.Regulators will also closely monitor cross-border money flows, and step up the fight against fraudulent trade, the newspaper said.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Beijing and Shanghai newsrooms; Editing by Jamie FreedOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
Media caption, Komla Dumor's former colleagues reflect on the late broadcaster's talentThe BBC is seeking a rising star of African journalism for the BBC News Komla Dumor Award, now in its eighth year. Journalists from across Africa are invited to apply for the award, which aims to uncover and promote fresh talent from the continent. The winner will spend three months at the BBC headquarters in London, gaining skills and experience. Applications close on 14 February 2023 at 23:59 GMT.The award was established to honour Komla Dumor, an exceptional Ghanaian broadcaster and presenter for BBC World News, who died suddenly aged 41 in 2014.Dumor's widow, Kwansema Dumor said she was "proud" of her husband's impact at the BBC, and also said her family were "thankful to the BBC for remembering him" through the prize.The BBC is encouraging journalists across Africa to apply for the prize, which seeks to promote and celebrate outstanding journalistic talent living and working on the continent. BBC/Makasa KaundaKomla Dumor was an inspiration to me, so to win the award and take part in his legacy has been an honour"As well as receiving training, the successful candidate will have the opportunity to travel to a country in Africa to report on a story that they have researched, with the report broadcast to the BBC's global audiences. Known for championing robust, dynamic journalism and for his commitment to reporting African stories comprehensively and authentically, Dumor made a significant impact on Africa and the rest of the world. The BBC is committed to continuing his legacy through the award by empowering journalists from Africa to tell original and nuanced African stories to reach international audiences.Zambian TV host and reporter Dingindaba Jonah Buyoya was last year's winner - the first to come from southern Africa."Komla Dumor was an inspiration to me, so to win the award and take part in his legacy has been an honour," Buyoya said."I encourage African journalists to apply for the awards, it's an incredible way to learn and further develop skills needed to tell even more ground-breaking stories in Africa."Liliane Landor, senior controller of BBC News International Services, said: "The award and our previous winners are a fitting testament to Komla's dedication to telling African stories with depth and integrity."Dumor was the presenter of Focus on Africa, the BBC's first-ever dedicated daily TV news programme in English for African audiences. It was broadcast on BBC World News, which later this year is merging with the BBC News Channel to create a single 24-hour TV news service.He was also one of the lead presenters for BBC World News' European morning segment. He joined the BBC in 2007 after a decade of broadcast journalism in his native Ghana where he won the Ghana Journalist of the Year award.Between 2007 and 2009 he hosted Network Africa for BBC World Service, before joining The World Today programme. In 2009 Dumor became the first host of the African business news programme on BBC World News, Africa Business Report. He travelled across Africa, meeting Africa's top entrepreneurs and reporting on the latest business trends around the continent. In 2013 Dumor featured in New African magazine's list of the 100 most influential Africans.Previous winners: 2015: Nancy Kacungira from Uganda2016: Didi Akinyelure from Nigeria2017: Amina Yuguda from Nigeria2018: Waihiga Mwaura from Kenya2019: Solomon Serwanjja from Uganda2020: Victoria Rubadiri from Kenya2022: Dingindaba Jonah Buyoya from ZambiaAround the BBC | Africa Business & Economics |
Oct 11 (Reuters) - The dollar hit multi-year highs on Tuesday against the risk-sensitive Aussie and Kiwi dollars and the yen hovered near the level that prompted intervention as worries about rising interest rates and geopolitical tensions unsettled investors.Strong U.S. labour data and an expectation of inflation figures on Thursday to remain stubbornly high have all but dashed bets on anything but high interest rates through 2023 and are driving the dollar back toward multi-decade highs.Risk appetite was also hurt on Tuesday after Russia rained missiles upon Ukraine's cities on Monday in retaliation for blast that damaged the only bridge linking Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSim Moh Siong, currency strategist at Bank of Singapore, said things are still uncertain because of geopolitical risks such as the war in Ukraine, escalating U.S.-China tensions and a sell-off in gilts on Monday."This renewed wall of worries is likely to keep the dollar supported," he said, but cautioned that there could be a bit of a relief rally in risky assets.U.S. dollar index was up 0.239% at 113.34, inching toward the 20-year high of 114.78 it touched late last month.The yen hit 145.80 per dollar overnight, just 10 pips short of the 24-year trough it made before the Japanese government stepped in to prop it up three weeks ago. Japan returned from a holiday on Tuesday and the yen sat at 145.69.Fear of intervention has held the yen firm in recent weeks, but as it drifts back to multi-decade lows analysts aren't convinced it can hold the line."The bigger backdrop is that the intervention is unlikely to reverse the short term trend of upward bias to dollar/yen," Sim added.The risk-sensitive Australian dollar made a 2-1/2 year low of $0.6275 on Monday and hovered at $0.6267 on Tuesday. Analysts at the National Australia Bank said the Aussie was the market's "whipping boy" in a sell off and that further lows were possible in the near term as sentiment is fragile.The New Zealand dollar also made a 2-1/2 year low at $0.5545 on Monday and is close to breaking its pandemic trough, with weak data from China further souring the mood"Our expectation for the world economy to enter recession next year is consistent with further gains in the dollar," said Commonwealth Bank of Australia strategist Carol Kong.Britain's markets remain on edge and not exactly soothed by the Bank of England stepping up bond buying and finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng promising to bring forward some budget announcements.Gilts sold sharply overnight leading longer-term U.S. Treasury yields to move higher. Yields on the 30-year bond leapt as much as 11 basis points to the highest in almost nine years at 3.956%.Sterling was also wobbly, sliding to a 10-day low of $1.1027 on Monday. The pound was down 0.31% at $1.1025 on Tuesday.The euro was down 0.22% at $0.9682, heading for fifth straight session of decline and drifting toward 20 year low it touched on Sept. 26.========================================================Currency bid prices at 0335 GMTAll spotsTokyo spotsEurope spotsVolatilitiesTokyo Forex market info from BOJRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Tom Westbrook in Sydney and Ankur Banerjee in Singapore; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Gerry DoyleOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
SummaryTruss had defended policy, markets worried about costFinance minister Kwarteng now says it was distractionKwarteng to bring forward debt-cutting planCut in highest tax rate was small part of overall planLawmakers express alarm over government judgementBIRMINGHAM, England, Oct 3 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Liz Truss was forced on Monday into a humiliating U-turn after less than a month in power, reversing a cut to the highest rate of income tax that helped spark turmoil in financial markets and a rebellion in her party.Finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng said the decision was taken with "humility and contrition", after some lawmakers from the ruling Conservative Party reacted with fury to suggestions that public and welfare spending could be cut to fund tax cuts for the richest.Kwarteng will also bring forward publication of his plan to cut Britain's debt, alongside forecasts for economic growth, a government source said, in another apparent climbdown amid calls from some Conservatives that the action was needed quickly to reassure the markets.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comAddressing his party's annual conference where lawmakers and supporters had gathered, Kwarteng acknowledged the "little turbulence" of the last week, but argued the government needed to press ahead with a new course to revive growth."What a day," he said, to muted applause. "It has been tough, but we need to focus on the job in hand, we need to move forward. No more distractions."Truss - elected as prime minister by party members but not the broader public - is seeking to jolt the economy out of a decade of stagnant growth with a 1980s-style plan to cut taxes and regulation, all funded by vast government borrowing.Signalling a break with "Treasury orthodoxy", she and Kwarteng also fired the most senior official in the government's finance department and released the tax cut plan without accompanying forecasts on how much it would cost.Investors, used to Britain being a pillar of the global financial community, were aghast. The pound hit a record low against the dollar and the Bank of England had to intervene to prevent pension funds from collapsing."It is astonishing," one Conservative lawmaker said, declining to be named. "The damage has already been done. We just look incompetent now, too."Another party insider said the Conservative government, in power under different leaders for 12 years but with Truss as prime minister only since Sept. 6, was already on "survive a day at a time" mode as confidence and credibility drained away.'HAPPY TO OWN IT'While the removal of the top rate of tax only made up around 2 billion out of the 45 billion pounds of unfunded tax cuts, it was the most divisive element of a package that also stumped up tens of billions of pounds to subsidise energy costs.Less than a day after Truss went on BBC television to defend the policy, Kwarteng released a statement early on Monday to say he now accepted it had become a distraction."We listened to people," he told BBC Radio. "I'm happy to own it." He said he had not considered resigning.The decision to reverse course is likely to put Truss and Kwarteng under even greater pressure, the latest threat to political stability in a country that has had four prime ministers in the last six years.Polls show the opposition Labour Party now holding commanding leads over the Conservatives. Two surveys on Monday showed Labour with more than 50 percent of support from voters, with the Conservatives languishing some 25-30 points behind.Asked if Kwarteng should resign or be fired, one Conservative lawmaker said: "My view is that he is significantly weakened."Truss and Kwarteng were elected into government in 2019 when former leader Boris Johnson secured a landslide victory on a very different manifesto, promising to increase government spending, particularly in Britain's more deprived areas.British Prime Minister Liz Truss and Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng attend the annual Conservative Party conference, in Birmingham, Britain, October 2, 2022. REUTERS/Hannah McKayJohnson was driven from office after three years by a party rebellion over his conduct.Truss won the race to replace him after vowing to reignite the economy. But while defending her tax cut policy on Sunday, she was unable to rule out public spending cuts and restrictions on welfare payments to balance the books.The Institute for Fiscal Studies said public spending would have to be cut unless Kwarteng reversed other unfunded policies too, an unpalatable prospect for many as the country's health service, schools and judiciary increasingly creak under pressure.Kwarteng had previously said he would deliver a fiscal statement on Nov. 23 with details of how he would cut debt alongside full forecasts for economic growth from Britain's independent fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).But in his conference speech he said he would publish these details "shortly", with a government source telling Reuters that the "OBR can move quicker, so can we".The Financial Times said Kwarteng was expected to accelerate publication to later this month, adding that his statement would set out a five-year plan to cut debt, including a squeeze on public spending.Many Conservatives have warned tax and spending cuts risked taking them back to their "nasty party" image of 20 years ago.Ben Houchen, the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley in northeast England, said he understood the principle of cutting taxes but said such a move during a cost-of-living crisis for millions had been "very naive"."Would I have done it? Absolutely not," he said.The Labour Party said the government had destroyed its economic credibility and damaged the economy.Showing how unpredictable Britain's dominant political party has become, one former minister, Nadine Dorries, who backed Truss as prime minister less than a month ago, now said she must call an election because she has no personal mandate to govern.HISTORIC LOSSESWhile the pound has recovered from its depths of last week, government bonds have mostly failed to recoup the historic losses incurred from the "mini-budget" - with the exception of long-dated debt which is subject to Bank of England support.Investors and economists said the reversal was a step in the right direction but that the government needed to go further."The issue was not tax changes announced at the mini-budget but the institutional 'scorched earth policy' that preceded it," said Simon French, chief economist of brokerage Panmure Gordon. "UK risk premia will likely only pull back if that is addressed."S&P Global said the U-turn did not "materially affect" the economics behind its move on Friday to put the UK's AA credit rating on a downgrade warning.Jane Foley, head of forex and rates strategy at Rabobank, said it would only become clear whether the government had done enough once the BoE intervention ends on Oct. 14."UK assets, the pound and gilts are not out of the woods yet," she said.($1 = 0.8884 pounds)Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWriting by Kate Holton; Reporting by Elizabeth Piper, Andrew MacAskill and Alistair Smout in Birmingham, Kylie MacLellan, Dhara Ranasinghe, Andy Bruce, Lucy Raitano, Michael Holden and Muvija M in London; Editing by Andy Bruce, Gareth Jones, Hugh Lawson, Jan Harvey, Bernadette Baum and Paul SimaoOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | United Kingdom Business & Economics |
U.S. dollar banknotes are displayed in this illustration taken, February 14, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File PhotoRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSummaryDollar at lowest level since mid-June against yenAussie dollar upEuro also gains as dollar fallsNEW YORK, Aug 1 (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar was at its lowest level since mid-June against the Japanese yen on Monday as investors weighed the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates as aggressively as some had expected.The U.S. dollar index was volatile after data showed U.S. manufacturing activity slowed less than expected in July. read more But a key report for investors this week will be the U.S. jobs report on Friday."It's the beginning of a new month, and the real focus is on the possibility that the Fed slows down its rate hikes," said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex in New York.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com"The big focus is on the jobs market at the end of the week, and that's likely to confirm that the improvement in the labor market is moderating," he said. "But pre-COVID, it would still be regarded as a very robust number."The dollar index is up about 10% for the year so far following investor expectations of aggressive Fed rate hikes."After a big move, I think we're really consolidating," Chandler said.Last week, the dollar crumbled against the yen, and two-year yields in the U.S. Treasury market also fell, after data showed the U.S. economy shrank for a second straight quarter. read more The dollar sank to its lowest level versus the yen since mid-June , and was down from a late 1998 peak of nearly 140 yen which it hit last month. The dollar was last down 1.1% at 131.74.The dollar index was last at 105.26, down 0.7%.The broad weakness in the dollar helped the euro , which was up 0.5% at $1.0273.Currency investors were also watching news on U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's expected visit to Taiwan. Pelosi was set to visit Taiwan on Tuesday, two people briefed on the matter said, according to a Reuters report. China has warned that its military would never "sit idly by" if she visited the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing. read more The Aussie dollar rose 0.6% to $0.7036 before a central bank rate hike on Tuesday. read more ========================================================Currency bid prices at 11:44AM (1544 GMT)Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comAdditional reporting by Saikat Chatterjee in London; Editing by Jan Harvey, Jane Merriman and Paul SimaoOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
President Biden’s bet on a rapid rebound from the coronavirus recession may have backfired. The president and his top economic officials rallied Democrats around a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill in March 2021, urging Congress not to repeat the mistakes of the Great Recession and cut off support for the economy too soon. The bill was also Biden’s way of delivering on the promise made during the pivotal Georgia Senate runoffs, which gave his party a slim Senate majority: elect Democrats and get another round of stimulus checks. Just more than a year after Biden signed the bill, U.S. unemployment rate is nearly at pre-pandemic levels, the economy has added more than 10 million jobs, and gross domestic product is well above where it was when COVID-19 shattered the economy. By those measures alone, the recovery under his watch was far stronger than the slow trudge out of the Great Recession. But despite the rapid rebound, Biden’s approval rating is at all-time lows as Americans feel the brunt of high inflation — a risk few within and beyond the administration took seriously when he signed the American Rescue Plan (ARP). Consumer prices rose 1 percent in May alone and by 8.6 percent over the past 12 months, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department. Prices for food, gasoline, shelter and travel led the May inflation burst, giving Americans few ways to avoid higher prices. “The Fed and the White House were trying to avoid the kind of long slog decade-long recovery that there was after the Great Recession,” said Skanda Amarnath, executive director at research non-profit Employ America. “For some people, there was a certain complacency about inflation as a possibility. That’s probably true too. But that was viewed as a much more remote tail risk.” It’s a risk voters are feeling. Eighty-five percent of voters said they think inflation is a very serious or somewhat serious problem, according to an Economist/YouGov poll from earlier this month. In the same, poll, 44 percent of respondents said Biden has “a lot” of responsibility for the inflation rate and 31 percent said he has “some.” Top Biden administration and Fed officials — along with dozens of economists — expected inflation to cool off last year as the world adjusted to life after COVID-19. Vaccination campaigns, reopening schools and a shift in spending from goods to services all figured to bring prices down and workers back into the job market. But COVID-19 adjusted quicker. The emergence of the delta and omicron variants didn’t curb consumer spending or cost the economy jobs. Instead, it shifted a glut of saved-up money toward goods, which had been in high demand since the start of the pandemic, instead of services. The new variants also led to factory shutdowns, port backlogs and other pandemic-related snarls, making it even harder for manufacturers and suppliers to meet even higher demand powered in part by federal stimulus. “Inflation wasn’t transitory because COVID was not transitory. Parts of China are still locked down. We’re not even through the COVID shock,” said Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve research director. And while some of those pressures have begin to ease, the war in Ukraine has pushed inflation even higher with severe shocks to the global supply of oil, natural gas, wheat and other crucial commodities. “There were people at the time who said given the gap, given how many people we have out of work, the American Rescue Plan is more than enough. That seems it could be especially true if you counted the excess savings as energy stored in the battery that could be used to get the economy rolling,” said Alan Cole, former chief economist for Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee. “The US has had higher inflation generally than most advanced economies, and I don’t think anyone’s saying the ARP created all of it—or if they are, they are not telling the truth. But the ARP kind of contributed more at the margins.” Republican lawmakers, who voted in unison against the American Rescue Plan, have claimed vindication after warning Biden’s bill would trigger an inflation spiral. GOP lawmakers have centered their midterm campaign message — including their response to the Capitol riot investigation — around Biden’s failure to keep prices stable as the economy expanded. “[My] constituents ask me about the historic gas prices, skyrocketing inflation, and the baby formula shortage,” tweeted Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the third-ranking House Republican, on Thursday. “Why aren’t Democrats holding primetime hearings about these crises impacting the American people?” Stefanik’s barb came two days after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted to lawmakers during House and Senate hearings that the administration misjudged inflation and likely spurred it higher through the stimulus plan. Yellen defended the ARP’s role in spurring the economy, though she acknowledged how critical it would be for the administration to balance out its impact on the economy. Most economists say it’s hard to blame the White House for trying to repair the economy as quickly as possible. Even former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, the top Democratic critic of Biden’s economic policy, spurned the ARP because he believed the money would be better spent on the president’s broader Build Back Better agenda. That bill has fallen by the wayside amid concerns from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) about its potential impact on inflation. Even so, experts agree there is far more Biden could do to try to bring prices down. In a fiery Friday speech, Biden blasted big oil companies for reeling in record profits instead of expanding production with gas prices above $5 per gallon on average nationwide. “Why don’t they drill more? Because they make more money not producing oil. Prices go up on the one hand. No. 2, the reason they are not drilling is they are buying back their own stock, should be taxed quite frankly. Buying back their own stock and not making new investments,” he said. But Amarnath said Biden should work with the industry to increase output through agreements to purchase oil for the federal reserve at set prices, giving them cover if market prices for oil go down amid the glut of products. Amarnath also said the U.S. government should deploy the Treasury Department’s exchange stabilization fund (ESF) to help keep prices down for crucial commodities hindered by the war in Ukraine, sanctions on Russia and Chinese lockdowns. “Having some individualized attention on these markets would help but you’d have to really do that systematically ahead of time. That takes a lot of work and that kind of work, just to be blunt, doesn’t happen anywhere within the government.” Sahm also expressed concerns about Biden’s plan to lean on the Fed to bring down inflation when much of the forces driving prices higher are beyond the bank’s control. “[The Fed] should have moved sooner last year and it probably would have had some effect on inflation, but it would have had no effect on food and gas prices,” Sahm said. “When the Fed lowers inflation, it does it by reducing people’s ability to spend. It’s not a happy way that we get inflation down,” she continued. “The Fed’s lever is impoverishing people. Hardship in the United States is never equally shared.” | Inflation |
AP Photo/Evan Vucci President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. The Biden administration is hosting a summit this week that brings together leaders of 49 African countries, as well as heads of the African Union, to collaborate on key policy across climate change, security and trade. Vice President Harris opened the three-day summit on Tuesday at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, where she discussed the African diaspora and young African leaders. President Biden is expected to join the summit on Wednesday and deliver remarks on the U.S.-Africa Business Forum. While a significant majority of African nations have joined the summit this week, five were not invited. A senior White House official this week said four of those countries — Guinea, Sudan, Mali and Burkina Faso — have changed their governments unconstitutionally and were suspended from the African Union. Here are the five African nations that weren’t invited to Biden’s summit: Guinea The ruling government in Guinea was seized by a military junta in September 2021 and is now led by Col. Mamady Doumbouya. The military junta overthrew Guinea President Alpha Condé, who had won a controversial third term for office despite term limits, which he claimed did not apply to him. Doumbouya agreed in October to hold new elections in about two years. Sudan Sudanese Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan toppled the government in October 2021, taking power during the Northeast African nation’s transition to a democracy after three decades of authoritarian rule. Sudan’s military leadership announced this month the first phase of an agreement to transition to a democracy, but some political groups have rejected the framework, and discussions are ongoing. Millions of people in Sudan are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, a crisis that grew worse after the coup. Civilian demonstrators also frequently clash with security forces. Mali Col. Assimi Goïta seized power in Mali two years ago after leading a coup against the government. He failed to transition the West African country into new democratic elections and has become a pariah to the international world. Mali also recently rejected help from French humanitarian groups, affecting hundreds of thousands of Malians who are in need emergency food and medical assistance. Earlier this year, France, which had fought Islamic terrorist groups for nine years in Mali, completed a withdrawal of troops from the country. Russian mercenaries in Mali have also been accused of murdering civilians in a growing concern for world leaders. Burkina Faso Burkina Faso, located in West Africa, is in a dire humanitarian situation after suffering from two coups in less than nine months. Troops in September ousted the ruling military leader, Lt. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had won control of the country through a January coup. A militia leader appointed to replace him said Damiba had not done enough to control violence in Burkina Faso. More than 3,200 people have died in the African country from January to September, and nearly 5 million are in need of emergency assistance. Some women and children have been eating leaves and salt for weeks, the United Nations said in October. Eritrea The U.S. does not have formal ties with Eritrea, a country located in the Horn of Africa in the eastern region of the continent, so the nation’s leaders were not invited. Eritrea has also been providing military support to neighboring Ethiopia, which is in the midst of a civil war against an opposing political faction in the region of Tigray. Eritrean troops are accused of the kidnapping, looting and murder of civilians in Tigray and the U.S. has called for the Eritrean soldiers to withdraw from the conflict. The Associated Press contributed to this report. | Africa Business & Economics |
A customer hands Indian currency notes to an attendant at a fuel station in Mumbai, India, August 13, 2018. REUTERS/Francis MascarenhasRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comMUMBAI, Aug 12 (Reuters) - The Indian rupee opened marginally lower to the U.S. currency on Friday, as traders awaited the retail inflation data and eyed whether there will be any follow-through dollar demand.The rupee was trading at 79.6750 per dollar by 0332 GMT, compared to 79.63 in the previous session.** Data due later in the day expected to show India inflation rate eased in July, but remained above the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) upper tolerance limit. read more Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com** Rise in Treasury yields and dollar index rebound to support USD/INR pair.** Fed officials continue to push back against expectations of less hawkish stance. read more ** Long weekend to deter short dollar positions. Indian forex and money markets shut on Monday and Tuesday.**"Have to see whether the big dollar demand we saw yesterday, likely for oil and defence related, will continue today," a trader at a state-run bank said.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Nimesh Vora; Editing by Rashmi AichOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
ADDING FUEL TO THE FLAMES
Fake supporters welcome climate change denialist to Africa Energy Week in Cape Town
American fossil fuel advocate Alex Epstein on Tuesday spoke at Africa Energy Week, held in Cape Town, where he was greeted by a crowd of ‘supporters’ who had no idea who he was.
In what is shaping up to be the warmest year on record, the last thing you expect to come across is climate change denialism. Yet, this week, a US fossil fuel advocate came all the way to Cape Town to share that Africa needs rapid fossil fuel growth and to claim, “Fossil-fuelled development isn’t causing a climate crisis, it’s making humanity safer from climate.”
Alex Epstein shared this message while speaking at the start of the Africa Energy Week (AEW) on Tuesday, 17 October. AEW is an annual event organised by the African Energy Chamber at which African energy leaders and governments come together at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) to discuss the future of the continent’s energy industry.
Epstein is a commentator and the author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels and Fossil Future.
He arrived at the CTICC to signs stating “Welcome Alex Epstein”, “Gas is good for Africa” and “End Loadshedding” in a demonstration by more than 100 residents from Khayelitsha, Langa and Gugulethu — none of whom appeared to know who Epstein was, what was happening at the CTICC, or why they were there.
Speaking to Daily Maverick while holding a “Welcome Alex Epstein” placard, Shaun Swaartbooi from Gugulethu admitted that he did not know who Epstein was and that he did not know why he was there. This was echoed by others at the demonstration.
The demonstrators arrived on buses early on Tuesday morning with their signs and left at about 11am. Bulumko Gana was referred to as the organiser by members of the group, but when questioned he said he was not the organiser and that he had been asked to gather young people from his area.
Gana said the organiser was in fact Ndingu Malandela, who when questioned also denied organising the demonstration and was instructed to “please block anything from the media and pass on the message”.
The demonstrators denied they had been paid.
‘Climate criminals’
The demonstration took place alongside a protest action by Extinction Rebellion (XR) Cape Town, whose members were dressed as “climate criminals” — representing governments, oil, gas and coal industries that were “stealing the future”.
Supporting XR was Stephen Horn, country director of the Clean Creatives campaign, who said that Tuesday’s “astroturfing” (hiring a crowd to support industry interests) was further proof of the dirty tactics of the oil industry as it pursued profits over much cleaner, more sustainable development pathways in line with the global scientific consensus on climate change.
