Commodity Trading

Cairo, Egypt (The Media Line) – Europe’s seemingly intractable financial crisis is threatening to make itself felt across the Mediterranean in the economies of North Africa that can least afford another blow, economists say.

Struggling to recover from the chaos and uncertainty of the Arab Spring, Egypt and the other economies of North Africa now face new troubles as Europe’s debt woes threaten to hurt exports and investments. By contrast, the Gulf economies, which have largely been spared the upheavals of the Arab Spring, are enjoying growing oil revenues that insulate them from Europe’s problems.

“North Africa, which has had to resolve many of the issues raised by the so-called Arab Spring, now has something else to contend with,” Daniel Broby, chief investment officer for London-based Silk Investment, told The Media Line. “Growth is still reasonably robust across the region, but it is slowing.”

Shaken by regime change, the North African countries of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are all expected to post negative economic growth this year and enjoy only a mild rebound in 2012 amid strikes, political uncertainty, declining tourism and, in Libya’s case, plunging oil revenues.

The economic fallout is almost certain to complicate the transition these countries are all trying to make toward more democratic rule by forcing governments to put off economic reform to keep a lid on unrest and unemployment and deterring investors.

Two weeks ago, the Washington-based Institute for International Finance forecast that the economies of oil-importing countries, which include Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco, would contract 0.4% this year. By contract, it projected oil-exporting Gulf economies would gallop ahead at a rate of 6.5%. Next year, the gap will narrow, it said, but the rich will get richer: Oil importers will grow just 2.3% while Gulf economies expand 3.7%.

Now, the risk that Greece’s debt troubles will reverberate across Europe and push the continent into a slowdown or even recession may cause the gap to widen again next year. Even countries that have avoided the most severe unrest, like Morocco and Algeria, are likely to affected, economists say.

Chill winds from Europe are reaching North Africa in four ways – trade, tourism, workers remittances and foreign investment – according to a report by London-based Capital Economics.

The European Union is the main export market for Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia as well as the main source for foreign tourism, the report by Capital’s Said Hirsh and William Jackson noted. Europe is also a source for employment from these economies, which have suffered high levels of unemployment for years, forcing many to seek work in Europe and send home money to their families.

A slowing European economy will hurt all these revenue streams. In the latest sign of the continent’s problems, Germany reported on Monday that its industrial output fell; 2.7% in September, its biggest drop since February 2009. The German economy, which had been pacing Europe’s pre-crisis recovery, might shrink in the fourth quarter, some analysts warned.

The Arab Spring countries have already seen foreign investment dry up this year, but a troubled Europe will also be more hesitant to invest in the MENA region, the report said. Moreover, without foreign assistance, the Arab Spring governments will have trouble funding their swelling budget deficits as they pour subsidies and make-work programs on their constituents to douse political unrest.

Meanwhile, in the Gulf, Europe’s troubles seem far away. Asia is the leading export market for the Gulf countries and oil prices and production have remained high despite concerns about the global economy. On Monday, the price of benchmark Brent crude rose above $113 a barrel as hopes that a cold winter would spur demand outweighed concerns about Europe.

“The oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states’ close links to Asia and healthy balance sheets should help to counteract the drop in hydrocarbon revenues next year,” Hirsh and Jackson said in the report. “Meanwhile, the near term economic prospects for the rest of the MENA countries are poor.”

The Saudi central bank’s net foreign asset reserves have climbed steadily to a record high of 1.879 trillion riyals ($500 billion) in August. The country has enough cash to have allocated some $130 billion to boost in social spending, equal to nearly 30 percent of gross domestic product. Except for Bahrain, a tiny country with little oil and ridden with sectarian conflicts that spilled over into violence earlier this year, all will enjoy big fiscal surpluses this year and next.

“If there is a big decline in the economic conditions of Europe… it will affect all nations including the kingdom to some degree, but I stress that the impact would be very limited because we have the appropriate means to limit the negative effect on the kingdom’s economy,” Saudi Finance Minister Ibrahim told state news agency SPA last week..

Indeed, the financial position of the Gulf countries is so strong that indebted European financial institutions have been seeking fresh funding as they seek a cushion against their Greek and other troubled investments. A Qatari investment group with links to the state’s royal family will take over KBC’s private banking unit and BIL, a part of Dexia and last month France’s BNP Paribas was reported to be seeking a capital infusion from Gulf investors.

