[AlAhram] The Egyptian president is to meet his Russian counterpart to discuss financing needs and oil and wheat supplies
It must be utterly humiliating for the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood triumphant to go from country to country, hat in hand, begging for a bit of grain or oil or money to keep his people from starvation and riot, as if he hadn't the mark of Allah's favour pounded into his forehead, as if he were no more beloved of Allah than the meanest kaffir cleaning his outhouses.
Egypt wheat stocks dwindle; no purchases planned until June
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi will visit Russia next week, a state-run newspaper reported on Friday, in a visit market sources expect to focus on the cash-strapped Arab state's energy, wheat import and financing needs.
Morsi will meet President Vladimir Putin ...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile... for talks that would explore "ways to strengthen cooperation between the two countries in all fields", Al Gomhuria reported, citing an anonymous source.
And the world waits with bated breath to see if Russia will fall into old Soviet habits. No wait -- it doesn't. But the readers of Al Ahram, tuned as they are to the wider world beyond the desert sands, not to mention able to read in both Arabic and English, are no doubt praying hard, each in his or her own way, that that President Morsi gets what the country needs instead of what his party deserves.
The Syria crisis would be high on his agenda, it said.
"Awful what's going on in Syria, President Putin."
"Yes, awful indeed, President Morsi. Ah well, at least they're killing each other, and not bothering the rest of us. Tea?"
The presidency could not immediately be reached for comment.
Egypt is grappling with an economic crisis caused by more than two years of political instability.
...preceded by two generations or so of skimming by the rulers of the country, their friends and relations, and senior members or the army...
The country's foreign currency reserves are at critically low levels and the government is struggling with an unaffordable deficit.
Shortages of imported fuel are disrupting transport and causing power cuts in the country of 84 million. The situation is expected to worsen as summer approaches and Egyptians switch on their air conditioning.
The world's biggest importer of wheat, Egypt has cut back on international purchases this year in the hope of a bumper local harvest.
How that is to be obtained without fertilizers or running tractors is beyond my meager ability to imagine, but no doubt copious prayers to Allah by particularly pious men has something to do with it.
In a boost to Egypt's finances, Qatar this week agreed to buy $3 billion in government bonds and to supply natural gas in the summer when it is needed. Libya also signed a deal to give Egypt a $2 billion, five-year, interest-free loan, according to the Egyptian state news agency.
The government is also in talks with the International Monetary Fund on a $4.8 billion loan deal that would unlock billions more in international support.
WHEAT STOCKS
Several sources on European commodities and energy markets told Rooters the Egyptians may discuss financing needs and oil and wheat supplies during their visit to Russia.
"Talk is that an Egyptian delegation to Russia has both oil and gas as a focus," said one European trader. "Imports by Egypt with delayed payment seem to be on the wish-list."
Egypt's wheat stocks are likely to plunge below 1 million tonnes by June 30 as its economic crisis cripples purchases from the international market, a U.S. Department of Agriculture report said.
A second Moscow-based source said that Egypt also planned to discuss a possible $2 billion loan from Russia.
Russia, which is a net creditor, has been sought out by countries in financial difficulty that are seeking easier terms than those offered by the IMF - with recent examples including Cyprus and Serbia.
Egypt is likely to discuss wheat supplies from the next crop, as Russia has already run down the exportable surplus from last year's poor harvest.
Currently there is no clarity on the wheat supply volume, timing or payment method, the sources added.
Russian Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fyodorov met with Essam Haddad, an assistant to the Egyptian president for foreign relations on Thursday, but wheat supplies were not discussed, his ministry said.
Russia's new crop is likely to arrive in June or July, its 2013 grain harvest is officially expected at 90-92 million tonnes with an exportable surplus of around 20 million tonnes.
As I recall, in recent years Russia has had no surplus to export, which is why poor Egyptians were losing the competition with Chinese pigs for sustenance. If there really are surpluses -- and if Russia has one, surely other countries will as well -- total catastrophe in Egypt may yet be avoided.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/13/2013 08:29 ||
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#1
I think Russians remember that Soviet Union bankrupted itself supporting all these third world allies.
[France24] Tunisia received a fiscal boost on Thursday after the government was handed a cheque amounting to $28.8 million in recovered assets that had been held abroad by ousted president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and his wife, Laila Trabelsi.
Tunisia received $28.8 million on Thursday in the first such retrieval of what it calls looted assets held abroad by ousted President-for-Life Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ...who departed by popular demand in January, 2011, precipitating the Arab Spring... and his family.
