Belarus has violated an international arms embargo by sending three attack helicopters to military forces supporting Ivory Coast’s longtime ruler who refuses to cede power, the U.N. chief said, in a dramatic escalation of the nation’s political conflict.
Belarus denied the allegations, which come after a week of intensified street battles in Abidjan and the country’s west that left several dozen dead.
The clashes between the army controlled by Gbagbo and a new armed group fighting on behalf of his political rival prompted the United Nations to warn that the country was on the brink of re-igniting civil war.
The U.N. refugee agency said on Monday that as many as 30,000 civilians had fled the Abobo neighborhood of Abidjan where the fighting raged over the weekend. They could be seen streaming out of the affected area carrying suitcases on their heads.
The office of the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that the first delivery of helicopters from Belarus reportedly arrived Sunday, and additional flights were scheduled for Monday.
“This is a serious violation of the embargo against Cote d’Ivoire, which has been in place since 2004,” Ban’s statement said, using the country’s French name. “The violation has been immediately brought to the attention of the Security Council’s committee charged with the responsibility for sanctions.”
Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Savinykh rejected the accusations on Monday, calling them “groundless.”
“Belarus hasn’t supplied any weapons to Ivory Coast in violation of U.N. sanctions,” Savinykh told The Associated Press, adding that the country has strictly observed all decisions by the U.N. Security Council and has efficient controls over arms trade.
The Belarusian authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko is often called Europe’s last dictator and has led the ex-Soviet state since 1994. He was declared the winner of an election widely regarded as fraudulent that took place just weeks after the Ivory Coast vote.
Gbagbo’s air force was destroyed by the French military during the country’s earlier civil war, which erupted in 2002. The arrival of the attack helicopters means that the Gbagbo regime now has air power, which could not only endanger civilian areas but also the Golf Hotel where the man considered to be the legitimate president of Ivory Coast is holed up with hundreds of his supporters.
Alassane Ouattara was declared the winner of the Nov. 28 presidential election by the country’s electoral commission. Gbagbo refused to accept defeat even though the U.N. reviewed the results from over 20,000 polling stations before certifying Ouattara’s victory. Ouattara was forced to take refuge inside the hotel, where he is now under 24-hour U.N. guard.
Several hundred U.N. peacekeepers are stationed on the grounds, but it is not clear if the U.N. is set up to protect the hotel from an air assault.
The hotel houses Ouattara’s government, including his Cabinet, as well as his newly launched TV station which is attempting to act as a counterweight to the pro-Gbagbo propaganda disseminated on state-owned TV.
Gbagbo already has demanded that the U.N. leave the country. He accuses them of bias and last week, a militant youth leader allied with Gbagbo called on supporters to stop and search all U.N. vehicles. Three peacekeepers were wounded over the weekend and four of their cars were sabotaged, U.N. spokesman Hamadoun Toure said.
Multiple delegations of African leaders have come through Abidjan in an attempt to persuade Gbagbo to leave peacefully. He has rejected all their proposals, including offers of amnesty and a comfortable exile abroad.
A regional body of 15 countries in West Africa has said it will consider a military assault as a final resort if Gbagbo does not step down.
He is being strangled financially because the European Union has prohibited European ships from docking in its port. The regional central bank headquartered in the neighboring country of Senegal also has frozen Gbagbo’s access to state accounts and it is unclear if he will be able to pay civil servant employees in February.
Sports fans don’t just follow the fortunes of their favourite teams, they add to them, too.
Professional sports teams in Canada generate roughly $1.5 billion in revenue per year, according to a new report from the Conference Board of Canada. While that pales in comparison to the $170 billion or so generated by the manufacturing industry (Canada’s biggest business sector), it’s still proof that sports is more than just fun and games, according to Conference Board chief economist Glen Hodgson.
For the first time in seven years India’s government may be preparing to reduce debt sales, spurring a rally in longer-dated bonds.
Yields on 10-year bonds fell to within 27 basis points of two-year debt on Feb. 23, the least since December 2008, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Eight of 12 economists in a Bloomberg News survey predict policy makers will cut borrowings in the year starting April 1. The finance ministry may raise 4.3 trillion rupees ($94.6 billion), about 5 percent less than planned this fiscal year, CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets said.
Investors are already anticipating fewer offerings, helping drive a 0.7 percent return on rupee-denominated debt this month, the best performance in Asia after Indonesia, indexes compiled by HSBC Holdings Plc show. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has room to maneuver in the federal budget on Feb. 28 because less bonds are due for repayment and phone-license sales last year may leave him with as much as 40 billion rupees of surplus cash.
