King Abdullah

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Aug 26--Oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia favors “moderate“ crude prices despite reaping a windfall from record highs on world markets, AFP quoted King Abdullah as saying.
“The kingdom’s petroleum policy is moderation in prices. Despite the benefits that the increase in prices brings us, we advocate moderation in oil prices,“ he told the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat.
“Petroleum production is plentiful. That’s why I am surprised by ... the unjustified rise in prices,“ he said.
The Saudi monarch did not say what he would consider a moderate price.
Saudi Arabia, which produces around 9.5 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) and is the world’s top oil exporter, posted a record budget surplus of 57 billion dollars in 2005 on the back of surging crude prices and is channeling billions into development projects.
World oil prices rose slightly Friday as a tropical depression rolled across the Caribbean and edgy traders continued to follow diplomatic moves over Iran’s nuclear program.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in October, closed up 15 cents at $72.51 per barrel.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for October delivery settled up two cents at $72.70 per barrel.
Fears that a tropical depression, currently projected to swirl closer to Jamaica over the weekend, could develop into a tropical storm helped support prices.
Tropical Depression Five seems set to become Tropical Storm Ernesto by the end of today (Friday),“ said Bill O’Grady, an analyst at AG Edwards.
“The track forecast depends on the storm’s organization over the next 12-24 hours and its forward movement,“ O’Grady said.

LIMA, Peru, Aug. 26--A US-controlled gold mining operation halted work at a construction site in northern Peru Friday after talks broke down with protesting farmers who are demanding jobs and complaining the project is polluting their water supplies, AP said.
The shutdown at the Carachugo site--scheduled to start producing gold at the end of the year--is the latest setback for Yanacocha, Latin America’s largest gold producer, which is majority owned by Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp.
The company said Friday that ongoing talks had broken down with community groups from the town of Combayo following a series of clashes between police and protesters who blocked roads.
One Combayo protester was shot and killed in a clash early this month.
“Regrettably, as a direct result of the safety and security threats posed by the roadblocks, more than 1,000 contracted workers will be laid off until normal operations can resume without endangering the employees, contractors, and community members in the area,“ Randy Engel, Newmont’s vice president of communications and investor relations, said in a statement.
The Combayo protesters contend the project is contaminating water supplies, but have also demanded Yanacocha provide them more jobs. The company has said it employs more than 120 Combayo residents.
The protests have not disrupted the mine’s production, the company said.
“This project has not brought us benefits,“ Combayo Mayor Luciano Llanos told Radioprogramas radio. “We have demonstrated how our lagoons, our springs are being destroyed by this project.“
Since 1993, Yanacocha has operated open pit mines on a plateau about 13,000 feet (3,940 meters) above sea level, nine miles (15 kilometers) from Cajamarca, a city 350 miles (560 kilometers) north of Lima.
Carachugo is the latest expansion of Yanacocha’s gold operation, which uses cyanide and massive amounts of water to extract gold from ore piled on impermeable barriers designed to prevent toxins from seeping into the ground.
Yanacocha was forced in 2004 to shelve exploration plans on the nearby mountain known as Cerro Quilish--which holds an estimated 3.7 million ounces of gold--after violent protests by farmers who believed the project threatened water supplies.

Britain buys in 25 percent more goods and services than it sells abroad, therefore, more British workers are at risk from international trade compared with their European Union colleagues.

LONDON, Aug. 26--British companies and workers were more vulnerable to the disadvantages of globalization than the rest of Europe, according to a report issued by the Trade Union Congress (TUC), an umbrella body for trade unions in the country.
British employees undoubtedly benefited from the cheap goods and greater prosperity brought about by globalization, but were more vulnerable than their European counterparts to the negative impacts of globalization, said the report which called on the government to do more to support workers whose livelihoods were put at risk by growing global trade.
According to Xinhuanet, Britain buys in 25 percent more goods and services than it sells abroad, therefore, more British workers are at risk from international trade compared with their European Union colleagues.
In addition, the TUC claimed Britain was home to more multinational companies who could easily relocate operations overseas, and that the typical business strategy of keeping down costs, such as wages and investment in skills and training, entailed the constant threat of the work being moved to countries where it could be done more cheaply.
In a submission to the government’s 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review, the TUC appealed for government action to help ensure that the benefits of globalization were spread more evenly if they were to maintain support for open markets.
Priorities for funding should include support for workers vulnerable to the negative effects of globalization and for British companies who need to compete more on the global market to safeguard quality jobs in the country.
The TUC also urged the government to help British companies better capitalize on global export opportunities, particularly in emerging economies such as China and India, by supporting the development of strategic manufacturing and service sectors, in particular, environmental technology.
“Too many British workers are losing their jobs when companies move abroad or fail to compete. Cheap DVD players and clothes are scant compensation if you are being downgraded to poor quality, insecure, low-paid work,“ said TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber.