“Now, more than ever, the case is being made to South African agencies and corporate South Africa that it’s time to pick a side; you cannot claim to care about the climate while also continuing to work for those willing to stoop to such low tactics in order to continue wrecking the planet,” he said.
Read more in Daily Maverick: Activists say ‘no more soft approach’ to climate change, need more from Standard Bank
On the sidelines of the event on Tuesday, Epstein said that he had nothing to do with the demonstration supporting him: “I love them [the demonstrators], but I don’t know anything beyond that.”
He said he did not know whether his “supporters” had been paid and that he “for sure did not pay them”.
XR Cape Town and Horn said that while they were protesting, they saw buses of pro-fossil fuel demonstrators arrive. “They told us they’d been paid R200 to come protest ‘to end load shedding’ but beyond that weren’t told more,” XR said in a tweet.
Whilst protesting #NoNewOilGas at #AEW2023 buses of pro-oil/gas protestors arrived. They told us they’d been paid R200 to come protest “to end loadshedding” but beyond that weren’t told more. None were particular pro fossil-fuels. All were just needing to make a living today./1 pic.twitter.com/ZaIF9A3Zwg
— Extinction Rebellion Cape Town (@CtxRebellion) October 17, 2023
Verner Ayukegba, the senior vice-president of the African Energy Chamber, said: “We welcome everyone to the debate for helping Africa obtain energy security. All we ask is that everyone be respectful and keep the interest of all Africans at heart. We must end energy poverty by 2030 and give access to 600 million people who have no access to energy at the moment.”
Asked whether it had paid demonstrators to attend the event, the African Energy Chamber said, “Unfortunately there is no further response from the Chamber.”
What was Epstein’s message?
According to Epstein, Africans need fossil fuels to prosper because every prosperous country has developed using fossil fuels and “even prosperous countries can’t replace it with solar and wind energy”. He argued that “fossil-fuelled development isn’t causing a climate crisis, it’s making humanity much safer from climate”.
Today I will be addressing hundreds of African energy leaders at Africa Energy Week.
My message: for the sake of Africans and the rest of the world, African leaders need to confidently reject the net-zero movement and embrace energy freedom—including fossil fuel freedom.
— Alex Epstein (@AlexEpstein) October 17, 2023
When confronted with scientific evidence like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, which contradict his narrative and advocacy for further fossil fuel expansion, Epstein attempted to discredit the science and claimed it was being distorted by the UN.
“They take some legitimate science and distort it to be extremely catastrophic, and then they ignore all the benefits we get from fossil fuels.”
‘A classic case of denialism’
This is a classic case of climate change denialism, according to Professor Francois Engelbrecht, a climatologist at Wits University’s Global Change Institute and an IPCC report contributor, as well as Dr Christopher Trisos, a coordinating lead author on the IPCC’s sixth assessment report.
Climate change denialism remains by far a minority view rejected by science and by the 197 countries that have endorsed the Paris Agreement — almost every nation on Earth, including the world’s biggest emitters of carbon dioxide.
Engelbrecht and Trisos, in interviews with Daily Maverick, said in no uncertain terms that climate change was widespread, rapid, intensifying and unprecedented.
Engelbrecht said that giving a climate change denier like Epstein such a prominent position at AEW was an insult to the African countries that strongly advocated for global warming to be restricted to below 1.5°C, particularly as Africa already suffers disproportionately from climate change.
“The group of countries that negotiate together as Africa has, in fact, been the most prominent voice in the commissioning of the IPCC’s special report on global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius. It was Africa and the small island states that realised that their countries are the most vulnerable to the future impact of climate change,” Engelbrecht said.
Trisos said, “It’s unfortunate that the African Energy Chamber has given a platform for misinformation that endangers the life and livelihoods of millions and millions of Africans. If this misinformation and narrative are followed, it only stands to benefit some African elites in the fossil fuels business, but at the cost of millions of people vulnerable to climate change.”
Human-induced climate change continues to cause widespread losses and damage to people and ecosystems around the world. Southern Africa alone has experienced a worrisome trend of worsening disasters in recent years such as droughts, flooding and fires which have caused many deaths.
Yet during his speech at AEW, Epstein claimed that the rate of climate disaster deaths had gone down by a factor of 98% in the past 100 years.
Engelbrecht responded that it is misinformation to say that the rate of climate disasters has gone down, and it directly contradicts the findings of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, which states that an increase in the occurrence of extreme weather events has been detected in every inhabited part of the world.
Engelbrecht said that in the past four years, southern Africa had, for the first time, experienced two tropical cyclones, each of which killed more than 1,000 people.
“The science is clear that these systems have become more intense across the world and also in the southwest Indian Ocean. They’re also causing more rainfall than in the past, so they have absolutely become more devastating, more intense and caused immense human disaster and tragedy,” he said.
Another clear example is heatwaves, which have become unprecedented in terms of intensity and duration in the past 20 years.
“Heatwaves have killed tens of thousands of people, not only in the developing world, [but also in the] most developed areas such as the European Mediterranean,” Engelbrecht said.
Misleading claims
During his speech at AEW, Epstein said: “If you look at what’s happening, don’t just look at rhetoric or anecdotes … but if you look at how many people are dying overall, from climate-related disasters like floods and storms and heat and cold, that’s not something that’s getting worse, that’s something getting much better.
“Why? Because whatever warming impact we’ve had on climate is trivial, compared to our ability to neutralise climate danger to what I call the master climate. If you have a lot of energy to power irrigation systems, and to power crop transport, and to heat and to cool and to build sturdy infrastructure and forewarning systems, you’re going to be incredibly safe from climate.
“Climate change doesn’t matter compared to climate mastery. The way you get climate mastery is by having cheap energy and the only way to get cheap energy on a large scale right now and for the foreseeable future is fossil fuels.”
However, Trisos and Engelbrecht maintain that this is misleading and that the science is clear. They added that IPCC scientists volunteer their time and receive no payment for their work to ensure it is unbiased.
“They look at tens and thousands of research publications and then they come up with a census position from those research. The consensus position is that climate change is established, it’s getting more dangerous the more fossil fuels we burn, and we are running out of time to stop the worst impacts,” Trisos said.
“In an African context, we are a society that is highly exposed and vulnerable to climate disasters. Most African people work in agriculture, and most agriculture is fed by rainfall. That’s already a clear example of how highly exposed we are to climate disasters, and we know that future climate change is going to make disasters like the Cape Town drought more frequent and more intense.”
He said it was crucial to limit global warming and climate change because the economic industries important to Africa were at high risk from climate change and burning more fossil fuels. DM | Energy & Natural Resources |
Stocks To Buy This Diwali - Reliance Industries, Dr. Reddy's, United Spirits And More By HDFC Securities
Here are the 10 picks for Samvat 2080 handpicked by us
BQ Prime’s special research section collates quality and in-depth equity and economy research reports from across India’s top brokerages, asset managers and research agencies. These reports offer BQ Prime’s subscribers an opportunity to expand their understanding of companies, sectors and the economy.
HDFC Securities Retail Research
We expect markets to be volatile till the first half of 2024 even as the outcome of state and Central elections will be watched closely as would be the repercussions of the two geo political events. Though the local fund inflows have remained robust, we would need resumption of FPI flows once the global risk appetite revives.
We continue to favour domestic oriented businesses and favor opportunities in the sectors like materials, pharma, oil and gas, small finance banks, petrochemicals, consumption, power EPC and restructuring plays for the next year.
With a focus on these themes, here are our 10 picks for Samvat 2080. These stocks have robust fundamentals and some margin of safety in their valuation to offer superior returns to investors.
Reliance Industries Ltd.
Key triggers
RIL expects nationwide 5G coverage in India by December 2023 and launched Jio Bharat to gain market share and capitalise on the 2G market. JioFiber and JioAirFiber will accelerate Home broadband offerings to develop AI models and solutions customised for the Indian market.
Reliance Jio added the most number of wireless subscribers over the past and we expect, average revenue per user could increase to Rs 190-195 per month in FY24E from Rs 180.5 per month in Q1 FY24 and Rs 178.8 per month in Q4 FY23.
Reliance retail crossed the milestone of 100 crore transactions and received more than 78 crore footfalls in FY23. The registered customers grew to 25 crore and opened 3,300 plus new stores last year, taking the total to 18,040, covering 6.56 crore square feet. Notably, two-third of these stores were located in T2 and smaller towns in FY23.
As per the market cap, Reliance Retail is ranked among top four/top 10 companies in India/ retailers in the world. Reliance will continue to expand in all categories viz., grocery, fmcg, electronics, fashion, etc. through physical as well as digital platforms. It also plans to launch products internationally.
Reliance’s MJ field in the KG basin is set to reach ~30 million metric standard cubic metre per day of production for FY24E and it will contribute ~30% of the India’s domestic gas production and 15% of the country’s total gas demand.
The company is working on fast-tracking various projects currently underway at Jamnagar’s Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga complex. Singapore GRMs have recovered back sharply since July’23, stood at $ 9.6/bbl in Q2 FY24 which could also help Reliance to report strong GRMs amid rise in benchmark Singapore GRM in the coming quarters.
The company is working on converting low-value refinery streams to highly specialised products. The company also intends to transition to renewable and bio-energy in order to reach Net-Zero by 2035, while also improving profitability with lower energy cost.
Reliance’s priority is to set up battery Giga factory by 2026. It will manufacture battery chemicals, cells and packs, leading all the way up to energy storage solutions, and will include a battery recycling facility.
Valuation and recommendations
Reliance’s retail, telecom, and new energy are poised to become the upcoming growth drivers over the next two-to-three years, given the large technological advancements and ambitious growth targets.
The company to report a consolidated revenue/Ebitda/profit after tax CAGR of 13.5%/12.3%/10% over FY23-25E. Investors can buy in the Rs 2,075-2,325 band for a target of Rs 2,695 (24.25 times FY25E EPS) till next Diwali.
Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd.
Key triggers
Dr. Reddy’s reported healthy numbers for FY23 with highest ever sales, strong cash flow generation and improvement in return ratios on the back of gRevlimid (lenalidomide) opportunity in the U.S. Even in H1 FY24, overall numbers remained strong largely led by robust U.S. and Europe business.
Revenue from U.S. generics stood at ~$ 1.2 billion, growth of 25.3% over FY22. While pricing pressure in the base business persisted, growth was supported by launch of 25 new products during the year, including Revlimid. Ex-Revlimid, U.S. business declined in FY23 due to increased competition and price erosion in the base business.
Among the large cap pharma companies, Dr. Reddy’s has maintained strong U.S. FDA compliance track record with all its API/formulation facilities having received Voluntary Action Initiated/ No Action Initiated from the US FDA.
In the domestic business, the company’s focus will be to drive productivity improvement and focus on core therapeutic areas and big brands. In the medium to long term, the company’s strategy would be to build a healthy pipeline of differentiated products in therapies, including biosimilars, expand presence in areas such cardiac, respiratory and over-the-counter and nutraceuticals. Company has recently announced its foray into the trade generics business.
API business recorded its second consecutive year of revenue decline in FY23 after recording strong growth in FY21 on the back of Covid-related benefits. Sales declined 5% in FY23 on the back of both volume and pricing front, which was partially offset by new launches. It filed drug master files for 130 products during the year, including 12 filings in the U.S.
R&D expenses were at Rs 1,938 crore or 7.9% of sales for FY23. It has remained around 8-9% of sales in the last three years. Company launched six new products in Q1 FY24 and further guided for 25 product launches in FY24 in U.S.
Europe business registered 21% CAGR in sales in the last 4 years. It was driven by new launches and volume traction in base business.
Gross debt declined from Rs 3,390 crore in FY22 to Rs 1,188 crore as on Sep-2023. Company has net cash and equivalents of Rs 5,900 crore as on Sep-2023.
Valuation and recommendations
We expect U.S. business to grow at compound annual growth rate of 11% over FY23-25E including gRevlimid sales. Overall, we estimate 10% compound annual growth rate in sales led by strong growth from U.S. and domestic formulation business.
We expect operating margin to remain at around 26.5-27.5% on the back of niche opportunities in the U.S. piece. Net profit is expected to see 16.5% CAGR led by healthy revenue and strong operating performance over the same period.
We recommend buy on Dr. Reddy’s in the band of Rs 4,850-5,400 for target price of Rs 6,250 (19.5 times FY25E earnings per share) till next diwali.
Godrej Industries Ltd.
Key triggers
Godrej Industries’ real estate subsidiary, Godrej Properties Ltd.’s revenue has been more than doubled in Q1 FY24, rising 282.6% YoY to Rs 936 crore, led by project deliveries totaling ~4.9 million square feet in four cities. The company also launched three projects/phases in two cities in the quarter. However, the company expects the increase in pace of launches to pick up in Q2 FY24. In long run, the company expects to achieve double-digit market share, it is an opportunity to increase from the current market share of 3.5% to 5% of the real estate industry.
The revenue of consumer’s products subsidiary of the Godrej Industries grew by 10.4% YoY/ 7.8% QoQ in Q1 FY24. Volume growth was at 10% YoY while revenue in constant currency grew by 15% YoY. Value growth was impacted due to price deflation in soaps and the currency translation impact in Nigeria due to demonetisation.
The company has recently acquired Raymond Consumer Care Ltd. business, excluding which the organic revenue growth was at 6% YoY. The company has announced to incur capex of Rs 900 Cr over the next 18-36 months.
On standalone basis chemical business revenue has fallen by 26.8% YoY. Gross margin expanded 30 bps YoY due to lower commodity prices while Ebitda margin contracted 230 bps YoY. Godrej Industries reported net loss of Rs 28.3 crore in Q1 FY24. Chemical industry as a whole is facing strong headwinds which visible in the company’s quarterly performance as well.
The Godrej family is undergoing a split among brothers and this could lead to value unlocking for Godrej Industries as it is the holding company in the group and currently suffers from a large holding company discount. The timing of the split is uncertain but likely to be completed in the next two-four quarters.
Valuation and recommendations
While Godrej Industries Ltd.'s standalone business faces some pressure in the near term, its consumer product and real estate subsidiaries are doing well and the outlook remains healthy.
We expect value unlocking due to the split between the brothers and holding company discount could narrow too. Investors can buy the stock in the Rs 555-624 band for a target of Rs 735 till next Diwali.
United Spirits Ltd.
Key triggers
In line with its new strategy, United Spirits focuses on reshaping the portfolio and improving value chain efficiency. Portfolio activation was fully aligned with the strategy.
Socialising is back with a bang, with more consumers coming to upper segments. United Spirits is also seeing a lot of tourist traffic. These factors will drive demand. Mid-prestige/Upper prestige/ Luxury premium grew 43%/32%/37% in FY23.
There have been some green shoots in glass prices after a correction in natural gas prices, while ENA prices remain high. Operating deleveraging on account of the sale of popular business will continue until Sep’24. However, operating leverage from the prestige and above portfolio would reduce the impact. Management targets Ebitda margin of ~15% in FY24 and expects it to gradually increase to 16.5% thereafter.
UK FTA is on the agenda for UK-India talks, but the timing and extent of benefits are not yet clear. If basic customs duty reduces from 150% to 100% or 50%, then there could be 6-7% or 12-13% price reductions respectively, which can boost volumes.
United Spirits has wiped out all accumulated losses of the past in Q1 FY24 and the company will now look at establishing a dividend payout policy. Regulatory changes in terms of taxes, distribution, marketing ban, interstate moves etc, rise in raw material and packing costs, slowdown in spend on drinking or downtrading are some keys risks faced by the company.
Valuation and recommendations
United Spirits will continue to focus on driving profitable growth, led by-
doubledigit topline growth;
sustained advertisement and promotion investments;
improving pricing and premium mix; and
productivity gains.
Investors can buy the stock in the Rs 915-1,040 band for a target of Rs 1,195.
We value United Spritis at 56.5 times price/earning on FY25E EPS (standalone) to arrive at a target price of Rs 1,195 (including Rs 70/share of RCB+ non-core assets).
Click on the attachment to read the full list of HDFC Securities Retail Research's Diwali Top Picks:
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This report is authored by an external party. BQ Prime does not vouch for the accuracy of its contents nor is responsible for them in any way. The contents of this section do not constitute investment advice. For that you must always consult an expert based on your individual needs. The views expressed in the report are that of the author entity and do not represent the views of BQ Prime.
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U.S. researchers claim 'informed traders' profited massively from October 7 attack
Professor Joshua Mitts of Columbia and Robert J. Jackson Jr. of NYU found odd transactions focused on downturn of Israeli companies prior to Hamas-led attack
"Informed traders" knew about the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, before it happened, and made massive profits on the U.S. and Israeli stock exchanges, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University and New York University.
An odd and significant rise in short positions on Israel-based companies, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tracking Israeli companies, were placed in expectation that stock prices would fall shortly after October 7, according to findings by Professor Joshua Mitts of Columbia Law School and Robert J. Jackson Jr. of the New York University School of Law.
In one example, the study by the U.S. researchers showed that a short position expecting a fall in prices was built amounting to 4.43 million shares in Bank Leumi. Thus, after the October 7 attack led by Hamas, the short brought profits of $863 million.
What made it most odd was that there was no cumulative rise in short positions to suggest a trend that might be followed, between the activity of September 14 and October 5, as such the stock of Israeli companies traded on U.S. exchanges with a sharp and unusual rise in short options expiring shortly after October 7.
Furthermore, the shorts were larger than days preceding similar events, such as other rounds of fighting between Israel and terrorist groups in Gaza or the Covid-19 pandemic. Nor at the scale seen in this study, with dozens of Israeli companies targeted.
The study added another point of reference, saying there was no similar rise in shorts before a contentious legislation of the Israeli government's judicial reform that was passed on July 24, 2023, which subsequently set off a fall in stock prices.