“The drop in the spreads indicates that long-term growth fundamentals remain strong and the markets are less concerned about the budget deficit,” Killol Pandya, who manages the equivalent of $300 million as the Mumbai-based head of fixed income at Daiwa Mutual Fund, said in an interview yesterday.
India has run fiscal deficits every year for more than three decades. The nation’s debt obligations have risen from 28.71 billion rupees in 1981, according to earliest-available data from the central bank.
Fiscal Shortfall
The deficit shortfall in the nine months through December was 45 percent of the full-year target of 3.81 trillion rupees, official data show. In the new fiscal year, it may drop to 4.8 percent of gross domestic product from an estimated 5.2 percent in the current 12-month period, Chakravarthy Rangarajan, the prime minister’s chief economic adviser, told reporters Feb. 21.
The International Monetary Fund estimates the deficit, which includes state governments’ finances, will be the highest among the so-called BRIC economies at 8.5 percent of GDP in 2011. That compares with 3.6 percent in Russia, 1.9 percent in China and 1.2 percent in Brazil.
The yield on India’s 8.13 percent bonds due September 2022 touched 8.08 percent on Feb. 22, the lowest level since Jan. 5, on speculation demand is increasing due to the absence of new offerings. The rate on the most-traded government security was 8.14 percent yesterday, compared with 8.11 percent on Feb. 23.
Borrowing Plan
The government, which budgeted 4.57 trillion rupees in borrowings for the year ending March, scrapped one part of a 100 billion rupee sale in September. It has issued 4.27 trillion rupees of notes between April 1 and Feb. 7, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“The positive is there are no supplies scheduled for at least a month,” Anoop Verma, a fixed-income trader at Development Credit Bank Ltd. in Mumbai, said in an interview on Feb. 23. “That is spurring some buying.”
The difference between India’s 10-year bonds and similar- maturity U.S. Treasuries has shrunk to 467 basis points from this year’s high of 496 on Jan. 10 amid optimism growth in Asia’s third-biggest economy will push up state revenue. The government forecasts GDP will rise 8.6 percent in the current financial perdion, the most in three years.
Tax collections totaled 3.91 trillion rupees at the end of December, 73 percent of the full-year target. The government also earned 677.2 billion rupees in the form of license fees from third-generation phone licenses it sold in May, more than the budgeted 350 billion rupees.
Debt Repayments
The government needs to repay about 730 billion rupees in the coming fiscal year, compared with 1.12 trillion rupees in the 12 months ending March, according to budget documents.
“There is inherent buoyancy in the economy, which will lead to higher tax collections and lesser dependence on borrowings,” Madan Sabnavis, an economist at Mumbai-based CARE Ratings, said in an interview on Feb. 22.
The rupee has retreated 1.7 percent this year on concern an 11 percent surge in crude-oil prices in New York will raise the government’s subsidy burden. The currency dropped 0.7 percent to 45.48 per dollar yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The government compensates oil companies for selling cooking gas, kerosene and diesel at lower-than-market prices to shield 66 percent of the nation’s 1.2 billion people who live on less than $2 a day from spiraling prices. Subsidies account for about 10 percent of India’s budget.
‘Bearish on Borrowings’
“I am bearish on borrowings for the next year,” Shubhada Rao, chief economist at Mumbai-based Yes Bank Ltd., said in an interview on Feb. 22. “Tax revenues may not be as buoyant as they are this year and subsidies will be higher on oil prices.” She forecasts gross borrowings will be 4.9 trillion rupees in the next financial year.
The cost of protecting the debt of government-owned State Bank of India, which some investors perceive as a proxy for the nation, is little changed this month at 189 basis points, according to CMA prices.
Credit-default swaps pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent should a government or company fail to adhere to its debt agreements. A basis point equals $1,000 annually on a contract protecting $10 million of debt.
“India’s approach on deficit reduction will be gradual,” Rajeev Malik, a Singapore-based senior economist at CLSA Asia- Pacific Markets, said in an interview yesterday. “The bond market is unlikely to react negatively to the budget.”
Parasitic nematodes are pesky microscopic worms that cause about $80 billion in crop damage around the world each year and remain one of the most stubborn pests in agriculture.
But biotech giant Monsanto aims to put a dent in their impact.
