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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Russia Will Feel the Bite of Western Sanctions, Eventually

2014-03-28

The Last Trumpet's gonna sound, eventually. [NBCNEWS] Tighter U.S. and European sanctions to contain Moscow's Ukrainian land grab will be tough to pull off. But if fully deployed, they could be very painful to Russia's already weakening economy. For all the headlines, the sanctions invoked so far against Moscow for invading Crimea amount to little more than a slap on the wrist. "The sanctions so far from the U.S. and Europe are primarily signaling, but they're not going to fundamentally change Russian behavior," former World Bank president Robert Zoellick told CNBC. The "signals" include Russia's suspension from the Group of Eight major industrialized powers on the eve of a long-planned summit in Sochi. U.S. and European authorities have also frozen the assets of a handful of President Vladimir Putin's closest political allies.

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Caribbean-Latin America

Argentina seizes gas firm

2012-04-20

Argentina will start to swirl the drain by the end of the year. Sure hope President Romney can face up to this challenge... Facing intense criticism over the nationalization of its biggest oil firm, Argentina on Thursday ordered the seizure of YPF Gas, another group controlled by Spain's Repsol, a move expected to further inflame tensions. In a case that has sparked fears of a new wave of expropriations, a statement published in the official gazette said the Argentine government was declaring YPF Gas a public utility and taking 51 percent of the shares. YPF Gas is not technically part of the YPF oil group ordered nationalized this week, leading to global condemnation, but a separate company. However, an 85 percent stake in the gas firm is owned by Repsol Butano SA, a division of the Spanish energy giant. Officials said the move was an extension of the takeover of YPF, the big unit of Repsol that Argentina decided to seize this week. The government statement indicates that YPF Gas "plays an essential role in Argentina's hydrocarbon policy." Which is not a justification for seizing it, unless you're a 'progressive'... The move expands the nationalization effort ordered by Argentina, which claimed the Spanish firm was failing to invest in the country and forcing it to import more of its energy supplies. Spain, the United States, the IMF, the European Union and others lined up to take turns slamming the move by President Cristina Kirchner. During a visit to Colombia on Thursday, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy again slammed the move as "an injustice," but declined to comment on how his government might retaliate. Ah, the invertebrate European leaders. Bring out the comfy chair! On Thursday, World Bank head Robert Zoellick added his criticism to Argentina's move. "I think it's a mistake and I think it's a symptom that we have to watch out for -- if under economic pressure, whether countries will move to more national, autarchic policies, respond more to nationalism, more to protectionism," Zoellick said at a news conference. Later he told CNN that Argentina should concede the move is a mistake and reverse it. "This is not the time to be playing with fire, and ultimately, it will leave Argentina behind in the international economy, and that hurts the people of Argentina, and that is who I am concerned about," he said. "What investor in his right mind would put money into a country where people are taking away private property?" Repsol bought Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales in 1999 for $15 billion in what was the biggest operation of the privatization program of former Argentine president Carlos Menem. Kirchner has argued that the expropriation was justified because YPF crude production had dropped while oil and gas imports doubled in 2011. Imports are forecast to triple by the end of the year. Argentina also faces a drop in its trade surplus - - down 11 percent in 2011 -- which is its main source of hard currency since foreign credit markets closed their doors after the 2001 debt default.

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Economy

Lawrence Summers, John Kerry, Susan Rice on World Bank shortlist, source says

2012-03-08

U.S. Senator John Kerry, ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and economist Lawrence Summers have been shortlisted to be the next World Bank head, a source close to the institution told AFP. The source added that the United States had yet to make a final decision. Kerry was the Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, when he lost to then-president George W. Bush, and currently serves as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Rice previously served as a senior national security advisor to President Barack Obama during his successful 2008 White House campaign, and was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a prominent Washington think tank, for several years. Summers served as Secretary of the Treasury under president Bill Clinton from 1999 to 2001 and is currently a Harvard University economics professor. Last month World Bank President Robert Zoellick announced he would be stepping down when his five-year term ends on June 30.

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Home Front: Politix

Hildebeast to move to World Bank?