The study concluded that there were traders who knew about the attack led by the terrorist organization Hamas, leading to massive profits from the ensuing massacres and war. The law professors say the evidence is consistent with informed trading, and were now pursuing the extent current securities law could be applied to this case. | Stocks Trading & Speculation |
BERLIN -- U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned Tuesday of a “dangerous disconnect” between what scientists and citizens are demanding to curb climate change, and what governments are actually doing about it.Guterres said global greenhouse gas emissions need to drop by 45% this decade, but are currently forecast to increase by 14%.“We are witnessing a historic and dangerous disconnect: science and citizens are demanding ambitious and transformative climate action,” he said at a climate conference in Austria. “Meanwhile many governments are dragging their feet. This inaction has grave consequences.”Guterres said Russia's war in Ukraine risked worsening the crisis, because major economies were “doubling down on fossil fuels” that are to blame for much of the emissions stoking global warming.“New funding for fossil fuel exploration and production infrastructure is delusional,” he said in a video message to the Austrian World Summit, initiated by former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. “It will only further feed the scourge of war, pollution and climate catastrophe.”Guterres urged countries to instead end all coal use by 2040, with rich nations doing so by 2030, and focus on replacing fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy, such as solar and wind power.“Renewables are the peace plan of the 21st century,” he said.Schwarzenegger, who has long campaigned against environmental pollution, said the war in Ukraine was another reason to stop using fossil fuels.He cited research showing that Europe paid Russia tens of billions of dollars for energy imports in the first two months of the year.“No matter how you look at it, we have blood on our hands because we are financing the war,” said Schwarzenegger.“We must do whatever it takes to eliminate our addiction to fossil fuels,” he added. “We must be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Failure is no option here.”———Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate | Energy & Natural Resources |
“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debates.What’s happeningHumans have pumped so much carbon into the air that climate experts now believe even a dramatic reduction in fossil fuel emissions won’t be enough. They say we’ll also have to remove some of the carbon that’s already in the atmosphere if we want to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.Plants do this naturally, but most scientists say the sheer volume of carbon that must be sucked out of the air means that simply planting more trees won’t be enough. That view has led to huge investment into potential technologies that — if proven effective and utilized at a massive scale — could help achieve global climate goals in the coming decades.In the past few years, huge sums of money have been invested into what’s known as Direct Air Capture (DAC), a controversial new process that uses giant fans to drive air into facilities that use chemical reactions to pull carbon out of the air and store it — either in the ground or repurposed to create certain products.There are currently about 20 DAC plants in operation around the world. Together, they are capable of pulling roughly 0.01 million metric tons of CO2 out of the air per year, a tiny fraction of 980 million metric tons that will be needed each year by 2050, according to an estimate from the International Energy Agency.Last month, the Department of Energy announced a plan to provide $3.5 billion to fund the construction of four new DAC plants in the United States. There has also been massive private investment in the technology, including from Google, Facebook, Tesla’s owner, Elon Musk, and a long list of major investment firms.Why there’s debateDespite the dire predictions of what will happen without carbon removal and the potential promise of the technology, there’s deep division among experts over whether Direct Air Capture is a legitimate answer to the world’s climate challenges.Advocates say that although the industry is in its infancy, DAC is the only proven method we have to pull from the air the carbon that is needed to meaningfully change the course of climate change. They note the huge investment in the development of new plants as a sign that there’s a strong desire from both governments and businesses to rapidly ramp up carbon removal efforts and argue that the process will become more significantly efficient and affordable over time, as more companies join the industry. Others make the case that, even though there are reasons to doubt that the dreams of DAC optimists are achievable, the climate situation is so dire that we need to go all-in on every solution that seems even remotely possible.There are many skeptics, though. Some scientists argue that it’s unlikely that there will ever be enough DAC plants to make a significant dent in the world’s carbon output — one expert estimated that the largest plant currently in operation can only capture “three seconds worth of humanity’s CO2 emissions” in a year. Another issue, they say, is that carbon capture may never achieve the level of sustained investment that other green technologies have, because it doesn’t produce an end product that can be sold for profit.Others worry that the promise of carbon removal may be used as an excuse to delay the transition from fossil fuels, which is widely viewed as the single most important step toward curbing climate change. There are also practical concerns about the damage that could be caused to the environment and vulnerable communities by the existence of hundreds of DAC plants around the globe.PerspectivesOptimistsCarbon removal should be a core element of any plan to meet our climate goals“Even as we stop making the problem worse, we’ll still need to clean up the mess made so far. Environmentally just carbon removal is a potentially powerful tool that can help stop the worst impacts of climate change by removing legacy emissions from the atmosphere.” — Jasmine Sanders, The HillCarbon removal may fail, but we have no choice but to try“I don't think carbon capture is a silver bullet, because there is no silver bullet. … We're going to need everything, especially because we're already behind on our goals.” — Nadine Mustafa, energy technology researcher, to CNNThe only way to know if DAC plants will work at scale is to build them“The only way to really know how these systems perform in practice, is to go build them,” said David Victor, public policy researcher, to GristCarbon removal will fail if it’s controlled by for-profit companies“Public carbon removal is the clear choice. The federal government can begin this transition now by ensuring that any infrastructure built using the billions of federal dollars going out the door is owned either by the government or directly by communities. … We can collectively build a justice- and worker-centered public model for deploying this climate-critical infrastructure.” — Andrew Bergman, New RepublicSkepticsRight now, the business model for carbon removal is unproven“All these efforts face an acute problem: No one wants to buy this stuff. Philanthropists and government agencies have long offered prizes for various carbon-removal benchmarks. And inchoate efforts are underway to turn stored carbon dioxide into something economically useful. Yet none of these efforts amounts to a sustainable business. That, too, may be about to change.” — Editorial, BloombergIt’s dangerous to assume carbon removal will work“I'm rooting for it, but only a fool would bet the planet on it. … The problem isn't that the technology sucks — it probably gets better (though there are thermodynamic limits as to how better). The problem is that policymakers are including it in climate ‘planning’ as if it already works. That is beyond dangerous.” — Climate scientist Peter KalmusPromises of future carbon removal could be used as an excuse to slow the green energy transition“There will be a risk of fossil-fuel companies and others using carbon removal as an imagined way to not shift their business models as long as we don’t have a mainstream plan for ending fossil fuels.” — Holly Buck, environment and sustainability researcher, to MIT Technology Review Ending fossil fuel consumption is the only proven climate solution we have right now“For now, the only guaranteed way to stave off the climate crisis is by preventing pollution in the first place.” — Justine Calma, VergeIs there a topic you’d like to see covered in “The 360”? Send your suggestions to [email protected] Credit: AFP via Getty Images | Energy & Natural Resources |
Lib Dem leader has by-election in his sights in question on rural fuel duty relief Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey seemed to have the upcoming by-election in Tiverton and Honiton in his sights when he asked his question."Millions of families across our country are suffering because of the cost of living emergency, and people in rural areas are especially bearing the brunt of record fuel price rises," Sir Ed said."The rural fuel duty relief scheme is supposed to help by taking money off the price of petrol with some rural counties are eligible - like Cumbria, like Shropshire, and like Devon.""I think the people of Devon will note because there are families and pensioners across rural counties who are missing out on this support. "So Mr Speaker, as petrol crisis soars, will the prime minister accept our idea to help people in rural counties and expand rural fuel duty relief?"Boris Johnson responded by saying fuel duty had already been cut for everyone across the country "by record sums."The prime minister then accused the Liberal Democrats of using the "blissful fact" that voters "don't know what their policies are" to "go around the country bamboozling the rural communities, not revealing they are in fact in favour of massive green taxes and not revealing they'd like to go straight away back into the common agricultural policy with all the bureaucracy and cost that entails. They don't say that on the doorstep Mr Speaker." Economy a key fault line in debate around Scottish independence By Amanda Akass, political correspondentThe prime minister is responding to Ian Blackford's calls for another Scottish independence referendum with an argument about the economy, arguing "there are other subjects in the national conversation right now" and pointing to the UK's "jobs-led recovery" out of COVID. Clearly the economic arguments for and against independence are a key fault line in the debate over Scotland's future and Boris Johnson is keen to make the point to Scottish voters that they would be worse off as an independent country. But while the Conservative MPs cheer loudly behind him, the country's economic strength is clearly wobbly ground which Mr Blackford is able to exploit in his response, pointing out that the UK has only the second worst growth forecast in the G20 after sanctioned Russia. PM asked to intervene for retired geologist facing 15 years in Iraqi jail Neale Hanvey raises the case of Jim Fitton, a retired geologist who has been jailed for 15 years in Iraq.Mr Fitton, originally from Bath, was arrested ay Baghdad at the end of March after collecting stones and shards during a visit to an ancient site in Eridu.Mr Hanvey, his local MP, says: "The judge passing sentence does not believe Mr Fitton had any criminal intent."He asks the PM will meet with him and other MPs.Boris Johnson replies he has a "great deal of sympathy" and says he will get Mr Hanvey a meeting with the relevant minister as soon as possible. Analysis: Theatrical Starmer seems to be enjoying himself By Amanda Akass, political correspondentSir Keir Starmer seems to be enjoying himself as he reads out a list of negative quotes about the prime minister made by his own MPs - only last week of course, four in ten of them voted to kick him out. In a much more theatrical style than we normally see from the Labour leader - to resounding cheers from his own side and shaking heads from the Tory benches - he urges the Conservative MPs to own up to quotes like "dragging everyone down", "authority is destroyed" and "can't win back trust". Needless to say none of the Tories respond to his request to put their hands up. In a line which nods to critics in his own party, he says his personal favourite criticism of the prime minister is circulating in a document calling him "the Conservative Corbyn" - adding "I don't think they meant that as a compliment".It's a rather extraordinary to hear a party leader attempting to insult his opposite number by comparing him to his own predecessor, but it's a line which Sir Keir is using to highlight the changes he has sought to make in his own party in drawing a very clear division between himself and Jeremy Corbyn. 'Scotland is being held back by Westminster' says SNP "Yesterday, our first minister started a national conversation to choose an independent future," says Ian Blackford.He says neighbours are "outperforming the United Kingdom" adding: "They deliver greater income and equality, lower poverty rates, higher productivity... the evidence is overwhelming."Scotland is being held back by Westminster."Responding, the PM says "there are other subjects in the national conversation right now".He references payroll employment, and investment across the whole of the UK: "And the whole of the UK standing strong together on the international stage and speaking up for Ukrainians".Mr Blackford accuses the PM of "living in his own little world" adding: "Our nation [Scotland] is big enough, rich enough. And smart enough that Scotland simply can't afford to remain trapped in the Westminster system." 'A Conservative Corbyn' Sir Keir throws comments made by Tory MPs back at the prime minister."They are making a lot of noise now but I have a list of what his MPs really think of him," he says."Dragging everyone down - who said that? Come on, hands up?"His authority is destroyed, come on hands up, which of you said that?"Can't win back trust - they're all very quiet now."He then moves on to his "personal favourite" from "a document circulated by his backbench in which they call him the Conservative Corbyn". Starmer accuses PM of 'screwing' the economy Sir Keir Starmer says the prime minister is "not just denying how bad things are. He's actively making things worse." In a fiery exchange the Labour leader said: "Mr Speaker, we know what the prime minister says about British business in private. I think that's pretty parliamentary but when did screwing business turn from a flippant comment into economic policy?"In his response, the prime minister said: "Never forget Mr Speaker that under Labour taxes go up on businesses and on people.""Labour have already made spending commitments in this parliament alone worth £94 billion more than the government - that's £2,100 for every household in the country. No wonder no Labour government has ever left office with unemployment lower than when they came in." Analysis: Starmer seems to have taken on board criticism of last week's PMQs performance By Amanda Akass, political correspondentA short sharp question from Sir Keir Starmer on the economy to begin his grilling of the prime minister this afternoon.He does not go in on the two key issues which have been causing such headaches for the government in the past 24 hours - the cancellation of the Rwanda flight and the European Union taking legal action over the Northern Ireland Protocol. But the prime minister's response, boasting instead about his government's economic achievements, was met with huge cheers by his own backbenchers. The prime minister seems on confident form - throwing Latin insults at Sir Keir and going in on the attack himself about Labour and the forthcoming transport strikes next week. But Sir Keir has his own jokes prepared, with some strong laughs for his claim that the prime minister is playing "Jedi mind tricks on the country" and his impersonation of Obi Wan Kenobi. He seems to have taken on board last week's criticism over what many perceived as a flat performance last week after the prime minister narrowly survived a confidence vote from his own MPs – and has come back on punchier form. Boris Johnson 'Jabba the Hutt' and 'thinks he's on Love Island' Labour leader pulling out a host of Star Wars references to attack the prime minister - and has accused him of "thinking he's on Love Island". "As for his boasting about the economy, he thinks he can perform Jedi mind tricks on the country - these aren't the droids you are looking for, no rules are broken, the economy is broken."The problem is the force just isn't with him anymore."He thinks he is Obi-Wan Kenobi. "The truth is, he is Jabba the Hutt."Sir Keir later adds: "He says the economy is booming when it's shrinking. "He is playing so much, he thinks he's on Love Island. But, Prime Minister, I am reliably informed that contestants that give the public the ick get booted out." PM challenges Starmer to end 'sphinx-like silence' on rail strikes The prime minister has challenged the Labour leader to end his "sphinx-like silence" about the upcoming rail strikes.Boris Johnson asked whether Sir Keir Starmer would "break with his shadow transport secretary" and condemn the strikes.The intervention prompted a rebuke from the Speaker of the House who reminded Mr Johnson PMQs was for him to answer questions.Sir Keir responded by saying: "He's in government, he could do something to stop the strike, but he hasn't lifted a finger. I don't want the strikes to go ahead, but he wants to the country to grind to a halt so he can feed off the division." Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options | United Kingdom Business & Economics |
LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Former British finance minister Rishi Sunak will be Britain's next prime minister after his rivals quit the race, which analysts said had relieved some of the nervousness around the outlook for the UK economy, boosting domestic markets.The 42-year old will become the country's third prime minister in less than two months, after his predecessor, Liz Truss, was brought down after just six weeks in office by an economic programme that roiled markets.Sunak has yet to speak publicly but told Conservative lawmakers his first priority was delivering economic stability, and then he would look to fulfill the party's 2019 election promises, lawmaker Iain Duncan Smith said.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comBlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, on Monday said it had upgraded UK gilts to neutral from underweight and said "perceptions of fiscal credibility had improved, though not fully."The pound bounced back into positive territory against the dollar, having briefly turned negative, while consumer-sensitive stocks pushed the blue-chip FTSE 100 higher on the day.MARKET REACTION:STOCKS: FTSE 100 (.FTSE) rises 0.6% on the day, supported by consumer sectors and industrials, but is underperforming the broader European markets, where the STOXX 600 is up 1.2%.FOREX: Sterling falls 0.1% against the dollar to $1.1291, having ricocheted between the day's high of $1.1402 and the low of $1.1275 in volatile trading.BOND MARKETS: Ten-year gilt yields are down 28 basis points at 3.78%, having hit their lowest since former finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng's "mini budget" on Sept. 23.COMMENTS:MELANIE LEECH, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, BRITISH PROPERTY FEDERATION:"The last few months have damaged the UK’s international reputation and economic standing, the country urgently needs strong and competent leadership to rebuild confidence. The new Prime Minister needs to confirm their leadership team as soon as possible and provide clarity on their strategy for stabilising the economy and their policy priorities.The property industry stands ready to work with Rishi Sunak in creating a thriving economy and addressing regional inequalities through the delivery of new homes, work and leisure spaces that are essential to revitalising our towns and high streets."ART HOGAN, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, B. RILEY WEALTH, NEW YORK:"Coming to a very rapid decision on who the prime minister is going be certainly breathes a sigh of relief into the markets. If this was something that got dragged out for a long period of time, that uncertainty would certainly wreak havoc both in UK gilts and in the global equity markets. Time will tell how this plays out in the medium to longer term but in the short run I think the rapid decision on Sunak is one the market seems to be applauding here this morning. At least we've checked that box and can move on to other things to be concerned about."JOSH MAHONEY, SENIOR MARKET ANALYST, IG GROUP, LONDON:"The news of Rishi Sunak's successful bid to become the new Prime Minister has spared markets any additional uncertainty today, with the UK essentially set to be steered through this crisis by two chancellors.Gilt markets have certainly responded positively, with falling yields bringing hope that we will see borrowing costs continue to ease after a turbulent Truss tenure. Nonetheless, with the pro-growth policies a thing of the past, the pound finds itself under pressure given the warning signs provided by the collapsing PMI surveys released this morning.The hope for many is that tighter central bank and government policies will swiftly drive down inflation without hurting the economy too much. However, traders will remain concerned that the economic fallout is more damaging than expected, and inflation keeps rates higher for longer."PAUL JOHNSON, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR FISCAL STUDIES, SPEAKING TO BBC TELEVISION:"One of the problems I think that the new prime minister and his new chancellor face is that, given all the uncertainty that's been created over the last few weeks, they may have to make more difficult decisions than they otherwise would have had to. Because the markets are still somewhat spooked and they are going to be wanting to see some clear and decisive action, perhaps more than they would have required (if) we had not had all this upset over the last few weeks."JASON PALTROWITZ, DIRECTOR AND EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT , CORPORATE SERVICES, OTC MARKETS GROUP, NEW YORK:"From a U.S. perspective, this will be viewed as a positive step to creating stability and clarity for the near future. U.S. investors will want to see Sunak and, assuming he stays, Hunt, provide a well thought out and clear strategy to tackle the ongoing economic issues impacting the UK."RUTH GREGORY, SENIOR UK ECONOMIST, CAPITAL ECONOMICS, LONDON:"The fall in gilt yields on the news today that Rishi Sunak will become the UK’s next Prime Minister has reduced the chances of a significant fiscal consolidation. Even so, the new PM will still have to work hard to restore stability in the eyes of the financial markets.This means that the risks to our forecast that the economy will enter a recession involving a peak-to-trough fall in GDP of around 2% are still skewed to the downside."MICHAEL BROWN, HEAD OF MARKET INTELLIGENCE, CAXTON, LONDON:"It seems that the announcement was pretty well priced in by this point - especially after sterling’s notable gains at the Asia open last night. Having said that, Sunak taking over as PM should restore a significant amount of credibility around UK policy, which is likely to limit downside for sterling assets in the near term."DANNI HEWSON, FINANCIAL ANALYST AT AJ BELL, LONDON:"The markets are confident that they know the kind of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is likely going to be because they know the kind of chancellor that he was and clearly he understood how damaging those unfunded tax cuts were likely to be.The yields have come down, which just demonstrates that the markets do feel more comfortable and they feel that once again the UK is getting back to the kind of economy that they would expect from an established economy rather than an emerging economy.With the pound, just because we have a new Prime Minister in place, all of the issues don't just go away and we still have remarkable strength being enjoyed by the dollar."GILES COGHLAN, ANALYST, HYCM, LONDON:“With Rishi Sunak named as the UK’s third prime minister in three months, the question now is whether today's events will mark the beginning of a turn higher for the GBP as confidence returns in the Government’s fiscal plans.However Sunak’s premiership unfolds, there are likely to be more difficult times ahead for the UK economy as it grapples its way out of a worsening downturn and even the prospect of a general election – upheaval which could derail the markets further.That said, there is one aspect of help for the GBP that is often overlooked. On the other side of the Atlantic, a slowdown in Federal Reserve policy would likely help lift the GBP as much, if even not more, than UK fiscal policy.”Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Harry Robertson, Bansuri Mayur, Danilo Masoni, William Schomberg and Samuel Indyk; writing by Amanda Cooper; Editing by Karin StroheckerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | United Kingdom Business & Economics |
President Joe Biden speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, June 16, 2022, in Washington.Evan Vucci | APPresident Joe Biden told The Associated Press on Thursday that the American people are "really, really down" after a tumultuous two years with the coronavirus pandemic, volatility in the economy and now surging gasoline prices that are hitting family budgets.He said a recession is not inevitable and bristled at claims by Republican lawmakers that last year's Covid-19 aid plan was fully to blame for inflation reaching a 40-year high, calling that argument "bizarre."As for the overall American mindset, Biden said, "People are really, really down.""They're really down," he said. "The need for mental health in America, it has skyrocketed, because people have seen everything upset. Everything they've counted on upset. But most of it's the consequence of what's happened, what happened as a consequence of the Covid crisis."Speaking to the AP in a 30-minute Oval Office interview, Biden addressed the warnings by economists that the United States could be headed for a recession."First of all, it's not inevitable," he said. "Secondly, we're in a stronger position than any nation in the world to overcome this inflation."The president said he saw reason for optimism with the 3.6% unemployment rate and America's relative strength in the world."Be confident, because I am confident we're better positioned than any country in the world to own the second quarter of the 21st century," Biden said. "That's not hyperbole, that's a fact." | Inflation |
U.S. one hundred dollar notes are seen in this picture illustration taken in Seoul February 7, 2011. REUTERS/Lee Jae-WonRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comNEW YORK, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Speculators' net long positioning on the U.S. dollar rose in the latest week, while net shorts on the euro increased, according to calculations by Reuters and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday.The value of the net long dollar position climbed to $13.37 billion in the week ended Aug. 16, from $12.97 billion the previous week, CFTC data showed. Net long dollar positions have increased for the first time in four weeks.CFTC data further showed that euro net shorts jumped to 42,784 contracts, the largest since February 2020.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comThe Federal Reserve policy meeting in late July triggered a two-way flow in the dollar, even though the central bank raised policy rates by 75 basis points. Against the yen, the dollar on July 27 dropped to a three-week low, as the market viewed Fed Chair Jerome Powell's comments after the meeting as less hawkish.Powell said based on the strength of employment, he did not believe the U.S. economy was in recession, and a recession was not necessarily required to tame super-heated inflation.The minutes of the July meeting, however, suggested that the Fed will continue to raise interest rates at the next few meetings but the pace of the rate hikes will be data-dependent. The Fed minutes remained supportive for the dollar.Since the Fed's July meeting, the dollar index has gained 1.8% . Against the yen, the dollar has slightly eased. ."Despite signs of a potential split emerging within the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) about how high rates should go and some visible cracks in the economy, a full-blown recession still seems some way off and policymakers' resolve to contain inflation is indisputable," wrote Raffi Boyadjian, lead investment analyst, at forex broker XM."This is why Treasury yields have been able to recover from their lows ploughed at the start of the month, giving the US dollar, which has been benefiting from renewed safety flows, an extra helping hand."In the euro zone, Europe's single currency is on a downward trajectory, as the region faced an acute energy crisis and rising risks of recession. Since the beginning of the year, the euro has plunged nearly 12% versus the dollar. It was last down 0.5% at $1.0039 .In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin net shorts slid to 93 contracts, from net short bets of 230 a week ago. This week's net shorts were the smallest since late January. From late April to early July, speculators were net long bitcoin.On Friday, bitcoin dropped to a three-week low of $21,156 , it was last down 8.6% at $21,182. read more Japanese Yen (Contracts of 12,500,000 yen)$2.691 billionEURO (Contracts of 125,000 euros)$5.439 billionPOUND STERLING (Contracts of 62,500 pounds sterling)$2.502 billionSWISS FRANC (Contracts of 125,000 Swiss francs)$0.671 billionCANADIAN DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 Canadian dollars)$-2.092 billionAUSTRALIAN DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 Aussie dollars)$4.16 billionMEXICAN PESO (Contracts of 500,000 pesos)$0.537 billionNEW ZEALAND DOLLAR (Contracts of 100,000 New Zealand dollars)$-0.112 billionRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York
Editing by Leslie Adler and Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
Education union call for full funding of public schools by 2028
Caitlin Cassidy
A national campaign to fully fund public schools within the next five years is being launched by the Australian Education Union (AEU) today on the lawns of Parliament House.
The AEU’s For Every Child campaign wants the federal government to commit to greater funding contributions and a full funding timeline of 2028, so teachers can reduce class sizes and have more time for classroom preparedness.
One of Gonski’s core recommendations was implementing the schooling resource standard (SRS), a needs-based model to provide a baseline education to students. Just the ACT has reached it, while other states and territories have made commitments without timeframes.
The AEU’s president, Correna Haythorpe, said 98% of public schools were funded below the SRS.
The needs of our children are growing but the funding from governments hasn’t kept up. Principal and teacher workloads are unsustainable, and more and more teachers are leaving the profession early.
The Albanese government must take the lead in upcoming negotiations with the states and territories and ensure all schools are fully funded by 2028 … the commonwealth’s contribution to public schools needs to rise from 20% of the SRS now to a minimum of 25% for all states and 40% for the NT.
Medical colleges urge action to shore up health system against climate change
Emily Wind
Twelve of Australia’s medical colleges, representing more than 100,000 doctors, have penned a joint statement to the government arguing that without urgent action Australia’s healthcare system will remain unprepared to tackle the health risks posed by climate change.
In its statement, the colleges write:
We, as medical experts, are very concerned that Australian healthcare systems remain unprepared to handle extreme weather events that may be just around the corner.
The statement calls on the federal government to ensure its upcoming national health and climate strategy is fully-funded on an ongoing basis, has national cabinet sign-off, is guided by First Nation knowledge and leadership and builds resilient communities by mobilising sectors outside of health.
DrJacqueline Small, the preisdent of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, said a strategy for reducing emissions is positive but local communities need to know they’ll be able to access healthcare in a timely and effective way if a climate event occurs.
Dr Lai-Heng Foong, an emergency physician and member of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, said she knows an emergency when she sees one and “climate change is the biggest global threat to emergency departments, health systems and public health”.
Nine out of 10 principals reallocating school budget to support students with disabilities
Almost 90% of principals are taking funding from allocated areas of school budgets to address shortfalls in resources for students with a disability, an Australian Education Union survey has found.
The national survey of 7,808 teachers found the money was being taken from areas like maintenance due to a lack of funding for students with a disability, whose numbers had increased by 29% since 2015. Students with disabilities are disproportionately represented in the public system.
The survey released today comes as the AEU launches a nationwide campaign calling for the full funding of public schools by 2028. It found principals believed students who had fallen behind academically, students with a disability or students with learning difficulties would benefit most from the proper funding of the public system.
Teachers are calling for four key changes:
Additional support for students with a disability or behavioural issues.
More time for lesson planning.
More classroom assistance.
Smaller class sizes.
The survey also found persistent teacher shortages were placing a great strain on educators and the system. Some 90% of principals reported teacher shortages in the past year – almost double the number that experienced them three years ago.
Two thirds of teachers said their workload had increased in the past year and less than one in five were committed to teach until retirement.
Plans to set up a multibillion-dollar housing fund will be reintroduced to parliament in an attempt to break a bitter deadlock, AAP reports.
The housing minister, Julie Collins, will introduce legislation for the $10bn housing Australia future fund today after the first attempt to pass the bill was held up in the Senate.
The fund has been blocked by the Coalition and Greens, with the minor party arguing not enough has been done to support renters.
The housing fund would deliver 30,000 social and affordable homes in its first five years, with 4000 for women and children at risk of domestic violence. Should the bill be blocked a second time, the issue could be used as a trigger for a double dissolution, in which all of the Senate seats are up for election.
Collins said there was an urgent need for the fund to pass as soon as possible.
“This message has come from community housing providers, frontline homelessness services, state and territory housing ministers and tenants of social and affordable housing.”
The Greens and Coalition had previously moved to delay debate in the Senate until October, after a national cabinet meeting between the prime minister Anthony Albanese and state and territory leaders.
Sarah Hanson-Young, a Greens senator, said the party would meet the government later this week for further negotiations on the bill and she was optimistic about the meeting.
“Let’s just sit around the table and work out how we can help the third of Australians who [the prime minister] is currently ignoring, and that is those in the rental crisis.”
Education union call for full funding of public schools by 2028
Caitlin Cassidy
A national campaign to fully fund public schools within the next five years is being launched by the Australian Education Union (AEU) today on the lawns of Parliament House.
The AEU’s For Every Child campaign wants the federal government to commit to greater funding contributions and a full funding timeline of 2028, so teachers can reduce class sizes and have more time for classroom preparedness.
One of Gonski’s core recommendations was implementing the schooling resource standard (SRS), a needs-based model to provide a baseline education to students. Just the ACT has reached it, while other states and territories have made commitments without timeframes.
The AEU’s president, Correna Haythorpe, said 98% of public schools were funded below the SRS.
The needs of our children are growing but the funding from governments hasn’t kept up. Principal and teacher workloads are unsustainable, and more and more teachers are leaving the profession early.
The Albanese government must take the lead in upcoming negotiations with the states and territories and ensure all schools are fully funded by 2028 … the commonwealth’s contribution to public schools needs to rise from 20% of the SRS now to a minimum of 25% for all states and 40% for the NT.
Good morning and welcome to our rolling pollitics and news coverage. I’m Martin Farrer with some breaking overnight stories before my colleague takes the controls.
A Guardian Essential poll this morning finds that twice as many voters in marginal seats think big business has too much power compared with unions, with most supporting Labor initiatives to boost workers’ pay. The survey of voters in 12 marginal seats in Queensland and Western Australia found majority support for a range of measures to boost pay.
And the education unions are also busy today with a campaign launching on the lawn of Parliament House to urge full funding of public schools by 2028. More on both these stories coming up.
Andrew Forrest has led international criticism of the UK government’s energy policies, saying that Britain is going to “drive itself over a cliff” if the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, goes ahead with his plan to reverse on green policies and “max out” on North Sea oil and gas. Forrest said in London overnight that he would pull the plug on his multimillion-dollar investments in the UK if Sunak went ahead with what he calls “clickbait” policies.
Parliament is sitting in Canberra and Labor plans today to reintroduce its $10bn housing Australia future fund bill after the first attempt was blocked in the Senate by the Coalition and the Greens. A second rejection could be used as the trigger for a double dissolution election.
And Canberra finds itself at the centre of the universe this morning with Nasa’s new dish outside the city leading the search for the Voyager 2 spacecraft. The craft, which is billions of miles from Earth, disappeared from tracking systems after it was sent the wrong command from mission control and the deep space communication complex at Tidbinbilla is on the case. | Australia Business & Economics |
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comLONDON, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Sterling skidded to an all-time low against the dollar before recovering on Monday, as investors waited to see if the Bank of England will intervene to calm concerns over government plans that could stretch the country's finances to their limit.The currency plunged as much as 4.85% to $1.0327 in thin Asia trading, extending a 3.61% dive from Friday, when finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled historic tax cuts and the biggest increase in borrowing since 1972 to pay for them.But by 1306 GMT sterling was flat at $1.0853.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comIt was also 0.35% higher against the euro at 89.04. pence per euro, after falling to 92.60 pence, its lowest against the single currency in two years.Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics"The further fall in the pound in early trading means that we’ve now reached the point where the BoE needs to step in in order to regain the initiative," Paul Dales, Chief UK Economist, Capital Economics in London.Broadcaster Sky News' economics editor reported that a statement from the BoE on the turmoil in markets could be released "very soon".Money markets are fully pricing in the BoE raising rates by a percentage point to 3.25% at its next meeting, according to Refinitiv data. IRPRBut that meeting doesn't come until Nov. 3.Woman holds British pound banknotes in this illustration taken May 30, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/VOLATILITYSterling three-month implied volatility surged to almost 20% on Monday, its highest since just after the Brexit referendum in 2016.British government bond prices were on track for their biggest slump of any calendar month since at least 1957, according to a Reuters analysis of Refinitiv and BoE data. read more Economists and investors said Prime Minister Liz Truss's government, in power for less than three weeks, was losing financial credibility in unveiling such a plan just a day after the BoE hiked interest rates to contain surging inflation.A spokesman for Prime Minister Liz Truss said on Monday that the British government does not comment on market moves and is sticking to its fiscal plan laid out last week. read more That so-called "mini budget" is designed to snap the economy out of a period of double-digit inflation driven by surging energy prices and a 15-year run of stagnant real wage growth.In total, the plans will require an extra 72 billion pounds of government borrowing over the next six months alone.Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex, called the currency's record plunge "incredible"."The weekend press tarred and feathered sterling with assertions of its emerging-market status," he said."I don't buy that schadenfreude. Still, there is now bound to be speculation of an emergency BOE meeting and rate hike."Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting and Joice Alves; Additional reporting by Kevin Buckland and Jamie McGeever; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Hugh LawsonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | United Kingdom Business & Economics |
Ross is former special assistant to President Barack Obama in charge of the Middle East, is the counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and also teaches at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization. He has worked on Mideast peace across six decades for both Democratic and Republican Presidents, including as Special Envoy for President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton as well as a member of the National Security Council staff.