The state news agency TAP said a cheque in that amount had been handed to President Moncef Marzouki by Ali bin Fetais al-Marri, appointed by the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... to head efforts to recover money from leaders tossed in Arab uprisings.
Marri, Qatar's attorney-general, was named U.N. Special Advocate for Stolen Asset Recovery in September.
TAP said the money returned to Tunisia had been in a Lebanese bank account belonging to Laila Trabelsi, the wife of Ben Ali, who fled to Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... with his family on Jan. 14, 2011 after popular protests ended his 23-year rule.
Local media say billions of dollars acquired corruptly by Ben Ali and his entourage remain unaccounted for, but the exact amount is not known.
Tunisia's Islamist-led government, grappling with economic woes that include high unemployment, is under popular pressure to recover the money, but faces legal and political difficulties in gaining access to the accounts where it is believed held.
An International Monetary Fund team arrived in Tunis this week to discuss a $1.78 billon loan requested by the government.
[La Belle France24] Blamed for empty shop shelves from Europe to Australia, networks of baby formula traffickers are shipping milk powder to Chinese parents fearful of local products, and working ever harder to meet demand.
Chinese parents haunted by scandals involving poisoned baby milk will pay premium prices -- three or four times as much as domestic brands -- for formula from Europe, where stores are limiting sales in the wake of the shortages.
Even the Chinese buyers are complaining. "Its getting harder to find milk powder, for each box I have to walk further," said a woman surnamed Shao, who lives in Germany and advertises baby formula online.
She is one of a small army of vendors working from homes across Europe, emptying shelves and causing shops to impose limits on purchases.
China's equivalent of eBay, Taobao, has more than 4,000 listings for milk powder products from Germany, with a similar number from Britannia and nearly 3,000 from La Belle France.
"I started off sending the powder to family and friends," said Shao, a stay-at-home mother who says she makes a "small amount" from the business.
"Mothers usually order six to eight boxes at a time, because it takes a month to arrive and they want to keep a constant supply," she told AFP.
Other vendors contacted by AFP ran larger-scale operations, with one Chinese company owner surnamed He boasting that he employs 10 German staff.
Demand is driven by memories of a 2008 scandal over Chinese baby formula tainted with the industrial chemical melamine which killed six children and affected more than 300,000 others.
Distrust was fortified last year when another domestic manufacturer's formula was found to be contaminated with carcinogens, despite official pledges to clean up the industry.
Breastfeeding rates in China are low -- only 28 percent according to a 2012 UNICEF report -- due to time limits on maternity leave and aggressive marketing of formula.
But buyers are sceptical of any products sold in China, including foreign brands packaged for the Chinese market.
China is "by far" the world's largest market for formula, says consumer research group Euromonitor.
"Chinese young parents perceive international brands, especially imported brands in original packaging, to be healthier," said analyst Vera Wang.
The Chinese websites charge hefty mark-ups, sometimes approaching 100 percent, on the retail price, such as German brand Aptamil advertised at around 220 yuan ($35) for a 600g (21 ounce) box.
Shipping fees can double those prices again, while customs checks and import duties in China can add another 30 percent, according to Chinese reports.
In contrast, a central Beijing supermarket sells Chinese-made Yili formula at 150 yuan for 900g.
The rising Chinese demand has led to shortages across Europe.
One German exporter posted a picture of empty supermarket shelves online writing: "I counted with the shop manager, there were eight metres of empty shelves... all bought by Chinese people."
German media have seized on photos of shop shelves stripped bare, with Bild, Europe's highest circulation newspaper, announcing in January: "Angry mothers stand in front of empty Aptamil shelves... because Chinese buy up our milk powder!"
Milupa, which makes Aptamil, apologised for the shortages, citing "exports to Asia" as the reason.
"We don't encourage these exports and we don't sell to Asia. These customers buy directly from German supermarkets," it said on its website.
Closer to mainland China, anger about visitor purchases in Hong Kong saw the city ban travellers taking out more than 1.8 kilograms of formula, with banners at the border warning of HK$500,000 (US$64,000) fines and two-year jail sentences for offenders.
European stores have also begun to limit sales, with German pharmacy chain DM banning customers from buying more than three boxes of Aptamil at a time.
In Britannia, major supermarket chains are reportedly limiting customers to two cans of formula per day at manufacturers' requests, with Milupa's parent company Danone saying the move was to prevent bulk-buying for "unofficial exports to China".
A Chinese customer was recently forced out of a branch of a British supermarket after staff said he had bought more than 100 boxes of formula in a single week, according to the 21st Century Business Herald, a Chinese newspaper.
In Australia, a major run on Karicare formula reportedly linked to an influx of Chinese tourists over Christmas saw some supermarkets and pharmacies introduce rationing and purchase limits in January.