In the same vein, Arab solidarity will mitigate some of the impact, noted Brody. Egypt has received some $8 billion in financing from the Gulf countries to help it through its economic crisis. “In that respect, the GCC’s strong fundamentals are playing to the advantage of the North African states,” he said.

View full post on Financial Markets Stories

Cairo, Egypt David Rosenberg – The five countries hit hardest by turmoil of the Arab Spring will show a combined drop in economic output of about 2.3 percent this year as they struggle with unrest and its after effects, according to figures based on a forecast by the Institute for International Finance (IIF).

Egypt’s $218 billion economy will be responsible for most of the decline, with output dropping 2.5 percent this year after inflation. The smaller economies of Syria and Yemen will experience sharper contractions, with Syrian gross domestic product slumping by 3 percent and Yemen’s by 4 percent. Tunisian GDP will decline 1.5 percent. Only Bahrain will show any positive growth this year, with GDP expanding 2.9 percent, the IIF forecast. But that will be the slowest pace of growth for the island state since the 1990s, the IIF report released late Tuesday noted.

Moreover, with the Middle East still suffering political instability, the chances are good that economic pain will be more severe than now predicted, said George Abed, director of the Washington-based IIF’s Middle East department.

“The oil-importers face considerable downside risks to growth,” Abed said in a statement. “Not only is the political reform process unlikely to be smooth and could drag on beyond 2011, further delaying investment decisions and slowing any economic recovery, but investigations into political corruption are adding to business uncertainties.”

The five countries are facing different challenges. In Tunisia and Egypt, long-time leaders have been replaced by transitional governments committed to bringing democracy and stabilizing their economies. Syria and Yemen are gripped by violence as their leaders have sought to quell opposition protests. In Bahrain, the government, helped by Saudi troops, has restored quiet but at the cost of deterring business.

All five, however, face a similar dilemma of assuaging popular demands for improved living standards at a time when their resources are constrained by slowing economies, accelerating inflation and double-digit unemployment. Governments have risked exacerbating the problem by offering short-term solutions, such as increased subsidies for food and other necessities, raising salaries and creating make-work programs.

The IIF estimated that consumer prices across the Arab world will climb 5.7 percent this year, but among the economies hardest hit by unrest, prices will rise much more sharply. In Egypt, inflation may reach 11.5 percent, in Yemen 15 percent and Syria 8 percent.

“In this very difficult environment, and amid major pressures to institute far-reaching political reforms, it is absolutely critical that the transition authorities in Egypt and Tunisia place a high priority on structural economic reform,” Abed said.

The outlook for the five countries improves in 2012, with growth reaching 3.8 percent, according to figures based on IIF estimates. Tunisia’s $44 billion economy will lead the recovery, posting a 5.2 percent increase in GDP. Egypt and Bahrain will both expand by 4.2 percent. Syria and Yemen will show more modest turnarounds, growing 2 percent and 3 percent, respectively.

Nevertheless, the IIF warned that the kind of structural reforms that will bring sustainable growth will require “fundamental political and economic reforms and will take time.” It expressed concern that transitional governments, focusing on political and constitutional issues, will ignore economic reforms.

Global financial institutions may serve as a lever for reform as countries like Egypt and Tunisia seek support to tide them over the difficult period, the IIF said.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) head said earlier this month the fund would likely make available $35 billion in loans to Middle East countries where popular uprisings have occurred. Although no country has formally approached it, Egypt has indicated it needs up to $12 billion to meet a funding gap, Masood Ahmed, the IMF’s director for Middle East and Central Asia, told Reuters April 27.

The IIF said Egypt’s sagging economy was at risk for a “second wave of social upheaval” because the public has high expectations about the future after President Husni Mubarak was forced to step down in February in the face of massive protests. Political reform could run into 2011 while arrest and investigations of Mubarak-era businesspeople may discourage investors, it said.

In contrast to the economies of turmoil-ridden countries, most of the Middle East’s oil-exporting countries are likely to see significant growth this year, including Iraq, which grew by just 0.9 percent in 2010 but is now likely to grow by 11 percent in 2011 and by 11.5 percent next year.

With regard to Dubai, the IIF said Dubai World has successfully restructured its debt, but worries persist about the country’s debt overhang. Other Government Related Entities (GREs) are also undergoing debt restructuring, including Dubai Holding. Dubai has regained market access, but the cost of borrowing remains high, reflecting the rollover needs of the total of $31 billion falling due in 2011 and 2012, and the continuing challenges related to the depressed property sector.