As three longtime advocates for Mideast peace, from both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations, we believe that a silver lining could eventually emerge from the shocking invasion of Israel by Hamas and the tragic slaughter of over 1,300 civilians. Despite Hamas’ intention to prevent wider Mideast peace from emerging from the Biden Administration’s effort to broker normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and Saudi’s mixed signals on their willingness to move forward, we believe a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia could yet take place and that Hamas’ murderous rampage could paradoxically accelerate regional peace once Hamas is defeated. Here’s how Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinians could still come together for a broader peace accord.
Israel
Clearly, the most important priority for Israel right now is to defeat and displace Hamas as a necessary predicate for any lasting peace. The beheading of infants in front of their parents, dragging corpses through the streets of Gaza, the rape and torture of women, the live immolation of the elderly, and the mass slaughter of hundreds of concert attendees cannot represent the Palestinian people, but it sadly does represent Hamas, which drove out the Palestinian Authority 18 years ago and has ruled Gaza since.
After years of implicitly accepting territorial control over Gaza by these terrorists, a sea change is now happening as U.S. leaders from both sides of the aisle and European heads of state now broadly agree that Israel must neutralize Hamas once and for all. That conflict will be costly, long and challenging, but if Israel can succeed in defeating Hamas, eliminating its leadership, and disarming it, there could be transformative opportunities on the horizon for Israel and the Palestinian people.
Saudi Arabia
Although Hamas’ attack on Israel has temporarily empowered hardline anti-Zionist clerics across the Arab world, it does not change the fact that Arab leaders are increasingly realizing that Israel is here to stay in the Middle East, while maximal demands for a Palestinian state will not make it more likely to materialize. They also understand that Israel is its best regional ally against their shared nemesis of Iran. The defeat of Hamas will deepen that impression.
Already, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has begun a process signaling his readiness to normalize relations with Israel by having Israeli business delegations come to Saudi Arabia, permitting Israeli ministers to attend meetings under U.N. auspices in Riyadh, and allowing Israeli athletes to take part in events in the country.
The potential opportunity for MBS remains unchanged today, despite Hamas’ terrorist attacks, with a generational opening to buttress Saudi influence in the region and contain Iranian aggression as Hamas is weakened. Why would the Saudi Crown Prince want the world to think Hamas and Iran can bully him into capitulating from what is best for Saudi Arabia? By all accounts, the Saudis were already in advanced talks with the United States to secure several long wished-for priorities, ranging from civilian nuclear assistance to military, defense, and trade pacts. The opportunity for MBS to continue his efforts to solidify his footing with the West and lessen blowback to his transformative priorities, including investments in sports, offers far greater benefits than pandering to hardline Islamic clerics. The potential accord will be an economic boon for MBS, as U.S. requests for increased oil production would significantly increase Saudi Arabia’s oil market share over rival producers, especially Russia and Iran. The choice to embrace a deal may be even easier for him with the removal of Hamas in Gaza.
Palestinians
If Hamas can be defeated, then the opportunities are endless for the Palestinian people to chart a new future. The people of Gaza must understand that not only is the fate of Gaza severable from that of Hamas, but that the intense impoverishment of Gazans wrought by Hamas does not have to continue. Gazans have long sought work in Israel. They want genuine economic opportunity rather than the destructive trappings of historical grievance. And economic opportunity does not mean the siphoning of wasteful aid money by corrupt leaders as we have seen in Gaza, one of the largest recipients of international assistance for years with little to show for it. That is where a past blueprint for peace we worked on, the Peace To Prosperity Plan, led by Jared Kushner and a part of the transformative Abraham Accords, becomes freshly relevant.
We are not talking about the idea of economic peace as a substitute for political peace. The reality is that economic peace will only come with political peace, but the opposite is also true: no political peace will be sustainable without economic peace and opportunity. With that in mind, the plan lays out an achievable $50 billion economic vision for Palestinian economic development predicated on political stability and private sector investment. When we launched the Peace To Prosperity Plan at a special Bahrain economic summit in 2018, private sector leaders ranging from the CEOs of Blackstone and AT&T to top regional investors said that they would never invest in Gaza as long as Hamas remained in power, despite their enthusiasm for the potential of Gaza and its potential economic advantages. As Schwarzman told us, “we invest where there is the rule of law, not the law of rulers.”
That is a message that Palestinians need to hear. The more Hamas weakens, the more the economic future of Gaza, the West Bank, and the Palestinian people can grow. As Mohamed Allabar of the UAE, one of the world’s largest commercial builders, told us, “the younger generation of Arabs will not let us continue to be trapped by our past. By generating jobs, income opportunities, and filling gaps in delivering basic services, the private sector can help build momentum behind a fragile economy and instill hope.”
The savagery and brutality of Hamas’ terrorist attack is too raw to yet imagine any readiness to move on much less shake hands. But Hamas’ invasion does not change the tectonic shifts sweeping across the Middle East. If anything a lasting defeat of Hamas may end up removing obstacles that have long stood in the way of regional peace. On a bipartisan basis, we want to see the United States take the lead on acting on the possibility. While innocence is shattered, hope does not have to be.
— With research by Steven Tian.
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Chief executive of Lower Gulf operations had faced a secret ballot on his leadership A partner at a rival Big Four firm says KPMG’s Middle East business is made up of ‘fiefdoms controlled by individual partners’. KPMG would not comment on the specific claims © imageBROKER/Alamy Receive free KPMG International Cooperative updatesWe’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest KPMG International Cooperative news every morning. KPMG’s business in the United Arab Emirates has been split by infighting, with the chief executive surviving an attempted coup after two senior partners raised governance concerns and were subsequently fired.The accounting group’s Lower Gulf business was pitched into turmoil last week as a group of partners planned a secret ballot to determine whether Nader Haffar, KPMG’s CEO in the region since 2018, had lost their support, according to current and former insiders. Haffar would have faced removal if three-quarters of the firm’s 60 partners had said they had lost confidence in him, the insiders said. However, momentum for the uprising had stalled on Friday and the vote was called off, according to one of the people. “It looks like Nader has survived for now,” the person said. The two senior partners who lost their jobs over the past month sat on KPMG Lower Gulf’s executive committee. Insiders said they had raised governance concerns about perceived conflicts of interest involving Haffar’s brother-in-law, Talal Cheikh Elard, who was appointed to the firm last October as a partner, head of clients and markets and a member of the executive committee. A third senior partner was also fired, causing more shock at the firm.The three did not respond to requests for comment.KPMG Lower Gulf works for clients including Dubai World, an investment company that acts in the interests of the Dubai government, and Majid Al Futtaim Group, an Emirati real estate and retail conglomerate. It also advises sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, said people at the firm. Haffar is described by current and former KPMG insiders as having a “volatile” temperament and has a history of clashing with colleagues in his previous roles at KPMG Saudi Arabia and Deloitte. Internal documents and emails reviewed by the Financial Times also highlighted similar concerns raised by some KPMG employees about the CEO. “Whilst we are not able to comment further on the specific matter raised, we take any allegations of this nature extremely seriously,” said KPMG International and KPMG Lower Gulf in identical statements. “We encourage all colleagues to speak out if they see or hear anything they consider to be inappropriate, and take action as necessary.”Nader Haffar and Talal Cheikh Elard did not respond to requests for comment made through KPMG. The ructions within KPMG Lower Gulf, which operates across the UAE and Oman, will additionally put a spotlight on the Big Four firm’s international arm, which prides itself on promoting a common set of values and standards across its global network of member firms that collectively employ more than 236,000 people. While some Big Four firms have moved to centralise control of their businesses in the region, partners at rivals said KPMG’s business in the Gulf was more fragmented. One said KPMG’s Middle East business was made up of “fiefdoms controlled by individual partners”. Another described it as “a disastrous collection of individual firms who argue with each other”. The upheaval comes shortly after it emerged that one of KPMG Lower Gulf’s highest earners, Ashish Kandelwal, head of deal advisory, was poised to join a rival Big Four firm. His departure would be a big loss as he was responsible for one of KPMG’s most lucrative accounts with the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, ADQ. Kandelwal did not respond to requests for comment. If you have an insight into related issues in the accounting sector that could inform our reporting, please contact [email protected] and [email protected]. We want to hear from you. If your information is particularly sensitive, consider contacting us using one of these secure methodsGet alerts on KPMG International Cooperative when a new story is published | Middle East Business & Economics |
When Taha Amin-Ismail Khalifeh dialed into a conference call with his Israeli employer last month, the Palestinian hotel worker expected a briefing on how the Israel-Hamas war was affecting business. Instead, he and 40 others were laid off.
Khalifeh, who lives in the West Bank, had worked as a housekeeper in the hotel in East Jerusalem for more than 20 years.
About 160,000 Palestinians from the West Bank who were working in Israel and in Jewish settlements have lost or are at risk of losing their jobs because of the closure of border crossings from the West Bank into Israel and settlements, and restrictions on their access to Israel's job market, according to the UN's International Labour Organization (ILO).
Israel has also sent back thousands of Palestinians to the Gaza Strip.
It had previously issued 18,000 permits allowing Gazans to cross into Israel and the West Bank to take jobs in sectors like agriculture or construction that had salaries up to 10 times what a worker could earn in the blockaded enclave.
Many of the Palestinians worked as day laborers in Israel, or in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and have been unable to travel to their jobs due to the closure of border crossings since Hamas's October 7 assault on southern Israel.
Like many of them, Khalifeh had mixed feelings about working for an Israeli business, but it was his best option for a reliable paycheck. Unemployment is running at about 46% in Gaza and 13% in the West Bank, and wages are much lower.
"There is nothing that would provide us with a living except working in Israel," Khalifeh told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. "We have no other choice."
Now jobless for more than a month, he fears he may never be able to return as Israeli businesses urge the government to plug the labor gap left by the Palestinian workers from nations including India and Sri Lanka.
Israeli farms, buildings sites and hotels are among the sectors struggling with a shortage of workers since the war erupted, and some foreign migrant laborers have left, fearing for their safety.
The Israel Builders Association (ACB) has asked the government to seek to recruit at least 60,000 foreign laborers to fill the gap left by the Palestinians, Shay Pauzner, the ACB's deputy director-general, said in emailed comments.
Sri Lanka, desperate for dollars and remittances, plans to send 10,000 workers for the Israeli construction industry, part of a wider contingent of 20,000 workers also including farm laborers, a government minister told Reuters last month.
Israel's Foreign Ministry, the Population and Immigration Authority and COGAT, the government agency that oversees entry permits, did not respond to requests for comment.
A fragile economy
Efforts to bring in replacements from overseas have raised fears that Palestinian workers' long-term employment prospects could be jeopardized, regardless of what happens in the current conflict.
"This is dangerous issue," Saeed Omran, head of media at the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions, said by phone, though he added that it would take time for tens of thousands of foreigners to be hired.
"How are they going to get them so fast?" he said.
The long-term loss of Israeli jobs would deal another blow to the fragile Palestinian economy, which is dependent on foreign aid and vulnerable to Israeli travel restrictions in the West Bank.
According to the ILO, the Palestinian job losses since the start of the war equate to a daily income loss of $16 million.
That raises concerns about how Palestinians will live and work in the months and years to come, especially in Gaza, said Miriam Marmur, the public advocacy director at Gisha, an Israeli nonprofit which campaigns for freedom of movement of Palestinians.
"It's hard to imagine that workers from Gaza will be given access to jobs. What's going to be the humanitarian and economic reality in the Strip? What's the situation of the Palestinian economy going to be coming out of this?" Marmur said.
For low-paid workers, the loss of income is already causing financial pain.
Construction worker Muthana Jamal Hassan, 33, who lives in the West Bank city of Jenin, had just finished a painting job in Tel Aviv when the war broke out.
He earned $140 a week and was his family's main breadwinner, but has had no income since the war began, and said he will soon be forced to get into debt to cover his family's basic needs.
Because of the border closures, he said he can not safely cross the border and fears being shot at or detained by Israeli security forces if he tries to do so.
"We used to work to eat and drink, not to buy villas and cars," he said by phone from his home. "We were living in a certain way and now it was taken away from us overnight."
Foreign workers
About 110,000 foreign migrant workers from countries including Thailand and the Philippines already work legally in Israel. Some were among the 1,200 civilians killed by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies.
India agreed in May to send construction workers and caregivers to Israel, but the country's Ministry of External Affairs said it was "unaware of any specific figure or request" from Israel since the conflict with Hamas erupted.
Israeli efforts to recruit foreign workers to replace Palestinians have drawn criticism from trade unionists in India, with the Construction Workers Federation of India calling the push "immoral," pointing to the death toll in Israel's bombardment and ground invasion of Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Hamas-governed health authorities, deemed reliable by the United Nations, say more than 15,000 Gazans have been confirmed killed.
Referring to the ACB's request for foreign laborers to be hired, a spokesperson for Israeli migrant rights labor group Kav LaOved said the mass recruitment of foreign workers at short notice during wartime might threaten their rights.
"They want to bring in so many people without being prepared," said spokesperson Assia Ladizhinskaya.
"We need Israel to enforce (workers') rights to check if they're being recruited normally, if the employer can communicate with them with translators, and do checks in the fields and the construction sites to see if the workers are being treated well," Ladizhinskaya added.
The group has been helping dozens of workers recover unpaid wages by contacting their employers, and has urged the Israeli government to let laid-off Palestinians withdraw funds from their pensions to help them cope with the earnings loss.
Construction worker Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sbay used to be paid 3,800 shekels ($1,023) per month, which he said was just enough to cover the family's needs, but he has not worked since the war began.
"I don't know how I'm going to feed my family," the 37-year-old father-of-four said by phone from his home in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
"I feel the mental pressure every minute and every hour." | Unemployment |
Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images
toggle caption
Israeli men, armed with U.S.-made M16 automatic assault rifles, walk in a shopping center in Jerusalem on Oct. 25, amid the ongoing battles in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas.
Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images
Israeli men, armed with U.S.-made M16 automatic assault rifles, walk in a shopping center in Jerusalem on Oct. 25, amid the ongoing battles in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas.
Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images
TEL AVIV, Israel — With an assault rifle slung over his right shoulder, Amitai Turkel strolls along Jaffa's cafe-lined waterfront holding hands with his wife, Oriya. The young couple attracts no notice from passersby who are also enjoying a midday walk in the warm Mediterranean breeze.
"I feel more safe. I feel more comfortable and calm," Oriya says when asked about her husband's military-issue Tavor and its loaded magazine.
Amitai Turkel, 24, is one of hundreds of thousands of reservists, or miluimnikim, Israel activated in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants that shook this nation of 9 million to its core.
"Seeing soldiers in the street is nothing new. It's part of Israel," says Turkel, who is originally from a West Bank settlement but now studies computer science in Jerusalem.
"Usually if you see someone with a gun, you know he is military or security or something like that," he says.
That could soon be changing. In the aftermath of the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel, the Israeli government has moved to loosen the rules around gun ownership, fast-tracking the permitting process and speeding up approvals.
This week, the national security minister said the ministry has received more than 260,000 new firearm permit requests since Oct. 7 and is approving up to 3,000 of them per day, compared with 100 approvals a day before the attack.
Compared with the U.S., Israel has relatively restrictive firearm laws. It also has a mandatory national military service requirement for citizens over age 18, and with few exceptions, guns are restricted to Israelis with weapons training or in security professions. Untrained civilians, including the vast majority of Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are exempt from military service, don't qualify.
Israelis have "a defense mentality rather than an offense mentality" when it comes to guns, says Jonah Mink, 38, a physician who grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., but moved to Israel five years ago and became an Israeli citizen. In Israel, he says, "there's actually something real and immediate to defend against and not just an abstract notion of defense from bad guys."
Today, that real and immediate threat is Hamas, which carried out the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people. Israel's newspapers and airwaves have been saturated with stories of brave kibbutz members grabbing rifles to defend themselves as Hamas militants stormed through their communities, which has fueled the drive for freer access to firearms.
Mink, who lives in Tel Aviv with his wife and two children, says he himself wanted to buy a Glock pistol "for personal protection" after the attack. "My wife has always said we're never going to have a gun in the house," he says. "But now we're saying well maybe we should ... because who the hell knows what's gonna happen in the world."
Without having served in the Israeli military, however, Mink doesn't qualify.
Nonetheless, he has been kept busy processing the medical paperwork required for his patients to get guns. Before the Hamas attack two months ago, he'd been filling out two or three of those certifications a month, but in recent weeks, it has jumped to three or four a week, he says.
But the government's effort to ease gun restrictions has not come without controversy.
In the days after the Hamas attack, the office of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right politician with a long history of provocations against Palestinians, purchased 10,000 rifles to arm civilian security militias in Israeli border towns, West Bank settlements and cities with a mix of Jewish and Arab populations. However, after an Israeli newspaper reported that the ministry was using unqualified personnel to approve the permits, Ben-Gvir's deputy in charge of firearms licensing resigned.
Noa Sattath, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, says the government's drive for more guns has skirted the definition of what's legal. "Laws were not passed through the regular procedure of legislation but are fast-tracked as emergency regulations," she says. "So there's less oversight on them."
Last week in a deadly shooting by Hamas militants at a bus stop just outside Jerusalem, three people were killed by the assailants. A fourth man, Yuval Doron Castleman, was also killed when he exited a vehicle with his licensed firearm to help engage the gunmen. Apparently mistaken for one of the attackers, he was killed by soldiers.
At a news conference after the shooting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended his government's push to relax weapons licenses. "As soon as you distribute more weapons, things can happen," he said. "Such is life." The prime minister's remarks were seen as cavalier by some Israelis and immediately drew criticism.
Unlike the United States, which has among the highest per capita gun homicide rates in the world, Israel's rate is much lower.
More guns on Israel's streets is a prospect that unnerves many. That's especially true with the charge being led by Ben-Gvir, who has proposed a national guard directly under his control, which some, including Israel's defense minister, view as essentially a private militia.
According to Sattath, Ben-Gvir wants a force "that would be obedient to him and not follow the police procedure of professional conduct ... in order to both abuse the population and continue the animosity and tension between the communities."
Amir Badran is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and far-left candidate running for mayor of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. He recounts a wave of mob violence in 2021 that swept through cities where Israeli Jews and Palestinians live side by side. He blames right-wing vigilantes and says these are the same people whom the government wants to arm.
"This is something that we fear as Arabs," Badran says.
"These guns soon will be turned upon us," he says. "Us means me as an Arab, you as a Jew and us as a community." | Middle East Business & Economics |
Nigerian naira notes are seen in this picture illustration. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde/IllustrationRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comABUJA, July 29 (Reuters) - Nigeria's central bank is concerned about the value of the naira and is making deliberate efforts to avert a further downward slide in the currency, it said on Friday.The naira has fallen to successive record lows on the parallel market due to dollar scarcity since July 2021, when the central bank stopped forex sales to retail currency traders to ease pressure on reserves and support the official market.The move funnelled demand toward the unofficial market , where the currency is freely traded. The currency has been trading within a range on the official market.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comLawmakers said on Wednesday the policy had "contributed to the excessive scarcity of forex in Nigeria" and summoned Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele over the "free fall of the naira".The naira hit a record low of 705 per dollar on the black market on Thursday, traders said, adding that discussions were ongoing with the central bank."The CBN remained committed to resolving the foreign exchange issues confronting the nation and as such has been working to manage both the demand and supply side challenges," the central bank said.The bank said demand pressure was huge from manufacturers and individuals paying school and hospital fees abroad and that it was looking at ways to earn forex in the wake of dwindling oil proceeds.Nigeria relies on imports for most of what it consumes. The central bank said the country needs to look inwards and adjust its consumption patterns, as one solution to the current challenge.Emefiele has since introduced controls to restrict access to U.S. dollars for certain imports to boost local production.The country's currency troubles worsened after foreign investors fled as oil prices collapsed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing Nigeria's funding requirement. Oil prices have since recovered but investors are yet to return.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comWriting by Chijioke Ohuocha
Editing by Catherine Evans and Jane MerrimanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
05:53 - Source: CNN Summers: We have to be prepared for a recession CNN — The White House maintained on Monday that Americans are well equipped to deal with current economic hurdles – including US stocks plunging into a bear market – because of President Joe Biden’s efforts in office. When asked the White House’s reaction to the falling stock market, including all the gains made since Biden took office last year being wiped out, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the White House is watching the situation closely. “We know families are concerned about inflation and the stock market. That is something that the President is really aware of,” she said during Monday’s press briefing, adding that the US is “not the only country dealing with what we’re seeing at the moment as it relates to inflation.” The press secretary went on to blame the ongoing war in Ukraine and inflation caused by the world’s emergence from pandemic lockdowns as factors playing into the current state of the economy. But Jean-Pierre argued that despite the stock market’s drop, and a host of other troubling economic indicators, it’s the White House’s view that Americans are in better shape to deal with economic problems than before Biden took office. “The way that we see this is the American people are well positioned to face these challenges because of the economic, historic gains that we have made … under this President in the last 16 months,” she continued. The unemployment rate remains at 3.6% – slightly higher than the half-century low recorded in February 2020, but Americans’ wallets are getting pummeled by the rising cost of goods and diminishing stock values. The average nationwide price for a gallon of regular gas recently hit $5 for the first time ever, according to AAA. Consumer confidence hit a record low, data released last week showed. And on Friday, a miserable Consumer Price Index report showed US inflation was significantly higher than economists had expected last month, spurring Monday’s stock market shifts. US stocks on Monday plunged into a bear market as investors grew increasingly nervous about the prospect of even harsher rate increases from the Federal Reserve, which are meant to take some of the sting out of inflation. After raising rates by a half point in May — an action the Fed hadn’t taken since 2000 — Chair Jerome Powell pledged more of the same until the central bank was satisfied that inflation was under control. At that point, the Fed would resume standard quarter-point hikes, he said. But after May’s hotter-than-expected inflation report, Wall Street is increasingly calling for tougher action from the Fed to keep prices under control. Pressed on the effect prospective retirees may be feeling as a result of the plunges to in the value of their 401k, Jean-Pierre said, “We know that high prices are having a real effect on peoples’ lives. We get that, and we are incredibly focused on doing everything that we can to make sure that the economy is working for the American people. But we are coming out of the strongest jobs market in American history, and that matters. And a lot of that is thanks to the American Rescue Plan.” She also pushed back on the notion that the American Rescue Plan, a massive Covid-19 relief bill, signed into law last year has led to historic inflation, even though government spending is known to boost inflation. The rescue plan has been cited by critics as one of many factors contributing to the current state of the economy. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said earlier this month that Biden’s hallmark $1.9 trillion plan, which included stimulus checks, enhanced unemployment benefits and various other forms of relief contributed only modestly to inflation. Yellen downplayed the inflationary impact of the stimulus package, pointing instead to the economy’s “miraculously rapid recovery.” Later in Monday’s press briefing, Jean-Pierre also said gas prices “would have been even worse” had Biden not taken action to address anticipated oil supply shocks. The President authorized a record release from the country’s oil reserves earlier this year, but prices have only grown since then. The White House is in the midst of a month-long effort to signal focus on the economy and inflation. But earlier this month, the President acknowledged that there is little more he can do to lower the cost of gasoline or food in the immediate term. “There’s a lot going on right now but the idea we’re going to be able to click a switch, bring down the cost of gasoline, is not likely in the near term. Nor is it with regard to food,” Biden said at the White House. CNN’s David Goldman and Chris Isidore contributed to this report. | Inflation |
NEW YORK, Nov 4 (Reuters) - U.S. employers hired more workers than expected in October, but a rise in the unemployment rate to 3.7% suggested some loosening in labor market conditions, which would allow the Federal Reserve to shift towards smaller interest rates increases starting in December.Nonfarm payrolls increased 261,000 last month, the Labor Department reported on Friday, while September was revised up to 315,000 jobs added, from 263,000 previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 200,000 jobs. The unemployment rate increased to 3.7% from September's 3.5% and average hourly earnings increased 0.4% after rising 0.3% in September. read more MARKET REACTION:STOCKS: S&P e-mini futures extended a gain and were last up 1.3%, pointing to a strong open on Wall streetBONDS: The yield on 10-year Treasury note was unchanged from just before the data, last up 3.4 basis points at 4.158%; The two-year U.S. Treasury yield ticked a bit lower but was still up 2 basis points from Thursday at 4.721%FOREX: The Euro extended a gain against the dollar to up 1.3% and dollar index extended a lossCOMMENTS:MICHAEL ARONE, CHIEF INVESTMENT STRATEGIST, STATE STREET GLOBAL ADVISORS, BOSTON“The labor market continues to be a bright spot in the U.S. economy and that kicks investors’ hopes of a Fed pivot further down the road. This continues to suggest that the labor market remains tight and that the Fed will continue fighting to defeat inflation and keep raising rates pretty aggressively given these types of numbers."“If I look at this in combination, and I look at the participation rate, which didn’t really change, this continues to suggest to me there is a scarcity of workers, which means wages will remain elevated. So, they may be growing at a slower overall rate, in terms of where they were, but at 4.7% year over year it continues to suggest that wages will flow through into inflation and that the labor market is pretty tight. The supply of workers is constrained and that is going to keep wages elevated for a while longer."“This was a stronger than expected report. The availability of workers remains tight, wages are growing, this continues to suggest that the process the Fed is undertaking to defeat inflation is still going to take much longer than markets are expecting.”MICHAEL PEARCE, SENIOR US ECONOMIST, CAPITAL ECONOMICS, NEW YORK (emailed)"The October employment report had something for everyone, with payrolls pointing to continued strong employment gains while the household survey showed a sharp fall in employment and a rise in unemployment. Either way, what’s clear is that the labour market has continued to hold up better than expected and with wage growth still too hot for the Fed, there is little to suggest that officials will drop their hawkish bias any time soon."ROSS MAYFIELD, INVESTMENT STRATEGY ANALYST, BAIRD, LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY"It's just another data point that proves the labor market is too strong to accommodate what the Fed wants. I'd expect a pretty muted or bad market reaction. You can see short-term yields heading higher.""The unemployment rate ticked up very slightly, some of the participation data was a little bit softer but the broad jobs added and wage growth, that's what drives the inflation we're seeing. To me, right on the heels of Fed meeting on Wednesday, it's kind of a bearish report for equity markets.""I think 50 bps is still the base case. We'll get plenty of data between now and then. There's still time for the data to shift the narrative. While Fed Chair Powell was pretty hawkish at the press conference, there were clear signs that the bank was ready to slow things down.""This certainly doesn't indicate that the Fed has any reason to pause but I think a deceleration is probably the base case."JASON PRIDE, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, PRIVATE WEALTH, GLENMEDE, PHILADELPHIA"That’s (data) kind of a mixed picture. I would argue that the Fed may be looking for a more restrained picture to think that it can begin to really pare back on its rate hike campaign. I would argue that they are. They're looking for a situation where you don't just have unemployment rate coming up a little bit. You may have it coming up a little bit more.""They may also be looking for lighter jobless claims and a little bit less in the way of average hourly earnings growth. This one’s a step in the right direction because it's, you know, if you actually look at it, it's the third month in a row of more modest hourly earnings gains. So it’s a step in the right direction, but it's not really exactly where they want it to be.""There's a little bit of a negative (market) reaction, but it's very modest in nature and market was up half percent before the reading came out. So a little bit of a negative reading on it, but not dramatic.”PETER CARDILLO, CHIEF MARKET ECONOMIST, SPARTAN CAPITAL SECURITIES, NEW YORK“(There are) no major surprises here, and the good news is year-over-year wage increases have come down, which is a sign of lower wage pressures ahead despite the tight market.”“There are signs that wage inflation has peaked, and as we move closer to recession that number should come down.”“More and more companies are beginning to announce layoffs. That’s a prelude of what we’re going to see as we go forward. This tightness in the labor market is probably reaching its peak. The numbers will change going forward and they will have met the objective of the Federal Reserve, because Powell stressed wage pressures and the tight labor market.”“This is an indication that with recession looming things are going to get ugly going forward. In a recession, wages don’t rise - they stagnate. This could be the last hurrah of hourly wages moving to the upside.”“Were looking at half a percentage point (interest rate hike) in December. A recession is unavoidable. But a severe recession can be avoided.”(This story has been refiled to fix a spelling error in the headline)Compiled by the Global Finance & Markets Breaking News teamOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Unemployment |
Mass migration, rising sea levels, dwindling water supplies, crop failures and increased conflict are the biggest threats to Australia’s national security due to climate change, experts say, as the Albanese government delays releasing an intelligence report into the dangers facing the country.