SHANGHAI, China, Aug. 26--Closer monitoring resulted in a 12-fold surge in the number of China’s reported suspicious foreign exchange dealings, AP quoted the central bank as saying in its latest report on money laundering.
Financial institutions reported almost 12 times as many suspect international transactions in 2005 as in the year before--a total of nearly 2 million, said the report by the China Anti-Money Laundering Monitoring and Analysis Center, seen on the bank’s Web site Friday.
The number of reported suspicious domestic currency transactions surged nearly eight times to 283,400, it said.
China has set up a regulatory system aimed at preventing and catching money laundering in the past several years and the higher reports reflect closer monitoring by a greatly increased number of staff in banks and other financial institutions.
The report said China uncovered more than 50 major money laundering cases in 2005, about the same as in 2004. But the total amount of money involved more than doubled to 10 billion yuan ($1.25 billion) from 4 billion yuan ($500 million) in 2004, the report said.
Most of those cases appear to involve underground banking networks which thrive in China’s eastern and southern provinces, regions having a large share of foreign trade and rapid economic growth.
The central bank and State Administration of Foreign Exchange handed over 3,195 cases of suspected money laundering to police for further investigation last year, it said.
Chinese lawmakers are reviewing anti-money laundering legislation and the government plans to detail money laundering regulations in the financial sector in the second half of this year.

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Aug. 26--Bolivian officials raided the offices of Spanish-Argentine company Repsol YPF in the eastern city of Santa Cruz on Friday, arresting a company attorney and seizing documents relating to the allegedly illegal sale of natural gas to Brazil.
Repsol lawyer Samuel Encinas was arrested by officials from the Santa Cruz state attorney general’s office after the company refused to provide documentation of its contracts with Brazil’s state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, Attorney General Jose Centenaro said.
“This seizure was ordered by a judge,“ Centenaro said.
According to AP, Repsol is accused of signing secret contracts with Petrobras to sell Bolivian natural gas to Brazil at a price lower than the official rate agreed upon by the two countries.
Hydrocarbons Minister Andres Soliz has estimated that the alleged sales cost the Bolivian government US$161 million (126.2 million euros).
Repsol’s offices in Argentina were closed and the company did not immediately issue a statement. However, a Repsol official in Bolivia, who asked not to be named because the company had not authorized public comment, called the raid “irregular and disproportionate“ and said the contract in question was not secret and did no damage to Bolivia.
Brazil currently pays US$4 (3.13 euros) per million British thermal units of Bolivian gas.
Since President Evo Morales nationalized his country’s oil and gas industry on May 1, Bolivia’s state energy company Yacimientos Petroleo Fiscales Bolivianos has sought to raise that price.
Negotiations between the two countries are expected to continue in September.
Named in the attorney general’s investigation are Jose Maria Moreno, the former chief of Andina SA, a subsidiary of Repsol; Petrobras’ Bolivia director Luiz Rodolfo Landim Machado; and Luiz Silva de Menezes, Petrobras’ Bolivia head of gas and energy.
This is the second such investigation into Repsol since the nationalization.
In May, officials from the Santa Cruz attorney general’s office entered the company’s offices to arrest then-President Julio Gavito and operations manager Pedro Sanchez for illegally selling US$9.2 million (7.2 million euros) worth of crude oil in 2004 and 2005.
Gavito has since quit his post and returned to Spain, and the investigation is ongoing.

MANAMA, Bahrain, Aug. 26--The worst is over for the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) stock market and investors can look forward to a slow but steady recovery, a Bahrain-based investment banker predicted.
According to Trade Arabia News Service, SICO Investment Bank asset management head Shakil Sarwar said that most of the market corrections have already happened. “My view is that the corrections have happened. The valuations have become more reasonable,“ he said.
“It won’t be a sharp recovery, but it will recover gradually. People will start being more discriminating between good and bad investments and they will definitely do better.“ Sarwar said that most of the markets are still down from the beginning of the year.
“Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have lost almost a third of their value. These were previously stellar performers which had become very expensive. Kuwait has fallen by around 17 per cent. Bahrain is down only 3 per cent and Oman slightly up by 0.5 per cent.“
He said that Bahrain and Oman had fared better because they are less attractive to speculators who prefer volatility.
“Each market has its own characteristics. The UAE market dropped because it was dominated by Saudi investors who were left exposed when their own market fell,“ said Sarwar. He said that indications this month look positive. “All the [Persian] Gulf markets are up since the beginning of the month,“ he said.
Sarwar said many stocks on these markets are beginning to look attractive again.

SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 26--The chief of the International Labor Organization (ILO) on Saturday met with South Korean labor leaders to hear their opinions on pending issues faced by the country’s workers, Yonhap reported.
ILO Director-General Huan Somavia is visiting South Korea to attend the four-day ILO Asian Regional Meeting set for August 29-September 1 in Busan, the nation’s largest port city.
Somavia met with the leaders of the nation’s two leading umbrella labor groups in Seoul--the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU)--who told the ILO leader about problems surrounding the union of public servants, irregular workers and labor rights, and sought ILO support to solve the issues.
The ILO official pledged to convey the unions’ opinion to the Korean government and lend his support for dialogue between labor and the government. On Friday he also met with business leaders.
Meanwhile, around 600 guests will come together in this year’s ILO meeting in Busan, including labor ministers, representatives of employers’ and workers’ groups from 43 member countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

HARARE, Zimbabwe, Aug. 26--The head of Zimbabwe’s main state grain marketing board has been arrested on graft charges, police said on Saturday, days after another top executive was jailed in a new drive against growing corruption.
According to Reuters, President Robert Mugabe ordered a crackdown on graft last month to try to resolve Zimbabwe’s economic crisis, blamed by critics on his policies in the potentially-rich southern African country he has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980.
Police spokesman Inspector Andrew Phiri said retired army colonel Samuel Muvuti, the acting chief executive officer of the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), was arrested on Friday on charges of defrauding the GMB of Z$950,000 ($3,800).
Phiri said Muvuti -- who denies the charges--was accused of paying some of his private farm workers from the GMB salary coffers, and would soon face formal charges of corruption in the lower magistrate court.