View full post on All Stories

Rafah Border Crossing, Israel (TML) – Hamas doesn’t object to the reinstatement of European Union observers at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, a Hamas official told The Media Line.

“We don’t mind if the Europeans are involved as long as the Egyptian side agrees to this,” Ahmad Yousef, a political adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, told The Media Line on Sunday. “The only objection we have is to Israeli involvement. This is an agreement between Palestinians and the Egyptians,” he added.

The position comes amid growing tensions between Israel, the Palestinian and Egypt after Hamas and rival Palestinian faction Fatah reached a surprise agreement to end four years of feuding and form a national unity government. Cairo, which brought the two sides together, said the pact would enable it to re-open it border with Hamas-controlled Gaza, spurring concerns in Israel about security.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Al-Arabi said the crossing, which has remained mostly closed since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, would be permanently opened within a week to 10 days, “to ease the suffering of the Palestinian people.”

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Menha Bakhoum told Al-Ahram daily on Sunday that Egyptians regarded the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip “disgraceful.”

Opening the border with Egypt would mark the biggest breach in a blockade imposed by Israel and backed by the West since 2007. While Israel has been forced to ease controls and tunnel dug under the border to Egypt allow other supplies to enter, Hamas has struggled to bring in weapons to use against Israel.

Israel has come out strongly against the planned Hamas-Fatah unity government. Fatah favors a negotiated peace with Israel while Hamas is committed to the destruction of the Jewish state. The agreement doesn’t address how the unity government will square these postions.

EU supervision, however, might ease Israel’s concerns about what passes through Rafah., which is the only border crossing not controlled by Israel. Following Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, responsibility for the Rafah crossing was handed over to the Palestinian Authority.

An ad-hoc European force, the European Union Border Assistance Mission Rafah was appointed to oversee Egyptian and Palestinian management of the crossing, with Israel monitoring it from afar through a video surveillance system. But seven months later, in June 2006, Israel ordered the crossing closed for security reasons. The crossing was permanently sealed by the Egyptians the following June.

While the terms of Egypt’s promised re-opening are still unclear, Gazans said on Sunday they were looking forward, saying it would give residents big psyschological boost.

“Gazans always felt under siege. This will give them a sense of freedom,” Samir Zaqout, field work coordinator for the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza, told The Media Line. “Egypt has clearly changed its strategy towards the Gaza Strip, and I believe this new attitude is here to stay.”

Former Egyptian President Housni Mubarak shared Israel’s antipathy to the Hamas regime and kept the border crossing closed, while partially combating the smuggling of goods in underground tunnels between Egypt to Gaza. Egypt’s new military regime has been friendlier to Hamas, brokering a reconciliation agreement between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement and Hamas, that is expected to be signed this Thursday.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, declined to comment on the Egyptian decision, but Israeli daily Haaretz reported Sunday that Netanyahu is considering sending his special envoy Isaac Molho to discuss the matter with Egyptian officials. Amos Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry’s diplomatic-security bureau, told Israel Army Radio that “despite the announcement by the Egyptian administration, there will be no opening of the Rafah crossing.”

“Israel maintains the amount of products entering the Strip at a minimum,” Zaqout said. “Every time it decides to close the crossings, a humanitarian crisis follows two or three days later.”

But Mathilde Redmatn, deputy director of the International Committee for the Red Cross in the Gaza Strip, said in an interview published on the Israeli army’s website April 20, that “there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”

“If you go to the supermarket, there are products. There are restaurants and a nice beach,” she added.

Ali Abu-Shahlah, secretary-general of Gaza’s Business Association, admitted that the main change in the life of Gazans would be in the ability of individuals to enter and leave freely. He predicted that the opening of the Rafah crossing would also ease trade and transfer of money but only on a small scale.

“We are human beings and we need vacations,” Abu-Shahlah told The Media Line. “I personally know people who haven’t left Gaza in 15 years. This will have a psychological effect; people’s mood will change.”

“There is what we call the ‘suitcase merchants’ who will be able to bring in some merchandise,” he said. “Gazans living in the Gulf will be able to visit their relatives in the Strip without fear of getting stuck in Egypt, or in Gaza. They will be able to carry in a few thousand dollars or other gifts in their pockets.”

But Hamdi Shaqura, deputy director for program affairs at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), a Gaza-based organization, was less optimistic about the new arrangement.