Retired Australian Army Major General Peter Dunn, co-founder of Emergency Leaders for Climate Action, told The New Daily that Australia is not “prepared mentally or psychologically” for the security impacts of climate catastrophe.
“We have not planned sufficiently. There was a review undertaken by the national organisation and that hasn’t been released yet. It was finished ages ago,” he said.
“I wonder why that hasn’t been worked on. Dare I say because it contains some really gut-wrenching facts.”
The report, an Office of National Intelligence investigation into the national security threat posed by climate change, was completed some time this year, but the federal government is refusing to release even a ‘sanitised’ version of the findings.
Matt McDonald, associate professor at University of Queensland’s School of Political Science and International Studies, said he has been researching how countries that have been at the forefront of addressing climate change in a security context deal with the issue.
“It doesn’t seem like there is any appetite for serious political engagement or institutionalisation within Defence,” he said.
“A Labor government has come in and hasn’t done a great deal that’s different in this space, other than [essentially] acknowledge that climate change is a threat.”
He said it makes little sense for the government not to release the report, unless it would potentially compel the government to justify why it hasn’t taken action.
Threat to Australia
The Institute for Economics and Peace think tank predicted that by 2050 a total of 5.4 billion people will experience extreme water stress and 3.5 billion people could suffer from food insecurity.
General Dunn said Australian policy regarding refugees, created under John Howard and continued by successive governments, is inadequate for handling a rise in those fleeing the effects of climate change.
“We’re seeing people streaming out of north Africa, trying to get to Europe,” he said.
“A large part of that is the number of droughts they have experienced.”
He said Australia will face “an uncontrollable flow of new residents heading for its shores without investing in planning and adaption”.
“It’s happening right now, and we still will not invest in our own national security,” he said.
“We are not driving emissions down. We’re still approving projects to put the emissions way up and even our main environmental legislation does not reference climate change as a major feature.”
General Dunn pointed to the effects of rising sea levels and flooding on crops and food security as another potential risk associated with climate change.
Professor McDonald said Australia will experience direct threats to the population and environment due to climate change.
“How do we make sense of the fact that some countries when experiencing severe climate effects descend into internal violence, while others don’t or have a greater capacity to respond,” he said.
“It is hard to escape the conclusion that when it comes to what makes ecosystems and people vulnerable, our mitigation action and our contribution to the fossil fuel industry is a spectacular source of threat.”
International conflict
In 2023 polling from the Lowy Institute, Australians ranked the threat of China’s foreign policy the same as the risk of climate change.
General Dunn said any potential threat posed by China, often accentuated by media and politicians, is nothing compared to the effects of climate change being experienced right now.
“I just see a nation that is prepared to use threats and intimidation, but I also see a nation that has been hammered by climate change in its own borders,” he said.
“We are prepared to spend billions on submarines and billions on other defence capabilities to counter a threat that may never occur when we have an existential threat.”
Climate change will cause further threats beyond what is immediately apparent, by disrupting trade, starting resource wars and creating conflict in Australia’s backyard.
Professor McDonald said secondary threats of climate change include an increase in illegal fishing in the Pacific Ocean.
“For example, Chinese fleets involved there and the potential for contention over those sorts of increasingly scarce resources,” he said.
“There are countries that are already having these conversations. Australia is so far behind already and it does look like even under a new government, they have kicked that can further down the road.” | Australia Business & Economics |
UK 'disappointed' EU has launched legal action over NI Protocol Away from the Commons, the prime minister's spokesman has been reacting to the EU launching legal action against the UK. Brussels has taken the move due to the UK publishing legislation to override parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol.Boris Johnson's spokesman has said the UK is "disappointed" with the EU's decision.He said the latest proposals from Brussels would lead to more checks and controls and make the situation in Northern Ireland worse."We will consider these documents carefully and respond formally in due course, however we are disappointed the EU has taken this legal action today," the PM's spokesman said."The EU's proposed approach, which doesn't differ from what they have said previously, would increase burdens on business and citizens and take us backwards from where we are currently."The infractions are related to the implementation of the protocol in our recently published Bill. "It is difficult to see how scrapping grace periods and adding additional controls and checks would be the situation better." People smugglers 'abusing legal protections meant for those trafficked for modern slavery' People being smuggled across the English Channel are abusing legal protections meant for those trafficked for modern slavery, one Tory MP has said. Conservative MP Peter Bone told the Commons earlier: "People who are trafficked into this country are duped or coerced, they are exploited for sexual or labour purposes, people who are smuggled into this country willingly pay to do so and come for economic purposes."The first are victims and deserve the protection of the Modern Slavery Act, the second are not and deserve no protection from the Modern Slavery Act."That is being abused by people who are coming across in small boats. I hope the home secretary can sort this out."Priti Patel replied that it was in the "national interest" to ensure there are safeguards to protect people, but "we cannot allow people to exploit [these protections] for the wrong reasons." PMQs word cloud analysis - 'Investment' and 'economy' dominate By Daniel Dunford, senior data journalistLabour’s Keir Starmer tried to press the prime minister on issues concerning the economy – poor growth, tax hikes and the rising cost of living. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson tried to steer the discussion to rail strikes and Britain’s low level of unemployment, as well as investment – both in the UK from abroad and in the NHS from the government.Word cloud analysis of today's session shows"investment" as the main focus of the prime minister's contributions and "economy" the most prominent term used by Sir Keir Starmer.Yesterday’s failed Home Office flight taking UK migrants to Rwanda was only mentioned obliquely at the close of Boris Johnson’s final answer to Mr Starmer, and not at all by the Labour leader himself, suggesting that the Conservatives still believe the policy is a vote-winner among the public.There was one mention of Jabba the Hutt, and one of Obi-Wan Kenobi, as Mr Starmer accused Mr Johnson of attempting to perform "Jedi mind tricks" on the country.And mercifully the phrase "the ick" was also only mentioned once, a reference to Love Island where contestants are booted out if the public stop liking them. What is the government position on the European Convention on Human Rights? Earlier this morning cabinet minister Therese Coffey and junior minister Guy Opperman both gave interviews that seemed to play down the idea that the government would now move to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights following the failed Rwanda deportation flight.The Convention, to which the UK is a signatory, is the basis on which the European Court of Human Rights judges cases brought before it.But as our deputy political editor Sam Coates points out in his latest update, the prime minister's spokesman has now insisted "all options are on the table" when it comes to the Convention.Sam says this suggests that contrary to the comments of ministers earlier, Number 10 is preparing to "lean in into the idea of yet another very big fight."Watch his analysis here: Government will do 'whatever it takes' to ensure Rwanda flights take off As well as hearing from Priti Patel in the Commons, the prime minister's official spokesman has been fielding questions from journalists at a regular Westminster briefing.He has said the government will do "whatever it takes" to make sure that deportation flights to Rwanda go ahead.The spokesman said ministers would be considering the ruling from the European Court of Human Rights but stressed that "all options are on the table".Asked if the government could withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, the spokesman responded: "We are keeping all options on the table including any further legal reforms that may be necessary."We will look at all of the legislation and processes in this round."Asked if a flight could take off before legal proceedings in the UK are finished, he said: "That is my understanding." 'The home secretary has no one to blame but herself' Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper calls the immigration policy a "shambles and shameful, and the home secretary has no one but herself to blame". She says Priti Patel knew she was planning to send torture victims to Rwanda and did not have the proper screening processes in place.Ms Cooper asks: "Can she confirm that it was the Home Office itself that withdrew a whole series of these cases on Friday and yesterday because they knew there was a problem with these cases that even without the ECHR judgment, she was planning to send a plane with just seven people on board because she'd had to withdraw most of the cases at the last minute."She also asks the home secretary how much "she promised Rwanda for each of the people she was planning to end yesterday, and how many Rwandan refugees she promised to take in return.""If she was serious about tackling illegal migration she would be working night and day to get a better joint plan with France to crack down on the gangs going into the water in the first place," she continues. "But she isn't because her relationship with French ministers has totally broken down."Ms Cooper says Ms Patel spent half a million pounds chartering a plane "she never expected to fly", calling it "government by gimmick".SNP MP Stuart McDonald calls it an "unworkable, immoral and illegal policy that "does nothing to stop illegal people smugglers". He says "it's not the lawyers who caused this flight to be cancelled, or any courts" but "government illegality". Priti Patel says preparations for next Rwanda flights 'have begun' She says the flight was paused "following a decision by an out-of-hours judge" at the European Court of Human Rights.She says the European Court did not rule that the removal policy was unlawful.She tells the House of Commons: "These repeated legal barriers are very similar to those that we experience with all other removal flights."And we believe we are fully compliant with our domestic and international obligations and preparations for our future flights and next flights have already begun.""We are a generous and welcoming country, as has been shown time and time again. Over 20,000 people have used safe and legal routes to come to the UK since 2015," she says."Our capacity to help those in need is severely compromised by those who come here illegally."She says illegal immigration is "not fair on those who play by the rules", especially at the cost of £5m per day. Rwanda, she says, has "been vilified" and is "a safe and secure country with an outstanding track record of supporting refugees and asylum and seekers and we are proud that we are working together".She says she will not let the "usual suspects" or "mobs" prevent asylum seekers from being sent to the African country. Theresa May says case of missing journalist in Brazil must be be made a 'diplomatic priority' Former prime minister Theresa May used her question to ask Boris Johnson to make the case of missing British journalist Dom Phillips a "diplomatic priority." Mrs May said: "My constituent Dominique Davis is the niece of Dom Philips, the British journalist missing in Brazil, alongside the indigenous expert Bruno Pereira. "Will my Right Honourable friend ensure that the government makes his case a diplomatic priority and that it works to do everything it can to ensure that the Brazilian authorities put the resources necessary to uncover the truth, and find out what has happened to Dom and Bruno?" Mr Johnson responded: "Like everybody in this House we are deeply concerned about what may have happened to him. FCDO officials are working closely with the Brazilian authorities. The minister responsible has raised the issue repeatedly," he added. PM brushes away question about the critical comments made by new cost of living tsar Labour's Anna McMorrin has read out a criticism of the prime minister made by the government's newly appointed cost of living tsar.David Buttress, founder of Just Eat, was appointed yesterday - but in January he posted on Twitter: "Why is it that the worse people often rise to the highest office and stay there?"Ms McMorrin said: "If his own tsar doesn't have faith in him, tell me why those struggling should?"The prime minister brushed off the question, saying "this is a government that gets on and delivers on our promises to the people, in particular getting Brexit done."I read the other day that she wants to go back into the single market and the customs union, that's the real policy of the Labour Party, Mr Speaker." Sexual assault survivors having to 'choose between their mental health and justice' Labour's Sarah Champion brings up the case of a Rotherham survivor who reported her experience to the police and was told not to go for counselling as "it could be used against them in court".She asks the PM to stop the Attorney General from challenging the rules to it is even easy for defence teams to access victims counselling notes "having an immediate chilling effect". Survivors "shouldn't be forced to choose between their mental health and justice". The PM replies that he will "look at the evidence she has, but I think these are very tentative and very difficult issues, particularly as regards the defence cases".He says courts are starting to see a "gradual improvement" in the prosecution rate "and that is because governments across departments are working together to take account of victims' needs". "I agree that progress isn't everything that I would like, but we are seeing progress," he adds. 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Bharti Airtel Shares Gain After Nigeria Suspends Telecom Excise
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu suspended taxes that were introduced two months ago on telecommunications services.
Shares of Bharti Airtel Ltd. advanced on Friday after Nigeria suspended its excise on telecom services.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu suspended taxes that were introduced two months ago on telecommunications services, according to a Bloomberg report.
The suspension is part of a larger move to “address business unfriendly fiscal policy measures and multiplicity of taxes”, according to Dele Alake, spokesman of the president.
Airtel's Africa business accounted for 31% of its overall portfolio in the fourth quarter of FY23, according to a company statement. Within the 14 countries it is operating in throughout the continent, Nigeria is among its most profitable businesses. Airtel has close to 26% market share in the country and is the third-largest telecom operator there.
Shares of Bharti Airtel gained 0.48% to Rs 873.85 apiece, compared to a 0.15% decline in the NSE Nifty 50, as of 10:30 a.m.
Total traded volume stood at 9.7 times its 30-day average.
Out of the 32 analysts tracking the company, 28 maintain a 'buy' rating, one recommends a 'hold' and three suggest a 'sell' on the stock, according to Bloomberg data. The average 12-month consensus price target implies a potential upside of 6%. | Africa Business & Economics |
Bank of England intervenes in bond marketThe Bank of England says it will intervene in bond markets to try and stabilise them, after the recent selloff. It will start buying long-dated gilts from today to “restore orderly market conditions” and stave off a “material risk to UK financial stability”. Here’s the full statement:As the governor said in his statement on Monday, the Bank is monitoring developments in financial markets very closely in light of the significant repricing of UK and global financial assets. This repricing has become more significant in the past day – and it is particularly affecting long-dated UK government debt. Were dysfunction in this market to continue or worsen, there would be a material risk to UK financial stability. This would lead to an unwarranted tightening of financing conditions and a reduction of the flow of credit to the real economy. In line with its financial stability objective, the Bank of England stands ready to restore market functioning and reduce any risks from contagion to credit conditions for UK households and businesses. To achieve this, the Bank will carry out temporary purchases of long-dated UK government bonds from 28 September. The purpose of these purchases will be to restore orderly market conditions. The purchases will be carried out on whatever scale is necessary to effect this outcome. The operation will be fully indemnified by HM Treasury. On 28 September, the Bank of England’s financial policy committee noted the risks to UK financial stability from dysfunction in the gilt market. It recommended that action be taken, and welcomed the Bank’s plans for temporary and targeted purchases in the gilt market on financial stability grounds at an urgent pace. These purchases will be strictly time limited. They are intended to tackle a specific problem in the long-dated government bond market. Auctions will take place from today until 14 October. The purchases will be unwound in a smooth and orderly fashion once risks to market functioning are judged to have subsided. The monetary policy committee has been informed of these temporary and targeted financial stability operations. This is in line with the Concordat governing the MPC’s engagement with the Bank’s Executive regarding balance sheet operations. As set out in the Governor’s statement on Monday, the MPC will make a full assessment of recent macroeconomic developments at its next scheduled meeting and act accordingly. The MPC will not hesitate to change interest rates by as much as needed to return inflation to the 2% target sustainably in the medium term, in line with its remit. The MPC’s annual target of an £80bn stock reduction is unaffected and unchanged. In light of current market conditions, the Bank’s Executive has postponed the beginning of gilt sale operations that were due to commence next week. The first gilt sale operations will take place on 31 October and proceed thereafter. The Bank will shortly publish a market notice outlining operational details.Key events12m agoTreasury to 'work closely' with BOE20m agoBOE's intervention brings some relief to markets32m agoBank of England intervenes in bond market55m agoGlobal stocks slide amid recession fears1h agoBrexiteer Daniel Hannan blames fears of Labour government for market chaos1h agoUK government bond yields hit fresh 14-year highs2h agoKwarteng to ask bankers not to bet against pound – report2h agoChina's reminbi hits record low against dollar2h agoEconomist warns of potential 'doom loop'2h agoBridgewater founder: 'excessive borrowing not sustainable'4h agoStarmer: November statement 'far too long off' to review tax cuts4h agoUK house prices could fall 10% to 15%, warn analysts and brokers4h agoGilt yields hover at highest level since 2008 financial crisis4h agoIntroduction: Pound slumps after IMF urges UK to reconsider tax cutsTreasury to 'work closely' with BOEThe Treasury said the government will continue to “work closely” with the Bank of England, after the central bank announced it will launch a temporary UK government bond-buying programme as an emergency move to stave off a “material risk to UK financial stability”.A Treasury spokesperson said: The Bank of England, in line with its financial stability objective, carefully monitors financial markets and any potential risk to the flow of credit to the real economy, and subsequent effects on UK households and businesses. Global financial markets have seen significant volatility in recent days. The Bank has identified a risk from recent dysfunction in gilt markets, so the Bank will temporarily carry out purchases of long-dated UK government bonds from today in order to restore orderly market conditions. These purchases will be strictly time-limited, and completed in the next two weeks. To enable the Bank to conduct this financial stability intervention, this operation has been fully indemnified by HM Treasury. The chancellor is committed to the Bank of England‘s independence. The government will continue to work closely with the Bank in support of its financial stability and inflation objectives.Before the Bank’s intervention, Britain sold £4.5bn of a 30-year ‘green’ government bond – but looked set to pay the highest interest rate of any government debt issued since 2008, amid the selloff in bonds in recent days.The Debt Management Office said it will issue £4.5bn of the 2053 gilt. Bookrunners said it had been priced 1 basis point above the conventional 2052 gilt.British 30-year government bond yields rose above 5% for the first time since 2002 today, and yielded less than 1% last December.BOE's intervention brings some relief to marketsThe Bank of England’s emergency intervention in the government bond market has brought some immediate relief to financial markets.The yield on the 10-year benchmark gilt has fallen back to 4.37%, from above 4.5% before the announcement, thereby reducing borrowing costs (it is still much higher than before Friday’s mini-budget, when it was around 3.1%).The pound has also pared losses, and is now almost flat against the dollar on the day at $1.0714, compared with $1.06 before the news. The UK’s stock market is trading 0.5% lower – before the intervention, it was down 1.7% – and other European stock indices have also benefited.Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at the trading platform Ava Trade, says:A new era has started, markets are unstable, economic situations are dire, and the reputations of lawmakers have been shredded into pieces. This is the view among the traders who are looking at the UK’s fixed income and forex markets. The BOE’s announcement has shown that the water has gone above their head, and they need to do whatever it takes to bring the borrowing cost down. The initial announcement has brought some relief in the UK guilt market, but the sterling has become even more volatile. Now, the anticipation is that if the current move doesn’t bring a temporary stop to the current bleed, the next step will be the un-scheduled announcement of an interest rate hike.Bank of England intervenes in bond marketThe Bank of England says it will intervene in bond markets to try and stabilise them, after the recent selloff. It will start buying long-dated gilts from today to “restore orderly market conditions” and stave off a “material risk to UK financial stability”. Here’s the full statement:As the governor said in his statement on Monday, the Bank is monitoring developments in financial markets very closely in light of the significant repricing of UK and global financial assets. This repricing has become more significant in the past day – and it is particularly affecting long-dated UK government debt. Were dysfunction in this market to continue or worsen, there would be a material risk to UK financial stability. This would lead to an unwarranted tightening of financing conditions and a reduction of the flow of credit to the real economy. In line with its financial stability objective, the Bank of England stands ready to restore market functioning and reduce any risks from contagion to credit conditions for UK households and businesses. To achieve this, the Bank will carry out temporary purchases of long-dated UK government bonds from 28 September. The purpose of these purchases will be to restore orderly market conditions. The purchases will be carried out on whatever scale is necessary to effect this outcome. The operation will be fully indemnified by HM Treasury. On 28 September, the Bank of England’s financial policy committee noted the risks to UK financial stability from dysfunction in the gilt market. It recommended that action be taken, and welcomed the Bank’s plans for temporary and targeted purchases in the gilt market on financial stability grounds at an urgent pace. These purchases will be strictly time limited. They are intended to tackle a specific problem in the long-dated government bond market. Auctions will take place from today until 14 October. The purchases will be unwound in a smooth and orderly fashion once risks to market functioning are judged to have subsided. The monetary policy committee has been informed of these temporary and targeted financial stability operations. This is in line with the Concordat governing the MPC’s engagement with the Bank’s Executive regarding balance sheet operations. As set out in the Governor’s statement on Monday, the MPC will make a full assessment of recent macroeconomic developments at its next scheduled meeting and act accordingly. The MPC will not hesitate to change interest rates by as much as needed to return inflation to the 2% target sustainably in the medium term, in line with its remit. The MPC’s annual target of an £80bn stock reduction is unaffected and unchanged. In light of current market conditions, the Bank’s Executive has postponed the beginning of gilt sale operations that were due to commence next week. The first gilt sale operations will take place on 31 October and proceed thereafter. The Bank will shortly publish a market notice outlining operational details.Global stocks slide amid recession fearsStock markets are also sliding amid recession fears. The UK’s FTSE 100 index has lost 121 points, or 1.7%, to 6,863, while Germany’s Dax has tumbled 2.1%, France’s CAC. is down 1.6%, and Italy’s FTSE MiB has lost 1.9%.In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed 3.4% lower while Japan’s Nikkei lost 1.5% and the South Korean Kospi tumbled 2.45%.Bank of America analysts said:Indeed a recession in Europe in particular is already well anticipated, with 92% of our European fund manager survey respondents expecting one in the coming 12 months.Good morning from Citi: "We see no near-term end to the UK’s fiscal woes. We recommend selling GBPUSD via a Put spread with strikes at 1.00/0.95 and expiry on 28 Dec 2022"— Katie Martin (@katie_martin_fx) September 28, 2022
However, Joel Kruger, market strategist at the global financial technology firm LMAX Group, explains succinctly why the pound has plummeted.The pound has been crushed to a fresh record low against the US dollar on the combination of monetary policy divergence between the Bank of England and Federal Reserve, along with UK specific concerns associated with tax cuts, large scale borrowing, an energy crisis, talk of no-confidence votes, and the prospect of a ratings downgrade. The next key level to watch below comes in at parity, though at the same time, given how severely extended technical readings are right now, we believe additional downside risk should be limited in favour of a well overdue corrective bounce. Fundamentally, we suspect such a correction could be inspired by more hawkish talk from BOE officials, softer inflation data out of the US, or a Fed that reconsiders its own hawkish stance. Look for a break back above this week’s high at 1.0930 to suggest the currency is finally ready to consider bottoming out.The Guardian’s deputy political editor’s Jessica Elgot has tweeted about Hannan’s comments:Only a few days since “a true blue Conservative tax cutting budget at last!” and now it’s “these trifling tax cuts are inconsequential, it’s the threat of free breakfast clubs that’s spooked the markets” https://t.co/6YbRuRco1X— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) September 28, 2022
Brexiteer Daniel Hannan blames fears of Labour government for market chaosA Conservative peer and former Brexiteer has suggested the market chaos of recent days has been driven by concerns over a possible Labour government rather than the government’s own economic policy.Daniel Hannan, one of the key Conservative voices behind the push to leave the EU, wrote an article for the ConservativeHome website playing down market concerns about the £45bn package of (unfunded) tax cuts announced by chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng.In the piece, which was published on Wednesday and immediately widely mocked online, Lord Hannan wrote:What we have seen since Friday is partly a market adjustment to the increased probability that Sir Keir Starmer will win in 2024 or 2025 - leading to higher taxes, higher spending, and a weaker economy.Some pundits don’t like Truss, others have never forgiven the Tories for Brexit, yet others are horrified by the idea that growth, rather than equality, should be the Government’s priority. Fair enough. But let’s be clear-headed about what is happening.Kwarteng’s plan has prompted unease among some Tory MPs even as the free-marketeer wing of the party has shrugged off concerns about the impact of the tax-cutting strategy.Hannan downplayed the significance of the tax cuts in historical terms.To blame these tiny tax reductions for the fall in the pound is akin to a fly alighting on an exhausted shire horse as it lies down to sleep, and telling itself that it wrestled the mighty beast to the ground.He also suggested the drop in sterling reflects a “measure of surprise” that interest rates have not risen faster.Don’t pretend that higher interest rates represent a failure of Trussonomics. They are precisely what the premier (and her chancellor) want to happen.There are no signs that the government is backtracking on any of Friday’s £45bn (unfunded) tax cuts, reports Ben Riley-Smith, political editor at the Daily Telegraph.Our readout of the Chancellor’s MPs call last night over here. In short: No sign of backtracking on any of Friday’s package (inc tax top rate). https://t.co/leC6ACtrih— Ben Riley-Smith (@benrileysmith) September 28, 2022