In Germany, a vendor based near Frankfurt echoed others across the country when he told AFP: "It's becoming much harder to buy milk powder. Last time I went shopping I could only buy 12 boxes, so I've stopped trading."
But Shao said the shortages and restrictions would not stop her.
"If one supermarket is sold out, I'll walk to another," she said. "I do it for the mothers, and for the children. As a mother myself, I know how important milk powder is."
If the NORKs get crazy and those deadly isotopes really do hit the fan, iodine-131, strontium-90, and other radioactive contaminants can also be transferred through human milk. Buying pre-incident powdered milk really is the way to go.
#3
Back in the old days of capitalism, someone might actually take advantage of the opportunity provided here by hawking the diligence of the American Prue Food and Drug Act in providing quality products to leverage a market in China. Sort of like the quality control the Japanese were able to leverage over Detroit when it came to autos.
#4
Nestle has a couple of baby formula plants in Eau Claire Wisconsin that would gladly crank up three shifts a day to solve that problem.
Not to mention Enfamil and Semilac...Procopious2k has it right when he says the US should jump into this opportunity with both feet. Heck, we could fix the economies of at least four states with the increased demand for milk, soy, corn syrup, and white grape juice, not to mention the additional employment with these companies running knuckles to the firewall at three shifts.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/13/2013 13:37 Comments ||
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#5
And a truly enterprising Chinese person could make a fortune by ripping off the labels of the Chinese formula and slapping on labels that say "Hergestellt in Deutschland"
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/13/2013 17:08 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] A high school English teacher faces disciplinary action for giving a writing assignment that asked students to make a persuasive argument blaming Jews for the problems of Nazi Germany, Albany, NY school district officials said Friday.
You see, THIS is what's supposed to happen when a teacher does something really, really schtoopid, like asking students to tramp on the word "JESUS"...
Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard said administrators were discussing what official action the unidentified 10th-grade teacher at Albany High School will face for the assignment given to students on Monday. It could range from a letter of counsel to dismissal.
The assignment, first reported Friday by the Albany Times Union, asked students to research Nazi propaganda, then assume their teacher was a Nazi government official who had to be convinced of their loyalty. The assignment told students they "must argue that Jews are evil."
"This assignment for some of our students at Albany High School was completely unacceptable. It displayed a level of insensitivity that we absolutely will not tolerate in our school community," Wyngaard said at a news conference Friday at the United Jewish Federation. "I'm deeply apologetic to all of our students, all of our families and the entire community."
Wyngaard spoke in a room full of books on the Holocaust and was flanked by school board officials and representatives of Jewish organizations.
Golly. I'm impressed by the props, aren't you?
Speakers said the Anti-Defamation League will run sensitivity programs at the school for staff and students.
They might want to contact the local Holocaust society (Buffalo has an active one, if Albany lacks such things) and ask them to send out speakers. I'm sure my mother would be happy to go -- she's done programs in schools as far afield as northern Germany and the wilds of Pennsylvania.
"After this unfortunate lesson we know that the Albany School District will rededicate themselves to teaching about how prejudice led to genocide and to help their students build a better community," said Shelly Shapiro, director of the Holocaust Survivors & Friends Education Center.
School officials say they don't believe the teacher who handed out the assignment had malicious intent. The purpose of the assignment was to have students make an argument based on limited information, but it should have been worded differently, officials said.
The school district has not named the teacher, who was described as a veteran. The assignment was brought to administrators' attention by a parent of one of the students. Some students refused to write the assignment.
One third of them, actually, which is seriously impressive, given the usual thoughtlessness of tenth graders..
The teacher's assignment told students they "must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!"
Earlier this year, a teacher at Public School 59 in Manhattan caused a controversy by giving fourth-graders a math homework assignment that used scenarios about killing and whipping slaves. The school's principal ordered sensitivity training for the entire staff.
#1
I don't think the guy was a Nazi peddling his wares. Maybe just somebody who noticed that a lot of stuff published in most respectively progressive newspapers nowadays sounds familiar.
Or he could be challenging them argue something from the opposition's point of view, such as is done in debating, or in lawyering. Though if that's the case, he should have told them so.
Posted by: Barbara ||
04/13/2013 18:16 Comments ||
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#4
Barbara, I think you could be right - people, like lawyers, sometimes need to see the other side. On the other hand, they need to understand that it is the other side.
Besides which, this might have been better in a history class, for example. Then it should be followed by a presentation by the Trailing Mother on why the Holocaust was truly evil.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/13/2013 19:19 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile...