“It’s unclear whether the opening will include economic transactions or will only allow individuals to cross,” Shaqura told The Media Line. “This isn’t an alternative to our demand from Israel to lift the blockade imposed on Gaza.”

Shaqura said Gaza needed to be allowed to export goods, not only receive them, and maintain land passage to the West Bank.

View full post on All Stories

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – President Obama said Monday he believed Egypt was close to ending its civil strife as government negotiators agreed to concessions with opposition leaders.

Protesters are demanding the immediate resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who they accuse of corruption and human rights abuses.

“I think they’re making progress,” Obama told reporters after speaking to business leaders at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman announced Monday that government employees would get a 15 percent pay increase in an effort to win back popular support.

He also said he would set out new procedures within a month to hold free elections.

Suleiman’s made the promises on the same day media reports described startling increases in personal wealth for Mubarak’s top advisors after they joined his administration.

Several of them are being investigated by prosecutors on corruption charges.

The Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm estimated the personal fortune of Ahmed Ezz, Organization Secretary of Egypt’s ruling party at $3 billion. Before he joined Mubarak’s administration, prosecutors said Ezz had $300,000 in 1989.

Former Housing Minister Ahmed al-Maghraby’s fortune was estimated at $1.8 billion. Former Tourism Minister Zuhair Garrana had $2.2 billion and former Minister of Trade and Industry Rashid Mohamed Rashid has $2 billion in personal wealth, the newspaper reported.

Three Egyptian ministers have tried to leave the country in recent days but were denied permission to travel while they remain under investigation, Egyptian news reports said.

The average Egyptian earns $60 a week, according to Egyptian government statistics.

Obama reiterated his belief that it is time for Mubarak to leave office after 30 years as Egypt’s president.

“Egypt is not going to go back to what it was,” Obama said Sunday in an interview on the Fox television network. “The Egyptian people want freedom. They want free and fair elections; they want a representative government; they want a responsive government.”

Thousands of protesters continued Monday to occupy Cairo’s Tahrir Square, which has been the site of dozens of killings by police, the military and Mubarak’s supporters.

View full post on All Stories

Jerusalem, Israel David E. Miller – Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank expressed both hope and anxiety as unrest went into its seventh day in Egypt, a country that has acted as a lifeline to besieged Gaza and a patron to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank but also as the object of anger and resentment.

In Gaza, where the Islamic Hamas movement rules, officials were mum on the mass protests, which have brought Egypt to a standstill and forced President Husni Mubarak to dismiss his cabinet. In the West Bank, where the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) is in control, police blocked a demonstration backing the Egyptian protestors.

Mubarak has had a complicated relationship with the Palestinians, especially since Hamas and Fatah parted ways and Gaza fell under Hamas rule in 2007. Cairo has mostly cooperated with Israel’s embargo of Gaza to the chagrin of Hamas, an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood opposition group, but allows goods to pass illegally through tunnels under their joint border.

Towards Fatah, Mubarak has served as a friend, but has earned the wrath of many ordinary West Bank Palestinians for being too close to Israel and for being complicit in Israel’s Gaza embargo.

The PA on Sunday obstructed a small demonstration in solidarity with the opposition across from the Egyptian embassy in Ramallah. A few dozen protesters were met by 20 armed police who tried to confiscate cameras and intimidated demonstrators, Human Rights Watch reported.

Ahmad, a Gaza resident who asked not be identified by his full name, said that similar demonstrations would have taken place in Gaza, too, but people feared a crackdown by Hamas.

“The Hamas government is too scared to voice a position, fearing that Mubarak’s regime will eventually prevail and Hamas will be held accountable,” Ahmad told The Media Line.

“If the regime survived, things will get much worse for us,” added Ali Abu-Shahla, secretary-general of the Gaza Business Association.

In the meantime, however, the chaos in Egypt is complicating life in Gaza as fighting between troops and protestors in northern Sinai closes the roads between Cairo and Gaza that bring commodities to the tunnels. By Monday, tunnel traffic had ground to a halt and gasoline reserves quickly ran out, forcing filling stations to shut down.

“The Gaza Strip is completely dependent on Egypt for gasoline,” Mahmoud Al-Khizandar, deputy head of the fuel dealers association in Gaza, told The Media Line. He said the price of gas coming in from Egypt was one Israeli shekel (28 cents) per liter, compared with 6.50 shekels for Israeli gas, a price beyond the reach of most Gazans.