On Tuesday, the Creve Coeur-based company announced it had snapped up Divergence Inc., a neighboring biotechnology company in Creve Coeur that has worked for the past dozen years on products that control crop parasites. The companies have worked together since 2004 on nematode-resistant soybeans, and in 2008 released the sequence of the soybean cyst nematode genome unsecured personal loans. Going forward, research and development will focus on a seed treatment product to prevent damage from soybean cyst nematodes.
“It’s a great fit,” said Derek Rapp, CEO of Divergence Inc. “… We’ll come together to make great things happen.”
For the biotechnology business community in the St. Louis area, the acquisition represents a major success.
Divergence Inc.
Chinese and Bahamian dignitaries celebrated Monday as workers broke ground on what is being billed as the largest project of its kind in the Caribbean _ a megaresort that will be financed and largely built by Beijing.
Baha Mar, a $3.4 billion complex on Nassau’s Cable Beach, will employ some 8,000 workers and is projected to generate a 10 percent boost to the Bahamas gross domestic product, according to development company Baha Mar Ltd.
The development plan calls for four hotels with a total of about 2,250 rooms, as well as a golf course, retail space, a convention center and what the developer says will be the largest casino in the Caribbean.
It is scheduled to open in December 2014 and is aimed largely at North American consumers, who make up the vast majority of tourist visitors to the Bahamas, said Don Robinson, president of Baha Mar Ltd.
In overall size, it will be comparable to the Atlantis resort on nearby Paradise Island. But that project was built in stages over a number of years, not all at once like Baha Mar. Robinson said the resort’s ambitious scope is part of its marketing plan, an effort to capture the public’s imagination and attract tourists who have abandoned the Bahamas for other destinations.
“The vision was a large destination resort that would drive visitation,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press before the ceremony. “Anything smaller became less of an ability to increase the market. It needed to be large enough on the world stage that it could significantly drive demand.”
Caribbean tourism took a steep dive with the global economic downturn, but there have been signs of life: Hotel room revenue in the region rose about 3 percent and occupancy edged up 1 percent last year, compared with 2009, according to travel industry watcher STR of Nashville, Tennessee.
The crisis forced some developers to scale back plans made in rosier times, but Baha Mar appears to be wagering that it can create a destination resort and keep people spending money at stores and shops within the walls of the complex, said Jan Freitag, vice president for global development at STR.
“The question is: Is that a good enough driver in this economic environment?” Freitag said.
For the resort’s concrete and steel main structure, Baha Mar hired China State Construction Engineering Co. Ltd., which brought in the Export-Import Bank of China to finance the project when a previous partner dropped out. This is the first tourism project outside China for either of the state-owned enterprises, Robinson said.
As part of its agreement with the Bahamian government, Baha Mar will import about 7,000 Chinese construction workers in stages. The project is also expected to create about 4,000 construction jobs for local workers, the developer said.
“The great geographical distance between our two countries has not impeded our friendship,” Chinese Ambassador Hu Dingxian said at the groundbreaking ceremony. “This project is evidence.
Ameren Illinois asked regulators on Friday for permission to increase electric and natural gas rates by $111 million a year.
The St. Louis-based utility is seeking a $51 million increase in natural gas delivery rates and $60 million in electric rates. If approved, the increase would raise the monthly bill for typical residential customers by $2.96 to $3.78 per month, on average, for electricity and $1.88 to $4.53 per month for gas.
Customers will receive notices in April showing more precisely the effect of the proposed increases on their monthly bills, Ameren said.
The Illinois Commerce Commission has 11 months to rule on Ameren’s request, so new rates probably wouldn’t take effect until early 2012, the utility said.
Craig Nelson, senior vice president for Ameren Illinois, said the utility was sensitive to the impact of higher rates on customers. But “we must have the financial ability to provide a safe and reliable energy delivery system that will accommodate future economic growth and development.”
Ameren serves 1.2 million electric customers and more than 800,000 natural gas customers in the southern two-thirds of Illinois.
Illinois utility regulators have been reluctant to approve large increases because of the down economy.
Illinois utility regulators granted Ameren a $5 million electric and gas rate increase last April, a fraction of the $162 million originally requested to help meet rising costs and pay for infrastructure improvements.
The amount was later increased to $15 million and boosted again to $40 million in November after a rehearing by the ICC.
David Kolata, executive director of the Chicago-based Citizens Utility Board, said Ameren was asking for a rate increase at a time when its profits are up yet the economy remained challenging for many.