UK government bond yields hit fresh 14-year highsMeanwhile, UK government bond yields have surged further, increasing government borrowing costs, following the International Monetary Fund’s stinging rebuke of Liz Truss’s government’s fiscal plan.The yield, or interest rate on the benchmark 10-year gilt, rose as high as 4.558%, the highest since the financial crisis of 2008, and is now trading at 4.513%. The two-year gilt climbed to 4.67%.The first bankers have arrived at the Treasury for their meeting with Kwasi Kwarteng.JP Morgan’s chief executive in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Viswas Raghavan, did not respond to questions as he walked into the building.Bank of America’s president of international, Bernard Mensah, gave reporters a fleeting smile but ignored the shouted questions as he walked in.Hal Cook, senior investment analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, has looked at bond markets.Central banks across the globe have raised rates simultaneously and consistently, with this trend expected to continue. In the last week we have seen Sweden, the US, Norway, Switzerland, South Africa and the UK raise rates. Forward guidance from many central banks is for this trend to continue. The major exception is Japan which on Thursday announced no change to their current -0.1% rate. This was met with a fall in the value of the Yen such that the government stepped in to try and support it via selling down some of its US Dollar reserves. They haven’t acted in this way since the 1990s. Rate rises have caused significant capital falls in the value of bonds in 2022, with resulting rises in yields. 10-year government bonds for the US, UK and Germany were 1.5%, 1.0% and -0.1% respectively at the start of 2022. They are 4.0%, 4.5% and 2.3% today.The Bank of England’s deputy governor for financial stability, Jon Cunliffe, has given a speech in the City of London this morning, in which he gave no update about Threadneedle Street’s response to the meltdown in currency and gilt markets, which prompted the International Monetary Fund to issue a stinging rebuke last night.Cunliffe was giving a speech on innovations in financial trading systems at a conference held by the Association for Financial Markets in Europe. Rather than a planned Q&A, he also told those gathered: “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to the ranch” | United Kingdom Business & Economics |
A Euro banknote is displayed on U.S. Dollar banknotes in this illustration taken, February 14, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSummaryCompaniesEuro falls to below 1.02 for the first time since 2002U.S. dollar index rises to new 20-year highSwiss Franc reaches a 7-year high vs euroYen strengthens after Japan's inflation expectations riseGraphic: World FX ratesJuly 6 (Reuters) - The euro tumbled to a new two-decade low on Wednesday as fears over rising energy prices and potential shortages cast a long shadow over the bloc's economy, while demand for safe-haven assets drove the dollar to fresh 20-year highs.All oil and gas fields that were affected by a strike in Norway's petroleum sector are expected to be back in full operation within a couple of days, Equinor (EQNR.OL) said on Wednesday. read more Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs raised its natural gas price forecasts, saying that a complete restoration of Russian gas flows through Nordstream1 was no longer the most likely scenario.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comAnalysts expect a quick resurgence in oil prices as supply tightness persists and as front-month spreads have held up despite Tuesday's price fall. read more "It is not only the threat of non-delivery (of gas) that is weighing on the euro," Moritz Paysen, forex and rates adviser at Berenberg, said."The already high energy costs are a burden. Energy costs in Europe are many times higher than in the U.S.," he added.The euro fell 0.7% against the dollar to 1.0186, the first time below 1.02 since December 2002.Euro zone consumers cut spending on food, drinks and tobacco for the second straight month in May amid a spike in prices, according to estimates from the European Union statistics office Eurostat released on Wednesday.The divergence between central banks' tightening cycles across the Atlantic remained in investors' focus."The big question is whether this deterioration in growth prospects is enough to curtail tightening cycles - especially that of the Fed," ING analysts said.They reckon the forex market will consolidate the current levels on Wednesday ahead of Federal Open Market Committee minutes from its June meeting, due at 1800 GMT."The general view that the Fed might ultimately have more opportunity than many other central banks to continue policy normalization," Unicredit analysts said.The dollar index - which tracks the greenback against six counterparts – rose 0.4% to 107.02 its highest since 2002.The euro dropped to its lowest level against the Swiss franc since the Swiss National Bank abandoned its currency cap in 2015.The single currency was down 0.4% to a fresh 7-year low at 0.9897."In the current circumstances, the traditional safe haven currencies of the US dollar, Swiss franc and yen appear set to continue to outperform in the near-term," MUFG analysts said.Yen gained a little support from some safety bids after Japanese households' inflation expectations strengthened in the three months to June, with the ratio of homes expecting price rises over the coming year hitting the highest level in 14 years. read more The dollar dropped 0.3% to 135.36 yen . It hit at the end of June its highest since 1998 at 137.Bank of Japan has said it would not withdraw monetary stimulus because inflation is due to soaring fuel and raw material costs blamed on the Ukraine crisis and will likely prove temporary.Bitcoin fell 1.7% and was last trading at $20,088. Ether rose 0.5% at $1,138.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Stefano Rebaudo; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, William MacleanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
Japanese yen and U.S. dollar banknotes are seen with a currency exchange rate graph in this illustration picture taken June 16, 2022. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration/File Photo/File PhotoRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comTOKYO, Sept 8 (Reuters) - The dollar resumed its rise in Asia on Thursday after falling back from a two-decade high overnight, as investors pondered the path of global monetary policy ahead of a European Central Bank rate decision and comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell later in the day.The U.S. dollar index , which measures the currency against six major peers, added 0.1% to 109.80, edging back toward Wednesday's peak at 110.79, a level not seen since June 2002.The greenback gained 0.18% to 144.09 yen , after reaching a 24-year high of 144.99 in the previous session.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comThe euro slipped 0.21% to $0.9987, after plumbing a 20-year low of $0.9864 earlier in the week.The ECB is widely expected to also raise rates by 75 basis points (bps) later on Thursday (1215 GMT) to fight runaway inflation, although Europe's energy crisis has kept the euro under pressure. read more Sterling weakened 0.23% to $1.1509, heading back toward the day's 37-year low of $1.1407.Powell will participate in a discussion at a Cato Institute conference, with Fed officials soon to enter into a blackout period prior to the U.S. central bank's Sept. 20-21 meeting.Recent rhetoric has continued to be hawkish overall, with Boston Fed President Susan Collins saying overnight that bringing inflation back down to 2% is the Fed's "Job One," while Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard commented that tight monetary policy will continue "for as long as it takes to get inflation down." read more Money markets lay 79% odds that the Fed will hike by another 75 basis points at this month's meeting, which would increase the fed funds rate to 3.0% to 3.25%."Dollar domination may have one last major rally in it before the market can start placing some long-term bets with some of the European currencies," now that "the global energy crisis, a widening interest rate differential, and fears of a severe European recession are close to getting fully priced in," Edward Moya, a senior markets analyst at OANDA, wrote in a note."The upcoming ECB rate decision will be a make-or-break moment in FX that will either trigger a bounce towards parity or provide a clear passage towards 0.9750."========================================================Currency bid prices at 0210 GMTAll spotsTokyo spotsEurope spotsVolatilitiesTokyo Forex market info from BOJRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Kevin Buckland; Editing by Kim CoghillOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
Climate and environment groups have criticised comments by the new resources minister, Madeleine King, in support of new gas development, saying it is inconsistent with what climate science says is required to limit global heating.In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, King said new gas fields such as Santos’ Narrabri development in northern New South Wales would help avoid a future power crisis.“It avoids a crisis, is what it does, because it means more gas closer to your systems,” King said of the Narrabri project.Santos’ project was approved by the NSW Independent Planning Commission and the federal government in 2020. It would not produce gas before 2025.It has faced strong opposition from community and environment groups and traditional owners who have raised concerns about its effects on the climate, water and the Pilliga forest.Tim Buckley, the director of Climate Energy Finance, said the energy crisis on the east coast would not be solved by more greenfield fossil fuel developments.The International Energy Agency and the United Nations have said new fossil fuel projects are incompatible with limiting warming to 1.5C.“Any discussion about gas as a transition fuel is ignoring the climate science, ignoring methane venting and fugitive emissions, and it’s ignoring the whole supply chain analysis and the reality that methane emissions are skyrocketing way in excess of the corporate data,” Buckley said.“Methane is now one quarter of global CO2 equivalent emissions and we have a climate emergency.”Buckley said new gas developments would take years to come online and would not address skyrocketing prices.“Domestic east coast gas production has tripled in the last decade, and so it is totally fact-free spin to say yet more production will somehow lower the record-high gas prices,” he said.“Excessive exports from the east coast of Australia is the problem.”Andrew Stock is a retired energy executive and a retired foundation director of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.He is now a councillor for the Climate Council and said the work of both the IEA and the UN made clear there was “no room in the climate balance of the planet for new gas developments”.Stock said the states with the lowest energy prices in the national market were those that had diversified strongly into renewables and storage, such as South Australia.“What government should be doing is working very hard to put in place a transition plan to renewables and storage, and away from fossil fuels, because that makes Australia independent to what’s going on in the rest of the world,” he said.National energy ministers have agreed to the creation of a transition plan to decarbonise the economy, the acceleration of work by the Energy Security Board on building extra capacity for electricity supply, and an investigation by regulators of the purchase and storage of gas to reduce the risks of shortages.King told the Sydney Morning Herald she wanted to decarbonise the economy but had to “accept some of the realities of our current energy mix”. Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morningChris Gambian, the chief executive of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, said King’s support for the Narrabri development would do nothing to solve the immediate energy shortfall and “it ignores the obvious need for domestic gas reservation”.“It also disregards the significant environmental damage that the local community at Narrabri has been seriously concerned about for many years.”Gomeroi traditional owners voted overwhelmingly against entering into an agreement with Santos for its Narrabri gas project.The matter is the subject of proceedings in the national native title tribunal.Gomeroi traditional owner Karra Kinchella said there had been resistance to the Santos project for more than a decade and “that’s not going to change just because Ms King wants it to”.“What gets me the most is that if we had started the transition to renewable energy ten years ago, the Pilliga wouldn’t be at risk now,” she said.King did not respond to a request for comment before publication. | Energy & Natural Resources |
Japanese yen and U.S. dollar banknotes are seen with a currency exchange rate graph in this illustration picture taken June 16, 2022. REUTERS/Florence Lo/IllustrationRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comHONG KONG, Sept 22 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The Japanese government has grudgingly responded to the Federal Reserve’s hiking cycle by moving to prop up the staggering yen, the first such intervention since 1998 read more . The “decisive action”, in the words of Vice Finance Minister for International Affairs Masato Kanda, caused the currency to pop up to 140 per dollar. But the country’s economic outlook makes such intervention unlikely to work.Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda must be a frustrated man. There is no domestic case for him to hike interest rates; inflation is slightly above his 2% target, but for the wrong reasons, namely war in Europe and excess stimulus in the United States. Japanese growth, at 2.2% in the last quarter, is uninspiring. The BOJ would rather wait for the outcome of companies’ annual wage negotiations next year before leaping to policy conclusions.And yet. Runaway inflation in the United States has caught the U.S. Federal Reserve off guard, so Chair Jerome Powell has been forced to hike rates aggressively read more even as Kuroda maintained Japan’s ultra-loose monetary policy on Thursday. That further widens the gap between American and Japanese benchmark bond yields – already well over 3 percentage points – which further hurts the yen. The currency has lost 29% since a peak in December 2020, most of that since March. Even Japanese exporters that benefit from a weak currency are anxious about its volatility – what goes down can rebound just as quickly.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comThat’s why Tokyo has decided to deploy some of its $1.3 trillion in forex reserves to stem the slide. Yet Japan’s economic divergence from its western peers means the best the government can hope for is to moderate the slope of the yen’s descent.There is a worse scenario, however. Bond investors have already expressed scepticism towards the BOJ’s commitment to keeping the 10-year sovereign bond yield below 0.25%. They pushed the yield above that limit in June and again this week, Refinitiv data show. The Tokyo financial community is awash with rumours that foreign hedge funds have been vigorously shorting the yen in New York and London trading hours. That may explain the government’s decision to intervene. But if it doesn’t work – and unilateral interventions have a poor track record – then Japanese authorities’ credibility will take a major hit. That would make the Bank of Japan’s job even harder.Parting waysFollow @petesweeneypro on TwitterCONTEXT NEWSJapan intervened in the foreign exchange market for the first time since 1998 in an attempt to prop up the yen.The Japanese currency has depreciated nearly 20% against the dollar this year, as the Bank of Japan has stuck to its ultra-loose monetary policy even as other central banks have raised rates.The move initially sent the dollar plunging over 2% to 140.3 yen. The yen was at 141.11 to the dollar as of 1225 GMT.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comEditing by Neil Unmack and Oliver TaslicOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.Pete SweeneyThomson ReutersAsia Economics Editor Pete Sweeney joined Reuters Breakingviews in Hong Kong in September 2016. Previously he served as Reuters' chief correspondent for China Economy and Markets, running teams in Shanghai and Beijing; before that he was editor of China Economic Review, a monthly magazine focused on providing news and analysis on the mainland economy. Sweeney came to China as a Fulbright scholar in 2008, and in that role conducted research on the Chinese aviation industry and outbound M&A. In prior incarnations he helped resettle refugees in Atlanta, covered the European Union out of Brussels, and took a poorly timed swing at craft-beer entrepreneurship in Quito even as the Ecuadorean currency collapsed (not his fault). He speaks Mandarin Chinese, at the expense of his Spanish. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
Chemours has offered a novel argument in defense of one of its toxic PFAS chemicals, known as GenX: that the compound, which causes cancer and other health effects in lab animals and was released by the company into the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of people, is necessary for the fight against climate change.
Chemours, a chemical company that was spun off from DuPont in 2015, made the case for GenX as an environmental good in response to a toxicity assessment of the chemical that the Environmental Protection Agency finalized in October. The EPA document set a safety threshold for GenX based on studies showing that it causes liver effects in rats, including cancerous tumors. But in a March 18 request for correction, Chemours’ attorneys asked the agency to weaken its threshold, arguing that GenX is necessary for the country’s transition away from fossil fuels.“Chemours’s chemistries are critical to achieving the United States’ energy transition and decarbonization ambitions,” attorneys from the firm Arnold & Porter wrote, going on to note that GenX is used in the process of creating compounds called fluoropolymers, which are used to make lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars, membranes used for water purification, and hydrogen from renewable sources.
The company, which makes GenX in its plant in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and uses the chemical at its facilities in New Jersey and West Virginia, also insisted that continued domestic production is important for U.S. energy independence: “There are often no domestically manufactured alternative replacement products available for these mission-critical applications.”
According to Chemours, which reported net sales of $6.3 billion last year, restrictions on GenX are not just a threat to the company’s bottom line. Noting that “fluoropolymers are used in every car, airplane, cellphone, as well as semiconductor and computer chips” and are also used in the production of “the vast majority of prescription drugs,” the company’s attorneys argued that the “EPA’s Toxicity Assessment, unless corrected, has the potential to cause significant harm to Chemours as well as to the broader United States economy.”In recent years, as the climate crisis has escalated, fossil fuel companies have responded with a flurry of greenwashing, false pledges, and branded content that inaccurately absolves oil and gas from responsibility for climate change. Even in this context, Chemours’ attempt to position its toxic chemical as a solution to energy and water problems has struck some environmental advocates as remarkably cynical. They object to the company’s pitting of one environmental cause against another and scoff at the notion that GenX, one of a class of chemicals that has caused one of the most widespread and persistent pollution problems in recent history, is truly helping address the spiraling climate catastrophe.
“Chemours currently manufactures PFAS by using and releasing potent greenhouse gas chemicals such as HCFC-22. They are clearly part of the climate pollution problem, not the solution,” said Laurie Valeriano, executive director of the advocacy group Toxic-Free Future. “A clean energy future includes safer products made without emissions of potent greenhouse gases and hazardous chemicals.”
Toxic History
Veterans of the battle over PFAS contamination find the company’s claims about the environmental and economic benefits of GenX familiar. “This is the same kind of argument we’ve been hearing for several decades now,” said Rob Bilott, an attorney who sued DuPont over another toxic PFAS chemical, PFOA, in 1999. The company had used PFOA for decades to make Teflon and other products — and spent years defending it as an industrial necessity. DuPont only agreed to phase it out in 2006 after Bilott shared voluminous evidence with the EPA showing that exposure to the chemical led to cancers, liver damage, and immune effects — and only after the company had selected a substitute: GenX.
“It’s just remarkable to see how the spin continues, trying to implicate these chemicals with products that will resonate with consumers,” said Bilott. “They’re trying to create fear that by actually regulating these chemicals that present a public health threat, you’re going to force people to make choices about these products.”“It’s just remarkable to see how the spin continues, trying to implicate these chemicals with products that will resonate with consumers.”Bilott knows firsthand about such efforts to fend off regulation, having first discovered the documents showing that DuPont (along with 3M, which first created PFOA) had known about the environmental and health harms of PFOA for decades and had hidden the evidence from the public and regulators. The EPA fined DuPont $10.5 million over its deception — the biggest penalty in the agency’s history at the time. But the punishment came too late to protect health and the environment. By the time the fine was levied, PFOA had already contaminated the drinking water of some 80,000 people living near a DuPont plant in West Virginia. The exposure was later found to have caused a local increase of kidney and testicular cancer in the exposed population.
GenX emerged from complex negotiations between the EPA and DuPont over the phaseout of PFOA. While the environmental agency was slapping the chemical manufacturer on the hand for withholding evidence of the harms of that chemical, it also agreed to allow the company almost a decade to phase in its replacement. During the back-and-forth between the company and the agency in 2006, DuPont had insisted that the EPA give its substitute compound “timely review and approvals.” By then, the company already had evidence that GenX had some of the same effects as PFOA on lab animals. DuPont’s own studies, submitted to the EPA between 2006 and 2013, showed that the replacement chemical caused liver and kidney damage; developmental effects, including early deliveries and delays in genital development; immune suppression; and cancerous tumors in both the liver and pancreas, as The Intercept first reported in 2016.Despite the alarming evidence of harm, the EPA went ahead with the timely approval of GenX as DuPont had requested, issuing a consent order in 2009 that acknowledged that the replacement chemical could present the same risks as PFOA — including cancer, systemic toxicity, and reproductive toxicity — while allowing DuPont and, after 2015, Chemours to make GenX at its North Carolina plant. In the following years, as the company was releasing its new product into the Cape Fear River and into the air through its stacks, DuPont was also quietly handing over additional research to the EPA that showed that the toxicity profile of its new chemical in fact did match that of its old one — and that in some cases, GenX was even more toxic than PFOA. The January 2022 toxicity assessment that drew on these studies set a safety threshold that was considerably lower than that of PFOA. The EPA says that it is currently reviewing the PFOA standard and plans to issue a drinking water health advisory for GenX based on the assessment this spring.
But as with PFOA, these regulatory steps, taken 16 years after DuPont submitted its first GenX study to the EPA, came too late to protect the public. Residents of the Wilmington, North Carolina, area have already spent decades drinking water laced with the compound, which was released into the Cape Fear River as a byproduct of other processes before DuPont began producing it in 2009. In 2019, as news of the contamination spread, Chemours entered into a consent order with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and the environmental group Cape Fear River Watch, in which it agreed to provide replacement drinking water to residents whose water has been contaminated with GenX.People look at the Cape Fear River as it crests from rains caused by Hurricane Florence on Sept. 18, 2018, in Fayetteville, N.C. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesEscaping Financial Responsibility
As the company freely admitted in its March request for correction, a change to the safety threshold set in the EPA’s toxicity assessment could relieve the company of some of its legal obligations under that consent order. In the agreement, the level of GenX in drinking water that triggers Chemours’ responsibility to provide clean water “is subject to adjustment based on an ‘applicable EPA health advisory,’” as the lawyers note. “An EPA health advisory for [GenX] could therefore substantially affect Chemours’s obligations under the North Carolina Consent Order.” Because the new level set by the EPA is more protective than the one set by North Carolina, Chemours could face additional financial obligations in North Carolina if its petition fails. If it succeeds, the company could wind up spending less, since it would be responsible for providing fewer people with clean water.
Even if the EPA denies Chemours’ request for correction, drinkers of the contaminated water are already being forced to pick up hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to purify it. Brunswick is one of two counties in North Carolina that recently increased water rates to cover the cost of new systems installed to filter out PFAS. “Brunswick County is a poor, rural county, and people there are now paying to put in a reverse osmosis plant for their water treatment to PFAS specifically because Chemours won’t,” said Johnsie Lang, a scientist who has studied GenX. Lang, who lives in the county, saw her own monthly water bill rise from $130 to $180 in March.
The request for correction comes at a time when Chemours is facing increasing costs in North Carolina. The consent order requires the company to provide clean water to households whose water is contaminated above a certain level. “But they had no idea how big their plume was. At first, it looked like there would probably be like 100 or less houses,” said Lang. But more than 6,000 now qualify. “And the number is still growing. I think they thought they were done, that they spent the money they wanted to spend.”
Chemours paid over $100 million for technology that reduces air emissions of GenX by 99.99 percent, as the consent order required. But the company has also been fined by the state Department of Environmental Quality for at least 16 violations of the consent order and related regulations, including exceeding the air emissions limit, disposing of waste improperly, and releasing more PFAS into water than allowed. And while the amount of GenX released from the North Carolina plant has clearly been reduced, shorter-chain PFAS have been found in water around the state — including on beaches and in home gutters, some as far as 80 miles from the plant.PFAS-contaminated foam is seen on the beach near Ocean Crest Fishing Pier in Oak Island, N.C., on May 13, 2021. Photo: Emily Donovan/Clean Cape Fear
And while GenX has become the focus of Chemours’ anti-regulatory efforts, it is only one of the chemicals the company emits. Chemours has identified more than 250 “unknown” PFAS compounds in its wastewater. “They’re talking about GenX right now because it’s the only one where [the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services] set a value,” said Lang. “What about all the other compounds?”
Testicular and Liver Cancer
It is not unusual for companies to challenge EPA science that threatens to reduce profits. Nor is it uncommon for such companies to offer a range of criticisms in the hope that at least one might prevail. In the case of GenX, Chemours has argued not only that the chemical is essential to halt the climate crisis, but also that the science used to calculate the safety threshold is flawed. In the request for correction, the company’s lawyers claimed that the EPA failed to consider epidemiological data released by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services in 2017 and that “NCDHHS concluded that rates of liver and other cancers are generally lower in North Carolina counties with exposures to [GenX] the rates reported in the U.S. general population, in the state of North Carolina, and in North Carolina counties without alleged exposure to [GenX].”Asked to confirm this finding, a North Carolina health agency representative said that Chemours’ interpretation of its data was not accurate. “NCDHHS did not conclude that rates of liver and other cancers are generally lower in North Carolina counties with exposures to [GenX] than the rates reported in the U.S. general population, in the state of North Carolina, or in North Carolina counties without alleged exposure” to GenX, Catie Armstrong, a spokesperson for the department, wrote in an email to The Intercept. Armstrong also noted that while overall cancer rates in the four counties studied were similar, in New Hanover County rates of testicular cancer were elevated over a 20-year period and rates of liver cancer were higher over a five-year period. The cancer rates collected by the health department are descriptive, Armstrong said, and “only a comprehensive research study can provide information about whether a specific exposure might be associated with increased rates of cancer.”