Fearing a fuel shortage and ignoring government pleas against hoarding, Gazans flocked to filling stations over the weekend filling gas tanks and plastic containers to the brim. Ali Abu-Shahla said Gaza’s diesel-fueled power stations were also likely to suffer from the smuggling halt, with power shortages to be expected in the coming days.

“I don’t understand why Israel doesn’t completely open all the border crossings,” Abu-Shahla told The Media Line. “That would put an end to illicit trade from Egypt.”

But Samir Zaqout, field work coordinator for the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza, insisted there was no fuel shortage.

“Even when the Egyptian gas runs out in the gas stations, there will still be plenty of Israeli reserves,” he told The Media Line, adding that the Hamas government has barred gas stations from filling containers to prevent stockpiling.

Meanwhile, Egypt shut its official border crossing with Gaza on Sunday, although there were no soldiers there to enforce it, Al-Khizandar of the fuel dealers association said. Hamas security personnel guarded the border, however, preventing Palestinians from crossing into Egypt. At least 50 Palestinians wishing to exit Gaza were turned back by Hamas forces, Reuters reported. But five Palestinian militants fleeing Abu-Zaabal prison in Cairo made it home to Gaza.

The escapees came back bearing stories of torture and mistreatment by the Egyptians, fueling popular antipathy for Egypt’s ruler.

Mutasem Al-Quqa, who spent seven years in Egyptian prisons, said he was arrested on his way from Gaza to Cairo on charges of belonging to Hamas, which is outlawed in Egypt.

“They put us in solitary confinement, which I cannot describe, it was so horrible,” he told the Palestinian Information Center, a Hamas news agency. “I managed to escape that prison, which was a hell for Palestinian inmates, after residents of the area destroyed the prison walls.”

Despite the economic distress the unrest has created, some Gazans remained cautiously optimistic about Egypt.

“People here are generally happy with what’s going on,” said Ahmad. “Gazans suffered a great deal at the border crossing with Egypt. They often had to bribe soldiers, but the Egyptians had no mercy on people, whether leftists or Hamas members. They even turned back the sick who came for treatment.”

But Al-Khizandar said he preferred to focus on the cultural and familial ties between Gazans and Egyptians, a result of geographic proximity and 19 years of direct Egyptian control between 1948 and 1967.

“Many Egyptians live in the Gaza Strip, so there are family ties; many Gazan students go abroad to study in Egypt,” he said.

View full post on All Stories

Jerusalem, Israel David Rosenberg and Ben P – The deadly rioting that has gripped Algeria and Tunisia in recent days may portend unrest elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa amid a potentially combustible combination of rising food prices and the region’s chronically high levels of unemployment, analysts say.

At least 14 Algerians were killed in a week of rioting as of Monday while in Tunisia the number of dead reached at least 14 and may be as high as 20. In Tunisia, the unrest was sparked by the suicide of a street merchant Dec. 17 that pointed up the lack of jobs and opportunities. In Algeria the disturbances were sparked by higher prices for basic food items, including milk, oil and sugar, but analysts said joblessness was also a factor.

“These can be contagious and cross borders,” Magda Kandil, executive director of the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies in Cairo, told The Media Line. “The formula that brought about these riots could be in the works in the Egyptian economy. There’s high unemployment, there is a rise of cost of living. People feel government should do more to help them out, especially in getting more jobs.”

Boosted by higher oil prices and government spending, the Middle East is set for another year of strong economic growth in 2011. But the pace isn’t sufficient enough to keep up with the region’s rapidly growing population, leaving unemployment and poverty in its wake.

Thus, when food prices start climbing, the Middle East is especially vulnerable. In the past two decades, the region has been shaken three times by waves of food rioting, most recently in 2008 when prices spiked higher before recession tamped down global demand.

Now, prices are climbing again. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported Jan. 5 its global food price index hit a record high last month, exceeding the pre-crash peak of 2008. Its food price index, which takes into account the average prices of staples including meat, dairy, cereals and cooking oil, was up 25 percent from the same month in 2009.

Even the wealthier oil-exporting countries are nervous about ensuring enough food reaches the dinner table. The Federal National Council of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss the rise in food prices. The Gulf News quoted Khalifa Abdullah Bin Howaiden, a member of the council, as saying the prices of certain food items shot up as much as 500 percent.