2012-02-15

OMFG... WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been in discussions with the White House about leaving her job next year to become head of the World Bank, sources familiar with the discussions said on Thursday. She has said publicly she did not plan to stay on at the State Department for more than four years. Associates say Clinton has expressed interest in having the World Bank job should the bank's current president, Robert Zoellick, leave at the end of his term, in the middle of 2012. "Hillary Clinton wants the job," said one source who knows the secretary well. A second source wailed also said Clinton wants the position. A third source screamed said Obama had already expressed support for the change in her role. It is unclear whether Obama has formally agreed to nominate her for the post, which would require approval by the 187 member countries of the World Bank. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney denied the discussions. "It's totally wrong," he told Reuters. A spokesman for Clinton, Philippe Reines, denied Clinton wanted the job, had conversations with the White House about it or would accept it. People familiar with the situation, told of the denials from the White House and State Department, reaffirmed the accuracy of the report. Revelations of the discussions could hurt Clinton's efforts as America's top diplomat if she is seen as a lame duck in the job at a time of great foreign policy challenges for the Obama administration. Under normal circumstances, names of potential candidates for the World Bank would not surface more than a year before the post becomes vacant. But the timing of the discussions is not unusual this year given the sudden opening of the top job at the bank's sister organization, the IMF, after Dominique Strauss-Kahn's resignation following his arrest on charges of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in New York. And totally fits the kind of scheming you'd expect from Hilde and Bill... The World Bank provides billions of dollars in development funds to the poorest countries and is also at the center of issues such as climate change, rebuilding countries emerging from conflict and recently the transitions to democracy in Tunisia and Egypt. No, it provides the money to the connected who salt it away in banks around the world, leaving a few crumbs for the rubes and fools who think that the World Bank does anything other than redistribute money to the connected... If Clinton were to leave State, John Kerry, a close Obama ally who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is among those who could be considered as a possible replacement for her. It just gets worse... Clinton's star power and work ethic were seen by Obama as crucial qualities for her role as the nation's top diplomat, even though she did not arrive in the job with an extensive foreign policy background. In fact, she didn't know much of anything...

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Economy

World Bank: Food prices have entered the 'danger zone'

2011-04-17

h/t Instapundit Robert Zoellick, World Bank president, said food prices are at "a tipping point", having risen 36pc in the last year to levels close to their 2008 peak. The rising cost of food has been much more dramatic in low-income countries, pushing 44m people into poverty since June last year. Another 10pc rise in food prices would push 10m into extreme poverty, defined as an effective income of less than $1.25 a day. Already, the world's poor number 1.2bn. Mr Zoellick said he saw no short term reversal in the damaging effect of food inflation, which is felt much more in the developing world as packaging and distribution accounts for a far larger proportion of the cost in the advanced economies. Asked if he thought prices would remain high for a year, Mr Zoellick said: "The general trend lines are ones where we are in a danger zone... because prices have already gone up and stocks are relatively low." Three cheers for the wonderful: Postindustrial, Gaea saving, World we live in.

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Africa Subsaharan

Cote d'Ivoire finances frozen by World Bank

2010-12-23

[Al Jazeera] The World Bank has frozen finance to Cote d'Ivoire amid a political crisis in the West African country whose incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, insists on asserting his leadership in defiance of the international community's wishes. Robert Zoellick, the World Bank head, confirmed on Wednesday that the loans were stopped. The World Bank's aid commitment to Cote d'Ivoire was $841.9 million as of January 2010, according to the bank's website. "The World Bank has currently stopped lending and disbursing funds to the Ivory Coast and the World Bank's office [in the capital Abidjan] has been closed,'' a statement from the organisation said. "The World Bank and the African Development Bank have supported ECOWAS [Economic Community of West African States] and the African Union, in sending the message to President Gbagbo that he has lost the election and needs to step down." The decision drew a strong reaction from Gbagbo's team, with Yao Gnamiea, his special adviser on diplomatic affairs, calling the finance freeze unfair. "This is a political deadlock, not a governance issue, and I strongly believe the decision is unfair, and uninformed," Gnamiea told Al Jizz from Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire's commercial hub. "Cote d'Ivoire is a nation with its own legal system and institutions, and it will use all the resources it has to solve this problem."