“We’re obviously concerned about the rate increase by Ameren,” he said. “A lot of consumers are struggling to pay their bills.”
The cost of living in the U.S. climbed more than forecast in January, led by higher prices for food and fuel that may be starting to filter through to other goods and services.
The consumer-price index increased 0.4 percent for a second month, exceeding the 0.3 percent median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. The so-called core rate, which excludes volatile food and fuel costs, rose 0.2 percent, the biggest gain since October 2009.
Growing economies in Asia and Latin America are boosting global demand for oil and other commodities, raising costs for American factories. Accelerating growth is prompting some companies to carry out beginning-of-year price increases even as consumers remain constrained by unemployment at 9 percent.
“You’re going to see more companies that attempt to pass through” higher costs, said Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets Corp. in New York, who correctly forecast the gain in core prices. “How successful they are depends on the economic backdrop. We’re looking at a slightly firmer inflation backdrop.”
The projected gain in consumer prices was based on the median of 79 economists in a Bloomberg survey. Estimates ranged from increases of 0.2 percent to 0.5 percent.
More Claims
Another Labor Department report showed more Americans than projected filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, a sign the improvement in the labor market will take time to develop.
Applications for jobless benefits increased by 25,000 to 410,000 in the week ended Feb. 12, exceeding the 400,000 median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The total number of people receiving unemployment insurance was little changed, while those collecting extended payments decreased.
Stock-index futures dropped after the reports. The contract on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index maturing in March fell 0.2 percent to 1,330.2 at 8:48 a.m. in New York. Treasury securities rose, sending the yield on the benchmark 10-year note down to 3.57 percent from 3.62 percent late yesterday.
Federal Reserve policy makers took a more optimistic view of the U.S. economy last month while maintaining their dissatisfaction with job growth as they pressed forward with an expansion of record monetary stimulus, minutes of last month’s policy meeting released yesterday showed.
Fed View
Even with soaring commodity costs, the Fed remains concerned that consumer inflation is below its long-range annual target of 1.6 percent to 2 percent.
“Despite further increases in commodity prices, measures of underlying inflation remained subdued and longer-run inflation expectations were stable,” the minutes said.
Energy costs increased 2.1 percent in January from a month earlier, and rose 7.3 percent for the prior 12 months, today’s report showed. Food prices rose 0.5 percent last month, the biggest gain since September 2008, and were up 1.8 percent for the 12-month period.
Core inflation was boosted by a 1 percent increase in the cost of clothing, the most since February 2009, and a 2.2 percent rise in airline fares.
Rents Climb
The report showed rents, which make up almost 40 percent of the core rate climbed at the same pace as in prior months. Owners-equivalent rent, one of the categories designed to track rental prices, increased 0.1 percent in January. Mounting foreclosures are reducing homeownership, may drive up demand for rental housing.
The cost of medical care increased 0.1 percent, restrained by a 0.1 percent drop in medical services that was the biggest since November 1975.
An unemployment rate that’s held at or above 9 percent since May 2009 is also restraining labor costs. The threat of deflation, or a prolonged decline in prices that’s harmful to the economy, prompted Fed policy makers November 3 to announce the central bank’s purchase of $600 billion in additional Treasury securities by the end of June.
“Costs have continued to rise, even in the first quarter, for things like steel,” Ronald D. Kropp, chief financial officer, said in a conference call on Jan. 31. “We have put price increases in place. Our goal is to recover not just the cost, but also the margin.”
No Pass-Through
“Commodity inflation has continued to push our food costs higher in 2011 already, and we expect continued inflationary pressure on many of our ingredients,” said John R. Hartung, chief financial officer at Denver-based Chipotle in a Feb. 10 earnings teleconference. “We plan to hold off on any menu- pricing decisions until later in the year, which will allow us to see how inflation plays out on a sustained basis.”
The CPI is the broadest of three monthly price gauges from the Labor Department, because it includes goods and services. Almost 60 percent of the CPI covers prices consumers pay for services ranging from medical visits to airline fares and movie tickets.
Singapore raised its inflation forecast for 2011 after the economy expanded at a record pace last year, sustaining pressure on the central bank to allow greater currency appreciation.
Consumer prices may climb 3 percent to 4 percent this year, up from a previous forecast of 2 percent to 3 percent, the trade ministry said in a statement today. Gross domestic product rose an annualized 3.9 percent in the three months to Dec. 31 from the previous quarter, when it contracted a revised 16.7 percent, it said. The economy expanded a revised 14.5 percent in 2010.