The UAE is wealthy, but price hikes of that much will pinch the pocketbooks of lower- and middle-income consumers. The Gulf imports 85 percent of its basic food requirements and that makes it highly sensitive to fluctuations in the global market. To mitigate this, oil-rich governments have been buying land in Africa and elsewhere to grow crops to feed their populations.

But the non-oil Middle East faces the greatest danger from higher food prices because of higher unemployment and lower incomes.

The average unemployment rate among non-oil countries in the Middle East was 11 percent in 2008, more than the 9.8 percent rate in the United States at the height of the last recession. The International Monetary Fund said in an October report that these countries will need to create 18.5 million full-time positions over the next decade if they are to absorb all the unemployed and generate jobs for new graduates.

To do that, their economies will have to grow by a challenging 6.5 percent annually, the IMF estimated. That’s two percentage points more than they have managed over the past decade.

“Unemployment and especially under-employment among youth – university graduates – is quite high in Tunisia, in Jordan and Egypt,” Ibrahim Saif, secretary-general of the Economic And Social Council of Jordan and an economist at the University of Jordan, told The Media Line.

“It’s not just double digit unemployment, but that it’s concentrated among the younger generations, people joining the labor market for the first time.”

Ironically, even though they have been struck by unrest, Tunisia and Algeria are better off than many of their Middle East and North African neighbors.

The World Economic Forum praises Tunisia’s “efficient” government in its latest Global Competitiveness Report as well as the good quality of its education and efficient markets for goods and services. The International Monetary Fund expects the economy is to grow 4.8 percent this year, but puts the jobless rate is above 13 percent. Among young people the rate is higher, and many of those with jobs are overqualified.

In Algeria, with 12.2 billion barrels in oil reserves, the IMF expects gross domestic product to grow 4 percent this year, but unemployment is forecast to rise to 10.8 percent.

Both Tunisia and Algeria reacted quickly to quell the disturbances. Algeria’s cabinet agreed to increase wheat imports and to suspend customs duties and value-added tax on imports of sugar and cooking oil. The Tunisian government said it would listen to the demands of protesters, without saying what steps it would take.

But Kandil said the governments of the region would have to pull back from price subsidies, which encourage waste and deprive other sectors of the economy, such as schools and health, the funds they need. “Everybody enjoys subsidies, whether they need them or not,” she added.

To solve the food crisis, Saif said the governments of the region will have to adjust their sights and focus on agricultural development instead of the more glamorous infrastructure and telecommunications projects. The education systems should turn out high tech farmers while regulations need to change to making farming a profitable business.

“Labor productivity in agricultural sector is the lowest in the world,” Saif told The Media Line.” Only people who fail in school go into farming.”

View full post on All Stories

Jerusalem, Israel (TML) – A new species of jellyfish found off Israel’s coast this summer poses no threat to bathers but should serve warning to countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea about the dangers posed by global warming and damage to the environment.

Named Marivagia stellata and marked by a translucent hue of blue, patterned with red stars, dots, and streaks, two specimens were caught on the southern edge of Haifa Bay and off the coast of Beit Yannai beach this summer. Measuring 15 centimeters (6 inches) in diameter, the fish does not sting humans.

Swimmers view them as a nuisance because of their toxic and painful sting, but scientists have much bigger problems with jellyfish. Hardy survivors, jellyfish thrive in places where overfishing, chemical pollution and rising sea temperatures have killed off other species. Indeed, they serve as a barometer of ocean health.

“It’s bad news,” Bella Galil, a senior scientist at Israel’s National Institute of Oceanography in Haifa, told The Media Line. “We don’t know how this particular species will develop, but the phenomenon causes the displacement, and replacement of native local communities with invasive species, and can destabilize the food chain.”

Surrounded by countries with more than 400 million people, the Mediterranean is one of the most heavily used bodies of water in the world – a fishing ground, a transportation corridor, and the receptacle for sewage and industrial waste. About a third of the world’s total merchant shipping travels on Mediterranean waters and many species have nearly disappeared because of pollution, including the Mediterranean monk seal.

Marivagia stellata is just the latest in a series of invasive jellyfish species that has been discovered in the eastern Mediterranean over the years. Galil said the new species probably originated in the Red Sea or Pacific Ocean and arrived after traveling through Egypt’s Suez Canal, which connects the Red Sea with the Mediterranean.

“The Mediterranean is a very well-studied sea,” said Galil, who was among the team of scientist to identify the new species. “Because the jellyfish was found so close to shore, it is very unlikely that this jellyfish would escape notice in a sea studied so extensively.”