For local advocates have who been asking for such a detailed epidemiological study of people who drank contaminated water in the area, most explicitly in a petition local environmental groups submitted to the EPA in October 2020, the company’s misinterpretation of incomplete data is particularly galling. “One of the big pushes in our petition is for a comprehensive epidemiological study for people in that portion of North Carolina,” said Bob Sussman, an attorney representing the environmental groups that submitted the petition, which also demands health and environmental studies of 54 PFAS compounds that Chemours emitted in the area. “Chemours’ misrepresentation of a study that in fact shows increases in liver tumors in PFAS-impacted areas is disturbing and of a piece with the company’s resistance to conducting the research requested in the petition.”Another Chemours strategy that is vexing for clean water advocates is its argument that the EPA is incorrectly applying “uncertainty factors” in its calculation of the safety standard for GenX. The agency uses the numbers, which make safety thresholds more protective, to compensate for gaps in knowledge about the effects of chemicals. Chemours says that the EPA has inappropriately inflated the uncertainty factors, resulting in a threshold that’s too low. But Sussman pointed out that the agency used the factors because the company didn’t provide studies that show definitively how the chemical affects people.
“In our petition, we say that we need all this additional testing on GenX. And here’s Chemours coming in and not even addressing the central point — that we don’t have the data we need,” said Sussman. “What I would say to Chemours is, if you don’t like these uncertainty factors, then you better go out and do some testing.”
Locked In
Environmental scientists agree with Chemours on at least one point: that GenX is now used to make fluoropolymers that wind up in a wide range of products, including, as the company’s attorneys pointed out to the EPA, computer chips, light-weight vehicles, and “piping and vessels to protect employees from harsh chemicals.” Such economic facts are irrelevant to the science about the chemical — and have no place in a toxicity assessment, according to Linda Birnbaum, who directed the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and served as the country’s chief toxicologist until 2019. Still, said Birnbaum, “the issue that they raised — that PFAS are everywhere — that’s absolutely true. The point is that it’s a bad thing.”
The thornier question is how to make those products without using such dangerous chemicals. Some manufacturers have already begun to create fluoropolymers without PFAS — one did so back in 2008. Still, a full transition away from GenX will take time, according to Mark Rossi, executive director of Clean Production Action. “If it’s currently necessary in the moment, I would say it’s not necessary in the long run,” said Rossi. “If you said, from today, you have to be out of all PFAS in manufacturing in five to 10 years, I’d say that’s a reasonable timeline.”“The issue that they raised — that PFAS are everywhere — that’s absolutely true. The point is that it’s a bad thing.”While the nonessential uses of PFAS could easily be immediately stopped, the gradual phaseout from more critical products will take both commitment and investment as well as time, according to Zhanyun Wang. “Nonfluorinated alternatives exist, but they require innovation,” said Wang, a scientist at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, known as EMPA. “Until you train the next generation of scientists, they always follow the same chemistry.”
The public has frustratingly little say over whether the production of our cellphones, cars, and allergy medicines involves the contamination of the environment. “The companies always say that they are customer-driven,” said Wang. “But if you think about it, it’s actually the companies deciding for us.”
Climate activists refer to the phenomenon of a polluting industry doubling down on nonsustainable practices that are profitable in the short term — and catastrophic in the long term — as “lock-in.” Ironically, with its challenge to the EPA, Chemours is using the promise of helping fight the lock-in of fossil fuels to justify further locking in the use of PFAS, arguing that its own environmental contaminants are essential and immutable.
Chemours declined to answer a question about the relevance of the economic arguments to the toxicity assessment. Instead, it provided The Intercept with an emailed statement that said, in part, “We support science-based regulation that is protective of public health and the environment, and we are committed to manufacturing our advanced chemistries responsibly — including by working to achieve our ambitious corporate responsibility goals.” | Energy & Natural Resources |
SummaryCompaniesCo lifts FY core profit forecast to over 1.73 bln eurosSees margin on core profit around 35% this yearAdjusted EBITDA rose 17% in Q3, above forecastsShipments to China region rose 73% in July-SeptMILAN, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Ferrari (RACE.MI) said it was confident about its prospects for this year and the next as demand for its luxury cars as well its pricing power remain strong despite broader economic worries in many of its main markets.The Italian carmaker said orders for its new 390,000 euro ($385,000) Purosangue four-seater had outstripped even its most ambitious expectations. It has also pushed up prices by mid-single digit levels on its existing models to offset the impact of inflation.Presenting third quarter results to analysts, Chief Executive Benedetto Vigna acknowledged the current macroeconomic scenario was bringing "new challenges on a global scale" both for Ferrari and its partners. But there were still plenty of wealthy buyers out there."We are also very positive for the next year. This is thanks to the order book that we have, that is spanning all the products we have as well as all the regions," Vigna said."With the exception of a few models, our entire range is sold out."The company on Wednesday also raised forecasts for its full year 2022 results, including for core earnings, though it struck a more cautious note on margins.Milan listed shares in the company fell as much as 3.5%, after results were released, as investors - who had been expecting the improved outlook - held back after a 7% rally in shares since mid-October. By 1550 GMT they were down 1.3%.Analysts at Morgan Stanley said in a note that "full year 2023 should see tailwinds from volume, price/mix and forex."The logo of Ferrari is seen in the headquarters as CEO Benedetto Vigna unveils the company's new long term strategy, in Maranello, Italy, June 15, 2022. Picture taken June 15, 2022. REUTERS/Flavio Lo ScalzoA double digit growth in shipments helped Ferrari beat expectations in the third quarter, with its adjusted core earnings rising 17% to 435 million euros.With a 73% increase, the China, Hong Kong and Taiwan region scored the largest shipment growth in the quarter.Shipments rose in all regions except in EMEA in the July-September period, driven by the ramp-up phase of the six-cylinder hybrid 296 GTB and of the 12-cylinder limited series 812 Competizione model.Industrial costs and research and development expenses weighed for an additional 34 million euros on Ferrari's quarterly core result, mainly due to higher depreciation and amortization and cost inflation.The price mix also weighed, while foreign exchanges, including hedging contracts, had a positive effect.Ferrari now forecasts its adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) to grow over 1.73 billion euros this year, versus a previous estimate of between 1.70-1.73 billion euros.Margin on adjusted EBITDA was now seen at around 35% for this year, versus a previous guidance of over 35%.($1 = 1.0128 euros)Writing by Giulio Piovaccari; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Angus MacSwan and Deepa BabingtonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Europe Business & Economics |
Ajanta Pharma Shares Hit Record High After Q1 Profit Beats Estimates
The pharmaceutical company's first-quarter net profit rose 19% YoY to Rs 208 crore beating Bloomberg estimate of Rs 150 crore.
Shares of Ajanta Pharma Ltd. surged over 7% to hit a record high after its first-quarter profit beat analysts' estimates.
The pharmaceutical company's net profit rose 19% year-on-year to Rs 208 crore in the quarter ended June, according to an exchange filing. That compares with Bloomberg's estimate of Rs 150 crore.
Ajanta Pharma Q1 FY24 Results Highlights: (Consolidated YoY)
Revenue up 7% at Rs 1,021 crore. (Bloomberg estimate : Rs 1,009 crore)
Ebitda up 22% to Rs 271 crore. (Bloomberg estimate : Rs 232 crore Profit)
Margins at 26.6% versus Bloomberg estimate of 23%.
Net profit up 19% to Rs 208. (Bloomberg estimate: Rs 150 crore).
Here's what analysts have to say about the Q1 earnings
Motilal Oswal
The brokerage firm reiterates 'buy' rating with a target price of Rs 1,800, implying an upside return potential of 9.09%.
The company benefited from lower raw material and freight costs in the first quarter of FY24 and expects the same to continue over the near-to-medium term.
Nirmal Bang Institutional Research
Revenues grew 7.4% year-on-year, mainly due to robust 14.3% growth in the domestic market, which was partially offset by the decline in Africa business due to supply chain issues, which have now normalise.
Nirmal Bang remains positive on Ajanta Pharma given its branded play and strong focus on the domestic market.
Shares of the company rose 7.20% to Rs 1,664.40 apiece as of 9:57 a.m., as compared to a 0.01% gain in the NSE Nifty 50. The scrip gained as much as 9.37% intraday to hit a record high. It has risen 37.38% on a year-to-date basis.
The relative strength index was at 79, indicating the stock may be overbought. Total traded volume stood at 50.6 times its 30-day average.
Out of the 16 analysts tracking the company, 15 maintain a 'buy' rating and one recommends a 'hold', according to Bloomberg data. The average 12-month consensus price target implies a potential downside of 2.2%. | Stocks Trading & Speculation |
Australians have resoundingly rejected a proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in the country’s constitution and establish a body to advise parliament on Indigenous issues.
Saturday’s voice to parliament referendum failed, with the defeat clear shortly after polls closed.
To succeed, the yes campaign – advocating for the voice – needed to secure a double majority, meaning it needed both a majority of the national vote, as well as majorities in four of Australia’s six states.
The defeat will be seen by Indigenous advocates as a blow to what has been a hard fought struggle to progress reconciliation and recognition in modern Australia, with First Nations people continuing to suffer discrimination, poorer health and economic outcomes.
More than 17 million Australians were enrolled for the compulsory vote, with many expats visiting embassies around the world in the weeks leading up to Saturday’s poll.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, called for Australians to show “kindness” to each other after the referendum.
“This moment of disagreement does not define us. And it will not divide us,” he said.
“We are not yes voters or no voters. We are all Australians. And it is as Australians together, that we must take our country beyond this debate without forgetting why we had it in the first place.”
The vote occurred 235 years on from British settlement, 61 years after Aboriginal Australians were granted the right to vote, and 15 years since a landmark prime ministerial apology for harm caused by decades of government policies including the forced removal of children from Indigenous families.
The referendum had been a key promise that the Labor party took to the federal election in 2022, when it returned to power after years of conservative rule.
Support for the voice to parliament had been strong in the early months of 2023, polling showed, but subsequently began a slow and steady decline.
All major polls had foreshadowed that the no campaign would succeed and the voice would be rejected. Nationwide support for the voice was hovering at about 40% in the week before the vote, with coverage of the campaign being overshadowed by the outbreak of war in the Middle East in the crucial final days.
The concept for the advisory body, which would have included Indigenous representatives from each of Australia’s six states and two territories voted in by their local Indigenous electors, was developed and endorsed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders in 2017. A majority of Indigenous voters supported the proposal, according to polling.
It was envisaged to provide Australia’s government with non-binding advice on issues affecting about 4% of the population who identify as Indigenous.
There is an eight-year gap in life expectancy for Indigenous Australians compared with non-Indigenous Australians, a suicide rate twice the national average, and comparatively poorer outcomes for health, education and infant mortality.
While such an advisory body could have been created through legislation, the proposal was designed to enshrine its existence in the constitution so it could not be removed by future governments.
The referendum question, to amend Australia’s constitution to recognise the first peoples of Australia by establishing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to parliament, was deliberately vague. The failure of Australia’s previous referendum in 1999 – to become a republic and acknowledge Indigenous ownership – was seen to have failed because it put forward a specific model to voters.
Exactly what the voice advisory body would look like and how it would function were to be determined only once the concept had won approval.
Opposition to the voice seized on this ambiguity, adopting a campaign slogan of “if you don’t know, vote no”.
But reasons for the decline in support were broad.
Albanese and his ministers were prominent faces of the yes movement, and while Labor did not lead the campaign, the government’s focus on the referendum was seen alongside its handling of other national issues.
It weathered accusations that it championed the voice push while failing to deliver tangible improvements for citizens facing cost of living pressures and a housing crisis hurt the yes side.
Meanwhile, the Liberal party in opposition formally backed the no vote, with senior Indigenous members speaking out against the voice.
Arguments against the proposal included that no such representative body was needed, that it was introducing race into the constitution, and that the voice would divide the nation.
Opposition also emerged from the far left of progressive politics and a minority of grassroots Indigenous activists, who rejected the voice while calling for more significant reconciliation measures, including a treaty with Aboriginal Australians.
Indigenous advocates from each side of the debate reported receiving a surge in racist abuse and prominent Aboriginal personalities across Australian media also complained of the toxic nature of debate and online vitriol. | Australia Business & Economics |
Australian PM Anthony Albanese and Chinese President Xi Jinping will soon sit down for a drought-breaking bilateral meeting in Beijing.
Mr Albanese, who landed in Shanghai on Saturday, is the first Australian leader to visit China since 2016.
The visit is seen as a key moment in thawing relations, after a string of trade and security disputes.
Trade will top the agenda - Mr Albanese is calling for the removal of Chinese tariffs on Australian goods.
Mr Xi is expected to ask for more access to key Australian sectors.
"What I've said is that we need to cooperate with China where we can, disagree where we must and engage in our national interest," Mr Albanese told reporters in Beijing on Monday, ahead of the meeting.
His trip follows a diplomatic deep freeze prompted by - among other things - Australia's calls for an investigation into the origins of Covid-19, and economic sanctions enacted by Beijing on key Australian exports such as beef, wine, and barley.
It also coincides with the 50-year anniversary of Gough Whitlam's iconic visit to China to visit Mao Zedong in 1973, marking the first trip by an Australian prime minister after the establishment of diplomatic ties.
Asked by reporters if Australia can "trust" China, Mr Albanese said his past engagements with Mr Xi have been "positive" and "constructive".
"But we recognise, as well, that we come with different political systems, very different values arising from that and different histories. But we deal with each other on face value."
But a list of sticking points and security concerns will hang over Monday's talks.
Australian writer Yang Hengjun - whose health is said to be rapidly deteriorating - has been imprisoned in China on espionage charges since 2019, and Mr Albanese is facing pressure at home to secure his release.
Canberra's growing military ties with Washington and a recent overhaul of its defence posture - widely seen as aimed at countering China - could make it difficult for the two sides to find common ground outside of economic interests, analysts say.
Some experts predict Beijing could push for greater access to Australia's resources and renewable energy sectors, but in recent years, the Australian government has taken measures to inhibit Chinese ownership of critical minerals and mining projects. | Australia Business & Economics |
JTA — The premier of New South Wales, the Australian state that is home to Sydney, apologized to the Jewish community on Wednesday as they reeled from a pro-Palestinian protest that included “gas the Jews” and “f— the Jews” chants.
Chris Minns said in a statement that his local government had tried to “create a place and a space” for Jews to mourn victims of the attacks in Israel outside of Sydney’s famed opera house, which was lit up in the colors of the Israeli flag on Monday night.
But he admitted that the exterior of the opera house was “overrun with people that were spewing racial epithets and hatred.” The pro-Palestinian rally on Monday, which gathered over 1,000 people, also included the burning of an Israeli flag and the firing of several flares.
“I want to apologize to [the Jewish community] specifically on behalf of the government and myself, as the premier of New South Wales,” said Minns, a leader in the Labour Party who assumed his position earlier this year. “I really want to ensure that the Jewish community in New South Wales feel that they can have full access to this city, that they can enjoy its life, that they can be part of its culture, that they can commemorate together during solemn occasions.”
He added that a number of Australians “had family and friends that were caught up in this conflict.” One dual Australian-Israeli citizen, Galit Carbone, has been confirmed dead from the violence, while other Australians have been confirmed captured by Hamas.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also expressed concern over the way the rally was allowed to escalate and called Hamas’ actions in Israel “completely indefensible.”
A similar rally held in Melbourne on Tuesday night drew hundreds of participants but notably lacked the inflammatory chants and behavior witnessed in Sydney. Police are separately investigating an incident in a suburb outside of Melbourne, in which a group of men allegedly said they were “on the hunt to kill Jews.”
“The idea that they’re going to commandeer Sydney streets is not going to happen,” Minns said.
Many Australian Jews, who in total number close to 100,000, are calling for details on how police handled Monday’s protest. In a statement posted to his Instagram page, Australia’s former ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma was critical of the NSW government.
“How on earth did the New South Wales Government allow this to happen? How did they allow an important show of solidarity with the hundreds of victims of terrorism in Israel to be hijacked by extremists to applaud these very acts of terror?” he wrote.
Parliament member Allegra Spender, who represents the electoral district of Wentworth — which is near Sydney and has a high Jewish population — also demanded answers. “The scenes and chanting outside the Opera House last night are abhorrent. At a time when there should be solidarity with our Jewish community, they have been subject to appalling abuse. I am seeking an urgent explanation of how this was allowed to happen,” she wrote on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter.
Alex Ryvchin, co-chair of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry umbrella group, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the Australian Jewish community was shaken but determined to move on.
“The community wants to come together at a time of immense anguish and pain,” he said. “These atrocities have shaken us all, but we are determined to emerge united and more committed to our community and our people.” | Australia Business & Economics |
A logo of Turkey's Central Bank is pictured at the entrance of its headquarters in Ankara, Turkey October 15, 2021. REUTERS/Cagla GurdoganRegister now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comISTANBUL, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The Turkish central bank's net international reserves fell $1.26 billion to $12.62 billion in the week to Aug. 26, central bank data showed on Thursday.The exchange rate used by Reuters on Thursday was 18.1466. In early August, the net forex reserves touched $15.68 billion, their highest level since late April but have fallen sharply in the last two weeks.Forex reserves have dropped sharply in recent years, most recently due to the billions of dollars the bank sold in market interventions in the wake of a currency crisis in December.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comThe lira ended the year down 44% against the dollar in 2021, a slump which helped send inflation soaring to 79.60% in July, the highest under President Tayyip Erdogan's rule.The currency is down more than 27% against the greenback this year.The central bank has met the market's need for more than $30 billion of forex since December through its reserves, in addition to direct interventions in the forex market in 2019-2020, when it sold $128 billion to support the lira.In past years, the bank used swaps with local banks to backstop interventions, an unorthodox policy that spooked foreign investors and local savers.Data showed the bank's outstanding swap transactions stood at $42.33 billion as of Wednesday. The reserves are in negative territory once the swaps are deducted.Note: The figures are released every week on the central bank balance sheet as per a letter of intent with the International Monetary Fund dated 18 January 2002. The figures are released in Turkish liras and are converted by Reuters to U.S. dollars using the central bank's official exchange rate from the previous work day.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Ezgi Erkoyun
Editing byOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Forex Trading & Speculation |
Standing in line to try to buy food, Rekha Begum is distraught. Like many others in Bangladesh, she is struggling to find affordable daily essentials like rice, lentils and onions.
"I went to two other places, but they told me they don't have supplies. Then I came here and stood at the end of the queue," said Begum, 60, as she waited for nearly two hours to buy what she needed from a truck selling food at subsidized prices in the capital, Dhaka.
Bangladesh's economic miracle is under severe strain as fuel price hikes amplify public frustrations over rising costs for food and other necessities. Fierce opposition criticism and small street protests have erupted in recent weeks, adding to pressures on the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, which has sought help from the International Monetary Fund to safeguard the country's finances.
Experts say Bangladesh's predicament is nowhere nearly as severe as Sri Lanka's, where months' long unrest led its long-time president to flee the country and people are enduring outright shortages of food, fuel and medicines, spending days in queues for essentials. But it faces similar troubles: excessive spending on ambitious development projects, public anger over corruption and cronyism and a weakening trade balance.
Such trends are undermining Bangladesh's impressive progress, fueled largely by its success as a garment manufacturing hub, toward becoming a more affluent, middle-income country.
The government raised fuel prices by more than 50% last month to counter soaring costs due to high oil prices, triggering protests over the rising cost of living. That led authorities to order the subsidized sales of rice and other staples by government-appointed dealers.
The latest phase of the program, which began Sept. 1, should help about 50 million people, said Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi.
"The government has taken a number of measures to reduce pressures on low-income earners. That is impacting the market and keeping prices of daily commodities competitive," he said.
The policies are a stopgap for bigger global and domestic challenges.
The war in Ukraine has pushed higher prices of many commodities at a time when they already were surging as demand recovered with a waning of the coronavirus pandemic. In the meantime, countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Laos — among many — have seen their currencies weaken against the dollar, adding to the costs for dollar-denominated imports of oil and other goods.
To ease the strain on public finances and foreign reserves, the authorities put a moratorium on big, new projects, cut office hours to save energy and imposed limits on imports of luxury goods and non-essential items, such as sedans and SUVs.
"The Bangladesh economy is facing strong headwinds and turbulence," said Ahmad Ahsan, an economist and director of the Dhaka-based Policy Research Institute, a think tank. "Suddenly we are back to the era of rolling power cuts, with the taka and the forex reserves under pressure," he said.
Millions of low-income Bangladeshis, like Begum, whose family of five can barely afford to eat fish or meat even once a month, still struggle to put food on the table.
Bangladesh has made huge strides in the past two decades in growing its economy and fighting poverty. Investments in garment manufacturing have provided jobs for tens of millions of workers, mostly women. Exports of apparel and related products account for more than 80% of its exports. FILE - Garment factory employees work at Arrival Fashion Ltd. in Gazipur, Bangladesh, March 13, 2021. But with fuel costs so high, authorities shut diesel-run power plants that produced at least 6% of total production, cutting daily power generation by 1,500 megawatts and disrupting manufacturing.
Imports in the last fiscal year, ending in June, 2022, rose to $84 billion, while exports have fluctuated, leaving a record current account deficit of $17 billion.
More challenges are ahead.
Deadlines are fast approaching for repaying foreign loans related to at least 20 mega infrastructure projects, including the $3.6 billion River Padma bridge built by China and a nuclear power plant mostly funded by Russia. Experts say Bangladesh needs to prepare for when repayment schedules ramp up between 2024 and 2026.
In July, in a move economists view as a precautionary measure, Bangladesh sought a $4.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, becoming the third country in South Asia to recently seek its help after Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Finance Minister A.H.M. Mustafa Kamal said that the government asked the IMF to begin formal negotiations on loans "for balance of payments and budgetary assistance." The IMF said it was working with Bangladesh to draw up a plan.
Bangladesh's foreign reserves have been falling, potentially undermining its ability to meet its loan obligations. By Wednesday they had dropped to $36.9 billion from $45.5 billion a year earlier, according to the central bank.
Usable foreign reserves would be about $30 billion, said Zahid Hussain, a former chief economist of the World Bank's Dhaka office.
"I would not say this is a crisis situation. This is still enough to meet three months of imports, three and half months of imports. But it also means that … you do not have a lot of room for maneuvering on the reserve front," he said.
Still, despite what some economists say is excessive spending on some costly projects, Bangladesh is better equipped to weather hard times than some other countries in the region.
Its farm sector — tea, rice and jute are major exports — is an effective "shock absorber," and its economy, four to five times larger than Sri Lanka's, is less vulnerable to outside calamities like a downturn in tourism.
The economy is forecast to grow at a 6.6% pace this fiscal year, according to the Asia Development Bank's latest forecast, and the country's total debt is still relatively small.
"I think in the current context, the most important difference between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is the debt burden, particularly the external debt," said Hussain.
Bangladesh's external debt is under 20% of its gross domestic product, while Sri Lanka's was around 126% in the first quarter of 2022.
"So, we have some space. I mean debt as a source of stress on the macroeconomy is not much of a much problem yet," he said.
Waiting in a line to buy subsidized food, 48-year-old Mohammed Jamal said he was not feeling such leeway for his own family.