Singapore’s growth is forecast to slow in 2011 to less than half of last year’s pace, when an economic rebound from the 2009 global recession prompted employers to boost wages and spurred property prices and tourist arrivals to unprecedented levels. Still, inflationary pressures may force the central bank to join other Asian policy makers in tightening monetary policy.
“The economy should continue to fare well in coming quarters with services playing a key role,” Vishnu Varathan, an economist at Capital Economics Asia) Pte in Singapore, said before the report. “The risk is that inflation could rise further to uncomfortably high levels in coming months. Policy settings will likely have to be tightened further to keep inflation under control.”
Consumer prices may rise 5 percent to 6 percent in the first few months of 2011, the trade ministry said. “Thereafter, inflation should moderate, especially in the second half of the year,” it said. Inflation accelerated to 4.6 percent in December, the biggest increase in two years.
Currency Appreciation
The government kept this year’s economic growth forecast at 4 percent to 6 percent, the ministry said. The fourth quarter growth rate was revised from a Jan. 3 estimate of 6.9 percent and compares with the 5.3 percent median forecast of 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore, which uses the exchange rate as its main tool to manage inflation, revalued the currency in April 2010 and said in October it would steepen and widen the currency’s trading band while continuing to seek a “modest and gradual appreciation.” The stance is next scheduled for review in April.
The Singapore dollar is the second-best performer in Asia excluding Japan in the past year, rising about 10 percent. The currency was little changed at S$1.2789 versus its U.S. counterpart at 7:51 a.m. today.
The economy grew 12 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, compared with the median estimate for a 12 free business cards.1 percent gain in a Bloomberg News survey of 16 economists.
Policy makers last month introduced more measures to curb property speculation after private home prices and transactions reached records. Attempts to rein in prices had started in 2009.
Property Prices
“Given the current situation of strong economic growth, low interest rates and a lot of liquidity in the market, I think it’s not unnatural to expect property prices will remain strong,” Mah Bow Tan, the city’s minister for national development, said Feb. 14. “We will continue to monitor the property market closely and take further steps if necessary to promote a stable and sustainable property market.”
Manufacturing, which accounts for about a quarter of the economy, rose 25.5 percent from a year earlier last quarter, after gaining a revised 13.7 percent in the three months through September. The island has remained vulnerable to fluctuations in overseas demand for manufactured goods even after the government boosted financial services and tourism.
International visitor arrivals rose 20 percent to 11.6 million in 2010, with tourism spending rising 49 percent to S$18.8 billion. The record arrivals are benefiting companies from Singapore Airlines Ltd. to hotel operator Shangri-La Asia Ltd. after the island’s first casinos opened last year as part of resorts run by Genting Singapore Plc and Las Vegas Sands Corp.
The island’s services industry grew 8.8 percent last quarter from a year earlier, after climbing a revised 10.2 percent in the previous three months. The construction industry shrank 2 percent, compared with a revised 6.7 percent increase in the third quarter.
General Motors will pay bonuses of at least $4,000 each to its factory workers — by far the largest bonuses the automaker has ever paid its blue-collar employees.
Before this, the biggest bonus GM (GM) ever paid its union employees was $1,775 in 1999. Exact details of the bonus amounts paid will be revealed after GM outlines its annual profit later this month.
"This payout is a good example of how we are sharing in the success of the New GM," the automaker said in a letter to its factory employees who are member of the United Auto Workers union.
The text of the letter was published by the Flint Journal.
GM is also paying bonuses to its non-union white collar employees. Those bonuses could be as much as 50% of a worker’s salary in some cases. For the vast majority of those workers, bonuses will be between 4% and 16% of the employee’s base pay.
Ford Motor Co. (F, Fortune 500) is expected to pay its factory workers bonuses of about $5,000 each poor credit personal loans.
GM received a bailout of $50 billion by the U.S. government, starting in early 2009, a plan that included giving the government a 61% stake in the company.
The government recouped much of this money when it sold GM shares during the automaker’s successful initial public offering in November. But about $27 billion in bailout funds remain unpaid. Much of that will be repaid as the government sells more of its shares.
The bailout and restructuring relieved GM of the bulk of its debt, helping the automaker to become profitable. Meanwhile, GM sales have increased as the automaker’s product line-up has become more competitive with foreign rivals in terms of quality and fuel economy.
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