In fact, Marivagia stellata probably found its way into the Mediterranean at least a few years ago. Galil said a specimen was discovered off the Israeli coast in 2006, but was lost before it could be positively identified. Another specimen was probably caught off the coast of Lebanon in October, according to local media reports, which Galil termed a “bad omen.”

“It means that it just arrived and already has established in a fairly wide population and that it has the potential to increase and go further,” she said.

The Mediterranean has been invaded by successive waves of outside species, a process that began after the Suez Canal opened in 1869 and linked the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and from there to the Indian Ocean, according to Professor Menachem Goren, a marine biologist at Tel Aviv University. Among the more infamous interlopers is the jellyfish Rhopilema nomadica, which is called “hutit” in Hebrew and began swarming the southeast Mediterranean in the 1980s, inflicting painful injuries on unwary swimmers.

“Recently this phenomenon has accelerated and the number of invasive species has increased sharply,” said Goren, who attributed the increase to rising water temperature resulting from global climate change.

Scientists say it is too soon to tell what impact the new species will have. But jellyfish are blamed for clogging water intake pipes at desalination plants and coastal power plants. Marivagia stellata and the increased jellyfish population could disturb the underwater food chain, scientists say. Jellyfish consume the plankton that other fish eat and prey on fish larvae.

Goren was careful not to speculate on the threat posed by Marivagia stellata, but noted that, “another jellyfish almost completely destroyed local fisheries in the Black Sea 10 years ago.”

View full post on Environmental Issue Stories

So many times I hear clients when in a draw down say,”There are changes going on in commodity trading and trend following.” The commodity markets are changing. They are not like what they used to be. Trend following is dead. This draw down proves trend following is dead.

Well I will give you my 15 years plus of experience and counter these thoughts. First of all, nothing ever changes. You need to really know what trend following is, what causes it. Not trying to be funny, but commodity trading has been going on since the times of Joseph in Egypt selling wheat. If you read your bible, he cornered the wheat market and there was a trend in wheat. The price went up. There will always be shortages, panics, fears and hedgers and for this reason there will be trends. One can look back at charts from the 1800s and look at wheat or even cotton. What do you think happened to the price of cotton during the US civil war. Do you I need to remind you what happened to crude in the first gulf war. Human nature never changes…fear and greed don’t ever seem to change…so there are trends. If you want to consider making money in commodities one of the ways I feel most strongly about is trend following. No predicting…just reacting and trying to catch a trend or as a surfer tries to catch a wave. Not too much different.

Now if you believe there are trends, then you need to realize they do not happen when we want them. There can be years at a time…NOTHING HAPPENS. At this point most non professional investors give up and claim trend following is dead and commodity trading advisors stink. Well, so many times after this trend following comes back from the dead and commodity trading advisors hit new record trading peaks. This brings me back to my holy grail word “PATIENCE”. If you can be patient, disciplined, have a sound trading methodology based on risk management and money management, you stand the potential overtime to grind out some decent returns.

Next thought… again those same inexperienced commodity traders say, “The commodity markets are changing. I need to change my system or my methodology.” Again with years of experience watching what has the chance to work and seeing all that did not. The only things that can work over time are simple ideas based on with strong risk and money management.

To give you example, Richard Donchian used a very simple idea. Buy the 22 day high…sell the 14 day low. This is the basis… not too complicated, but needs more risk and money management filters. Not sure if it was John Henry from JWH or Dunn Capital…either of them stated all rules of our system can be written on the back of an envelope. Pretty funny since both at them at various points of their careers were managing in excess of $1 Billion US Dollars. If you want to be a winner in the commodity trading arena realize this takes time, discipline and patience. This is not a get rich quick. This is a compound your way to wealth if you follow the rules of risk management & money management. All of this is easy to say, but when you are down either in your trading account or when your commodity trading advisor is down 20% or greater and you want to quit, Remember: Do you want to be a winner or a loser.

Understand exactly how your mechanical trading system works. Don’t think you will buy a black box and make money. Ask questions to your commodity trading advisor… what gets you in a trade..out of a trade… with a loss or a profit.. How much risk per trade.. how much risk per sector… how much portfolio open trade risk…or margin to equity. If you do not do your homework ahead of time, don’t even think about commodity trading. These are the hard truths about commodity trading. This is not easy. Futures and commodity trading involve substantial risk. People can and do lose money trading.

Author: Andrew Abraham
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Smart cooker