"It has become unbearable trying to maintain our standard of living," Jamal said. "Prices are just out of reach for the common people," he said. "It's tough living this way." | Inflation |
NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - U.S. consumer prices increased less than expected in October and underlying inflation appeared to have peaked, which would allow the Federal Reserve to dial back its hefty interest rate hikes.The consumer price index rose 0.4% last month after climbing by the same margin in September, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the CPI would advance 0.6%. In the 12 months through October, the CPI increased 7.7%, after rising 8.2% on the same basis in September, marking the first time since February that the annual increase in the CPI was below 8%. CPI peaked at a 40-year high 9.1% in June. Annual inflation is slowing as last year's big increases drop out of the calculation. read more MARKET REACTION:STOCKS: S&P 500 futures turned sharply higher and were up 3.1%BONDS: The yield on 10-year Treasury notes tumbled and was down 21.5 basis points at 3.927%; The two-year U.S. Treasury yield was down 26.6 basis points at 4.362%.FOREX: The euro reversed a loss against a tumbling dollar and was up 1.05%. The dollar index was off 1.3%COMMENTS:BRIAN JACOBSEN, SENIOR INVESTMENT STRATEGIST, ALLSPRING GLOBAL INVESTMENTS, MENOMONEE FALLS, WISCONSIN“Well, that was a relief. We’re getting some inflation relief. The run-rate for inflation is 4.8% annualized and that’s a material improvement from where we’ve been. Shelter is the main contributor to inflation and everyone should know by now that it’s a garbage indicator of where inflation is headed. The Fed knows it and it can throttle back rate hikes. Maybe that peak rate for the federal funds rate doesn’t have to be so high after all.”LEE HARDMAN, CURRENCY STRATEGIST, MUFG, LONDON"The CPI report has reinforced the selloff momentum in the dollar.""It gives the market more confidence that there could be a turn in the inflation cycle and the Fed could slow the rate hike pace in December."PAUL NOLTE, PORTFOLIO MANAGER, KINGSVIEW INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT, CHICAGO"The market thinks it's wonderful. The focus here is really not so much on year over year. It's the monthly stepdown. A lot of the areas that we've all looked at and said this is going to have an impact, are having an impact... a lot of those things are finally working their way into the numbers. And I think the expectation now is the Fed hikes rates 50 basis points in December. We were never in that camp, but expectations were for 75."ART HOGAN, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, B. RILEY WEALTH, NEW YORK"A softer than expected inflation report is acting as a tailwind for markets. Every line of the report shows sequential improvement."“The good news is that we saw a significant sequential improvement, inflation is clearly moving in the right direction. And that keeps a more hawkish Fed at bay.”"We came into this week nervous about the elections but we can check that box now, we know we'll have at least some gridlock in Washington. Next, we immediately turned our attention to the CPI and that clearly came in better than expected. The only potential headwind here has been the significant selloff in cryptocurrencies and that seems to have stabilized a bit morning too."“Also important is the initial jobless claims came in higher than expected, so we're finally starting to see some of those layoffs announcements by tech companies filter into the weekly data.”PETER CARDILLO, CHIEF MARKET ECONOMIST, SPARTAN CAPITAL SECURITIES, NEW YORK“The key is the core rate. This numbers to peaking inflation and as you can see stock (futures) are responding in a big way.”“This is good news and if it keeps up, we will be near a pause by the Fed. This is welcome news.”“The hikes in interest rates are beginning to bite into the economy and lower inflation as consumers become more frugal.”"There’s a possibility the Fed raises (interest rates) by 50 basis points in December and then takes a pause.”RYAN DETRICK, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, CARSON GROUP, OMAHA"Today's date is a big relief. We've seen signs that inflation was starting to roll over - used car prices, rents have been coming down. But it's nice to see confirmation in the government data, which is what we've seen today.""This does open the door to a likely 50 basis point hike in December, calming some of the Feds extremely hawkish stance that it had on inflation so far this year."ROBERT PAVLIK, SENIOR PORTFOLIO MANAGER, DAKOTA WEALTH, FAIRFIELD, CONNECTICUT"It's a good sign for the Fed. The data is surprisingly better than expected. It rocketed the futures higher and then to top it off, weekly initial unemployment claims came in higher than expected. So it's all moving in the direction that the Fed wants it to.""Given just this data, it would allow the Fed to raise by only 50 basis points rather than 75 at the next meeting.I don't think they would go any lower than that."Compiled by the Global Finance & Markets Breaking News teamOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Inflation |
The Reserve Bank governor, Philip Lowe, has warned Australians to be prepared for higher interest rates, saying inflation will likely reach 7% by the end of the year and it must be brought under control.In his first public appearance since the RBA raised the cash rate by a larger than expected 50 basis points at last week’s board meeting, Lowe said on Tuesday night he was predicting inflation to rise to 7%. That compares with current inflation of 5.1%.“By the end of the year, I expect inflation to get to 7%,” Lowe said in a rare television interview on ABC’s 7.30.“That’s a very high number and we need to be able to chart a course back to 2-3%. I’m confident we can do that but it’s going to take time. With inflation being as high as it is, and with interest rates as low as they are, we thought it was important to take a decisive step to normalise monetary conditions, and we did that at the last meeting.”"I think Australians need to be prepared for higher interest rates. We had emergency settings during the pandemic, I think that was the right thing to do, but the emergency is over." – Philip Lowe, RBA Governor #abc730 pic.twitter.com/l2KrEPtCjU— abc730 (@abc730) June 14, 2022
The governor reiterated it was reasonable to expect the cash rate would get to 2.5% at some point – but he said it would be driven by events.The official cash rate currently stands at 0.85% after the RBA raised it at consecutive board meetings from a record low 0.1%.It was only last year the RBA had been expecting to keep the cash rate low until 2024, but Lowe said that was never a promise.“The economy didn’t evolve as we expected. It’s been much more resilient and inflation has been higher. We thought we needed to respond to that,” he said on Tuesday.Lowe said the economy was in remarkable shape with the unemployment rate at a 50-year low, households having built up financial buffers of around $250bn and the number of people falling behind on their mortgage repayments actually declining.His comments came as global share markets are in turmoil fearing the US economy could fall into recession if the Federal Reserve raises interest rates aggressively to combat its own inflation problem. US inflation is at 8.6%, its highest level in 40 years.But Lowe is confident the Australian economy will continue to grow strongly over the next six to 12 months. “There is still a bounce back from all the Covid-19 restrictions, people are spending in a way they weren’t able to do last year,” he said.Lowe said there was a big backlog of construction work to be undertaken and the number of job vacancies was extraordinarily high.“So people can be confident the jobs will be there and in that environment people will keep spending,” he said. | Interest Rates |
Thousands of people have rallied in cities and towns across Australia to back a campaign to recognise the country’s Indigenous people in the constitution in advance of a referendum later this year.
The gatherings on Sunday, organised by the Yes23 campaign, were part of a nationwide “day of action” to rally the public after a recent dip in support for the constitutional change.
The proposal, which will be put up for a referendum between October and December, seeks to establish an advisory body – the Indigenous Voice to Parliament – to give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a direct say in policies that affect them.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s centre-left Labor government backs the change, while the opposition Liberal-National conservatives urge a “No” vote.
On Sunday, an Australian Council of Social Service tweet showed Sydney rally attendees in T-shirts with the words “Vote Yes” and caps with the words “The Uluru Statement”, referring to a key document that calls for an Indigenous Voice.
Yes23, the group behind more than 25 rallies nationwide, said the crowd in Sydney was about 3,000 and that it expected up to 25,000 people to participate in total.
“These community events are opportunities for people to come together and gain valuable information about the importance of a successful referendum later this year,” Yes23 campaign director Dean Parkin said in a statement.
The day of action comes after support for the referendum appeared to be ebbing according to a poll last month, which showed “No” ahead for the first time, 51 percent to 49 percent.
Fred Pascoe, director of the Gulf Regional Economic Aboriginal Trust, told Al Jazeera the referendum was critical for Indigenous rights in Australia.
He noted that Indigenous people, who make up about 3.2 percent of Australia’s population of almost 26 million and who were not granted full voting rights until the 1960s, are not even mentioned in the country’s constitution.
“So first, this referendum is essential to change that,” he said from the town of Normanton in Queensland state. “Secondly, we don’t just need another political body. We need people from the grassroots, everyday people, to get in there, to have a say, to have a voice for government, because no one knows better than the people who are intimately involved with an issue. So, we’ve come up with a solutions that we’ve seen work, that government has not taken on board.”
Opponents, including some Indigenous people, have said the proposal lacks detail and will divide Australians.
Al Jazeera’s Sarah Clarke, reporting from Sydney, said critics believe the constitutional change is a distraction from achieving practical outcomes.
“Critics are saying that there are bigger issues that need to be addressed and prioritised,” she said. “That being, education, health, safety and domestic violence within these communities.”
The Yes23 campaign meanwhile said the dip in polls did not reflect the reality on the ground.
“You don’t necessarily see it on television. You don’t see it in the newspapers, but there are conversations happening around kitchen tables, in sporting clubs, in workplaces around the country,” Yes23 director Rachel Perkins told ABC television on Sunday.
“And that’s just going to grow.”
Getting constitutional change is difficult in Australia.
The government must secure a double majority in the referendum, which means more than 50 percent of voters nationwide, and a majority of voters in at least four of the six states must back the change.
In the past, there have been 44 proposals for constitutional change in 19 referendums, and only eight of these have passed.
Most notably, a 1967 referendum on Indigenous rights saw a record Yes vote. | Australia Business & Economics |
The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), operated by Japan Exchange Group Inc. (JPX), in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020.Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesShares in the Asia-Pacific are poised to rally Monday after U.S. stocks soared on Friday following a Wall Street Journal report that some Fed officials are concerned about tightening policy too much.In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose around 2%.The Nikkei futures contract in Chicago was at 27,245 while its counterpart in Osaka was at 27,150. That's higher compared against the Nikkei 225's last close at 26,890.58.Authorities in Japan reportedly intervened in the forex market on Friday, causing the yen to strengthen sharply, though it last traded close to 150-levels.On Friday in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 748.97 points, or 2.47%, to close at 31,082.56. The S&P 500 added 2.37% to 3,752.75. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 2.31% to 10,859.72.The Communist Party of China's 20th National Congress closed over the weekend, with President Xi Jinping's loyalists tapped to form a core leadership group.Singapore, Malaysia and India's markets are closed for a holiday Monday. Later this week, the Bank of Japan will meet, while Singapore and Australia are expected to release inflation data. | Asia Business & Economics |
A giant digital sign is seen at Facebook's corporate headquarters campus in Menlo Park, California, on October 23, 2019.Josh Edelson | AFP | Getty ImagesTechnology hub Menlo Park, California, home to Meta, is teaming up with Brooklyn, New York-based BlocPower in a new form of public-private partnership to electrify thousands of buildings to help meet a 2030 climate goal of carbon neutrality.The small California city, with a population of roughly 35,000, estimates the fossil fuel consumption of buildings at 41% of its total emissions. BlocPower, a past CNBC Disruptor 50 company, is among the leaders in retrofitting residential and commercial real estate to reduce fossil fuel use. The Menlo Park plan will start small, with 25 buildings to be electrified this year. It is voluntary, but the plan is to increase that to over 1,000 buildings per year starting in 2024. It includes the installation of heat pumps for air cooling and heating, heat pumps for water, electric vehicle charging stations, and solar power and battery storage."Menlo Park just set a crucial, historic climate precedent as the first city on the West Coast to establish a public/private partnership of this kind," said Angela Sherry Evans, Environmental Quality Commissioner, City of Menlo Park, in a statement announcing the deal.BlocPower founder and CEO Donnel Baird told CNBC last year that 100 million buildings across the U.S. waste $100 billion a year on fossil fuels. "There are significant savings that can be introduced," Baird said.Building direct energy and electricity use comprise roughly 38% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., according to the US Green Building Council, and the majority of buildings that will make up urban environments through 2030 already exist.Heating systems, including water heating and space heating, are big drivers of energy use in residential and commercial buildings and are targets of climate projects, as well as insulation and lighting, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. In cities with less population growth, there will also be a larger share of legacy buildings in need of upgrades rather than new constructions in booming population hubs.Cities have emerged as leaders on decarbonization because much of the law related to buildings is in the realm of state and local governments, and they set building codes. As more cities and towns look to lead on climate, tapping into private investors in combination with incentives from the government can reduce the cost of capital and interest rates for project finance.Ithaca set a ratio at 1 to 20 for taxpayer versus private investment funding."Given the scale of the problem, people are open to public and private partnerships in Ithaca," Svante Myrick, Ithaca's mayor until early 2022, told CNBC at the time of the BlocPower deal. "They realize government has to be the catalyst setting rules for climate but if we are going to make sweeping changes we just don't have the resources to do it alone," he said. Smaller cities like Ithaca and Des Moines, Iowa — which also plans to target buildings — are being aggressive in seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a local level. Both cities are part of a new UN-led consortium on climate called the 24/7 Carbon-free Energy Compact, which also includes Google.In cities and towns across the U.S., many of the least-efficient buildings are located in lower-income communities, a focus for BlocPower across its project portfolios, and these properties are often older and in need of upgrades, including appliances that are more efficient. Not only are the energy efficiency standards neglected in these areas, but the households pay a higher percentage of income in energy costs.Local non-profit Menlo Spark is working with Menlo Park to raise up to $35 million to reduce project costs for low-to-moderate-income households. Belle Haven, an area of Menlo Park close to the bay, as well as major roadways where air quality is lower, was chosen as an initial focus.BlocPower, with a business model that combines the traditional construction and engineering sector with climate technology, and increased investment opportunities in underserved communities, has projects underway across dozens of additional U.S. cities.Meta, formerly Facebook, announced it had reached 100% renewable energy and net zero-usage by 2020.In addition to investors Goldman Sachs, Kapor Capital, Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund, and Andreessen Horowitz, BlocPower received a grant from the Jeff Bezos Earth Fund and was invited to Apple's accelerator program.SIGN UP for our weekly, original newsletter that goes beyond the list, offering a closer look at CNBC Disruptor 50 companies, and the founders who continue to innovate across every sector of the economy. | Renewable Energy |
Christians being confirmed or baptised in the Oxford diocese will henceforth be asked to commit to protecting the environment as part of the church’s formal liturgy.The addition to the ceremonies is supported by the Right Rev Steven Croft, bishop of Oxford, and asks people being baptised or confirmed to “strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the Earth”.The move, thought to be the first of its kind in the country, comes amid growing concern about the climate and ecological crisis among religious leaders. Earlier this year, more than 500 church leaders signed a letter to the government calling for no new fossil fuel developments, and Christian activists have been at the forefront of many climate protests in recent years.Sign up to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am BSTSteven, who is a member of the Lords select committee for the environment and climate change, said the church had a key moral and spiritual role to play in addressing the climate and ecological emergency.“The target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees is already slipping away from us,” he said. “Society has only a limited time to act but we should be in no doubt whatsoever that there is a strong and deep possibility of change if we act now.”The addition to the liturgy comes as the Oxford diocese announces plans to spend £10m improving the energy efficiency of its vicarages in an effort to hit net zero emissions by 2035. It is one of 10 dioceses to have divested from fossil fuel companies, making commitments not to invest in coal, oil and gas in the future.At a national level, the Church of England has been criticised for not acting quickly enough to cut its links with fossil fuel companies. It began to cut ties to coal and other heavily polluting industries in 2015, then pledged in 2018 to divest by 2023 from high-carbon companies that were “not aligned with the goals of the Paris agreement”. But as the deadline approaches, the organisation has said it is still “engaging” with key oil and gas interests, rather than cancelling all of its holdings.Chris Manktelow, of the Young Christian Climate Network, told the Guardian earlier this year that that was not good enough. “The church should be moving quickly and showing moral leadership, and is just not going fast enough. We are not happy with this response [to the calls to divest].”On Wednesday, Greenpeace welcomed the Oxford decision.“The diocese of Oxford is moving away from fossil fuels, which is essential, but this liturgical change goes deeper,” said a spokesperson. “Today’s lesson is that, in a climate and nature emergency, you need to make environmental considerations central to your project right from the very beginning and keep them in mind the whole way through. That sounds very much like wisdom worth listening to.” | Renewable Energy |
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has pledged to do whatever it takes to curb inflation, now raging at a four-decade high and defying the Fed’s efforts so far to tame it.Increasingly, it seems, doing so might require the one painful thing the Fed has sought to avoid: A recession.A worse-than-expected inflation report for May — consumer prices rocketed up 8.6% from a year earlier, the biggest jump since 1981 — helped spur the Fed to raise its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of point Wednesday.Not since 1994 has the central bank raised its key rate by that much all at once. And until Friday’s nasty inflation report, traders and economists had expected a rate hike of just half a percentage point Wednesday. What’s more, several more hikes are coming.The “soft landing” the Fed has hoped to achieve — slowing inflation to its 2% goal without derailing the economy — is becoming both trickier and riskier than Powell had bargained for. Each rate hike means higher borrowing costs for consumers and businesses. And each time would-be borrowers find loan rates prohibitively expensive, the resulting drop in spending weakens confidence, job growth and overall economic vigor.“There’s a path for us to get there,” Powell said Wednesday, referring to a soft landing. “It’s not getting easier. It’s getting more challenging”It was always going to tough: The Fed hasn’t managed to engineer a soft landing since the mid-1990s. And Powell’s Fed, which was slow to recognize the depth of the inflation threat, is now having to play catch-up with an aggressive series of rate increases.“They are telling you: ‘We will do whatever it takes to bring inflation to 2%,’ " said Simona Mocuta, chief economist at State Street Global Advisors. “I hope the (inflation) data won’t require them to do whatever they’re willing to do. There will be a cost.’’In Mocuta’s view, the risk of a recession is now probably 50-50.“It’s not like there’s no way you can avoid it,’’ she said. “But it’s going to be hard to avoid it.’’The Fed itself acknowledges that higher rates will inflict some damage, though it doesn’t foresee a recession: On Wednesday, the Fed predicted that the economy will grow about 1.7% this year, a sharp downgrade from the 2.8% growth it had forecast in March. And it expects unemployment to average a still-low 3.7% at year’s end.But speaking at a news conference Wednesday, Powell rejected any notion that the Fed must inevitably cause a recession as the price of taming inflation.“We’re not trying to induce a recession,” he said. “Let’s be clear about that.”Economic history suggests, though, that aggressive, growth-killing rate hikes could be necessary to finally control inflation. And typically, that is a prescription for a recession.Indeed, since 1955 every time inflation ran hotter than 4% and unemployment fell below 5%, the economy has tumbled into recession within two years, according to a paper published this year by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and his Harvard University colleague Alex Domash. The U.S. jobless rate is now 3.6%, and inflation has topped 8% every month since March.Inflation in the United States, which had been under control since the early 1980s, resurged with a vengeance just over a year ago, largely a consequence of the economy’s unexpectedly robust recovery from the pandemic recession. The rebound caught businesses by surprise and led to shortages, delayed shipments — and higher prices.President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus program added heat in March 2021 to an economy that was already warmed up. So did the Fed’s decision to continue the easy-money policies — keeping short-term rates at zero and pumping money into the economy by buying bonds — it had adopted two years ago to guide the economy through the pandemic.Only three months ago did the Fed start raising rates. By May, Powell was promising to keep raising rates until the Fed sees “clear and convincing evidence that inflation is coming down.’’Some of the factors that drove the economy’s recovery have meanwhile vanished. Federal relief payments are long gone. Americans’ savings, swelled by government stimulus checks, are back below pre-pandemic levels.And inflation itself has been devouring Americans’ purchasing power, leaving them less to spend in shops and online: After adjusting for higher prices, average hourly wages fell 3% last month from a year earlier, the 14th straight drop. On Wednesday, the government reported that retail sales fell 0.3% in May, the first drop since December.Now, rising rates will squeeze the economy even harder. Buyers or homes and autos will absorb higher borrowing costs, and some will delay or scale back their purchases. Businesses will pay more to borrow, too.And there’s another byproduct of Fed rate hikes: The dollar will likely rise as investors buy U.S. Treasurys to capitalize on higher yields. A rising dollar hurts U.S. companies and the economy by making American products costlier and harder to sell overseas. On the other hand, it makes imports cheaper in the United States, thereby helping ease some inflationary pressures.The U.S. economy still has strength. The job market is booming. Employers have added an average 545,000 jobs a month over the past year. Unemployment is near a 50-year low. And there are now roughly two job openings for every jobless American.Families aren’t buried in debts as they were before the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Nor have banks and other lenders piled up risky loans as they had back then.Still, Robert Tipp, chief investment strategist at PGIM Fixed Income, said that recession risks are rising, and not only because of the Fed’s rate hikes. The growing fear is that inflation is so intractable that it might be conquered only through aggressive rate hikes that imperil the economy.“The risk is up,” Tipp said, “because the inflation numbers came in so high, so strong.”All of which makes the Fed’s inflation-taming, recession-avoiding act even more treacherous.“It’s going to be a tightrope walk,’’ said Thomas Garretson, senior portfolio strategist at RBC Wealth Management. “It’s not going to be easy.’’ | Inflation |
The British Army is using solar panels made by companies claimed to have a "very high" exposure to forced labour in China, the BBC can reveal.
The production of solar panels in the Xinjiang region has been linked to the alleged exploitation of Uyghur Muslims.
The British Army is investing £200m in solar panels across four of its sites.
The Ministry of Defence listed JA Solar, Trina and Qcells as the solar panel suppliers in response to a BBC Freedom of Information request.
A report in July this year by the UK's Sheffield Hallam University flags the three companies as having "very high" exposure to production in Xinjiang.
JA Solar and Qcells told the BBC they were taking action to make sure forced labour had no part in their supply chains, but Trina didn't reply to requests for comment.
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: "We have robust procedures in place that allow us to vet and routinely monitor all aspects of our supply chain which is kept under constant review."
But Alan Crawford, one of the authors of the Sheffield Hallam report, said he had seen the list of companies obtained by the BBC and he believed his findings still stood.
As a chemical engineer with extensive experience of supplier identification, he said big solar firms were unlikely to buy components they knew for certain were the products of forced labour.
But, he added, there was a "lack of transparency" in the supply chain, which led some firms to "hide behind" their "anti-slavery declarations".
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing calls to take a harder line against China and to end the UK's reliance on solar production from the country.
Senior Conservative MP Alicia Kearns is urging the UK government to "sanction and [impose] a ban on any solar company with links to Uyghur forced labour from operating in the UK".
The US has accused the Chinese government of arbitrarily detaining more than one million Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang prison camps.
In state-sponsored programmes, detainees are forced to produce goods including polysilicon, a core ingredient in solar panels, according to the US Department of Labor.
The Chinese government has always staunchly denied all allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
Ms Kearns, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, told the BBC there was "an ever-growing mass of evidence linking the solar industry to the forced labour and genocide of the Uyghur people in China".
The MP said the UK Ministry of Defence's "exposure via solar investments is indicative of the scale of the issue, which will only get worse as the UK continues to lag behind international partners in acting".
Global dominance
Solar power is huge source of renewable energy and one of the cornerstones of the international effort to curb climate-warming carbon emissions.
China has dominated the market and, according to the International Energy Agency, the country's global share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panels exceeds 80%.
It's a dilemma for the UK, which imports a large portion of its solar panels from China.
The British Army's use of Chinese-made solar panels comes as no surprise to Yalkun Uluyol.
An academic native of Xinjiang, Mr Uluyol has been researching the links between Chinese manufacturers and alleged forced labour in his home region.
Mr Uluyol said his research found forced labour "happens almost everywhere in every sector".
The evidence for this, he added, can be found in official Chinese records and the personal experiences of Uyghurs like members of his family.
He said relatives - including his father - had been held in detention camps, with some "taken away to work in facilities".
"Green energy means respect for human rights and respect for the environment," Mr Uluyol said. "Both are absent from the Uyghur region."
Mr Uluyol's conclusions are shared by the US government, which has passed a law that requires companies to prove that goods imported from Xinjiang were not produced with forced labour.
The US has been blocking shipments of solar energy components since passing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in 2021.
Project Prometheus began in the same year, as allegations of forced labour in solar supply chains came into sharper focus.
The fourth and final site - which is using solar panels made by JA Solar, a Chinese company - was due to open at Rock Barracks in Suffolk this year.
Asked to comment on the Sheffield Hallam report, Michael Parr, a solar expert who works with Qcells, said there was "no doubt that the broad assessment was pretty fair".
"It's really challenging to do an airtight independent audit in China," said Mr Parr, the executive director of the Ultra Low Carbon Solar Alliance.
"It's difficult to get clear data from the companies. Most of the wafer supply comes from numerous companies and they often blend. Even companies who are buying polysilicon from the US and Europe are reliant on China."
When told the British Army was using solar panels made by JA Solar, Trina and Qcells, Mr Parr said: "Europe has been less attentive to the risk of forced labour in solar than the US".
He said he would "differentiate" between the three companies supplying panels for Project Prometheus.
He said while Trina and JA Solar were Chinese manufacturers "with the vast majority of their manufacturing" in China, Qcells was a South Korean company that's "done a lot of work on trying to clean up their supply chains".
In recent years, solar companies have taken steps to sever ties with Xinjiang.
Some have diversified their production to cut out the region, while the solar industry has tried to improve its monitoring of supply chains.
A spokesperson for JA Solar said the company was "strongly committed to ensuring that our operations and supply chain are free from any form of forced labour".
"JA Solar has due diligence mechanisms in place, reviews its suppliers and has several ongoing projects to further enhance the traceability of all JA Solar modules," it added.
A spokesperson for Segen, which supplied JA Solar panels to Project Prometheus, said the company was "committed to achieving a traceable supply chain and has processes in place".
The spokesperson said the UK solar sector was "driving best practice" through a scheme to encourage common standards of production and oversight.
Qcells said it took "the forced labour issue very seriously, which is why we do everything we can to track and monitor our supply chain".
A spokesperson said Qcells had adopted a code of conduct that "prohibits forced-labour made products in our supply chain and we terminate agreements if suppliers fail to comply".
Qcells had invested "billions of dollars" in "an entirely American supply chain to produce polysilicon-based solar panels", the spokesperson added.
Trina did not respond to requests for comment. | Renewable Energy |
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