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International-UN-NGOs

World Bank says cost of disasters could rise

2010-11-19

[Dawn] Even without factoring in the impact of climate change, the World Bank and the United Nations, aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society said Thursday annual global losses from natural disasters could triple to $185 billion by the end of the century. The report said the negative impact of climate change could by then add $28 billion to $68 billion a year more in damage from tropical cyclones alone. The 250-page report, "Natural Hazards, Unnatural Disasters: the Economics of Prevention," was released Thursday in Washington. It warns that the number of people exposed to storms and earthquakes in large cities could double to 1.5 billion by 2050. The report suggests a number of measures to prevent death and destruction from natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes and flooding that have ravaged several countries this year from Haiti to Pakistain. Undertaking these measures does not necessarily require governments to spend more, the report says, but to spend better. For example, governments could make information about hazards and risks easily accessible. Schools could serve as cyclone shelters as in Bangladesh and roads could double up as drains as in Malaysia. The report says undertaking preventive a measure does not necessarily require governments to spend more but to spend better. "This report presents necessary evidence and a compelling case for our client countries to reduce their vulnerability to natural hazards," said Robert Zoellick, the bank's president. "We and our (UN) partners stand ready to scale up efforts to assist disaster-prone developing countries."

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Europe

Secretive Bilderberg Club Set For Another Meeting

2010-06-03

Splash! Could that be the sound of Lord Mandelson hitting one of the Dolce hotel's four pools? Or Robert Zoellick of the World Bank? Paul Volcker of the US Economic Recovery Advisory Board? Or merely the euro taking another dive? That is the thing about the Bilderberg group's top secret meetings: you never know quite what is going on behind the police checkpoints. Across the world, secretaries to the rich and the powerful have blocked out the next three days in their bosses' calendars for their annual gathering, this time at the Dolce in Sitges, one of Spain's most exclusive resorts. Normally, every minute of their working lives is accounted for but, each year, a couple of hundred of the world's financial elite and the more business-friendly members of the political class disappear from view; supposedly to save the planet from the dangers of parochialism, the nationalist genie. It is all terribly confidential -- breathe a word about it and you're out of the club -- but the Bilderberg watcher Daniel Estulin claims to have a copy of the agenda. The big question this time around is whether the euro will survive. "They are afraid that the countries in trouble will leave and the euro will fall apart," said Mr Estulin. "The biggest nightmare is if EU members return to nationally orientated policies." That would certainly explain why the keynote address is being given by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister. The Piigs -- Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain -- are of concern to the Bilderbergers. After all, the club was set up in 1954 by a Polish exile, Joseph Retinger, to create a European bulwark against the spread of communism. It provided the germ of the European idea; Franco-German reconciliation, the entry of West Germany into Nato, the Maastricht treaty -- all were cooked up in annual fireside chats. Now, according to Mr Estulin's information, the Bilderbergers are nervous that the erosion of the euro could nudge the world back into recession while public services cuts could trigger unrest and radicalise the political climate. Plenty to talk about at the Dolce, then. The Bilderberg protesters, sure that they can smell a good oldfashioned capitalist conspiracy, will be holding fringe meetings in the town. The hunt will be on to find a chambermaid ready to ransack hotel litter bins for evidence that evil work is afoot. It has been easier to get nuggets of information out of Bilderberg since hotel staff started to read Dan Brown and talk about the illuminati. Could it be, though, that the Bilderbergers are simply having fun, away from their spouses, on their annual jamboree? The secret of Bilderberg could be that there is no secret. Certainly, the hotel offers plenty of distractions for stressed CEOs: qi-gong courses, excellent fish, fine wines and bicycle tours. Henry Kissinger, 87, the former US Secretary of State, and David Rockefeller, 95, the former chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, are the elder statesmen of Bilderberg -- but the leaked invitation list reveals that the gathering is made up primarily of elderly white gents. What? No racial quotas? Better get Obozo in there immediately to straighten things out! Remember Richard Perle, 68, George Bush's erstwhile Prince of Darkness? He could perhaps form a Prince of Darkness sub-group with Lord Mandelson. Paul Wolfowitz, 66, formerly of the World Bank? Mario Monti, 67, EU commissioner for the single market between 1995 and 1999? Only the possible attendance of George Osborne, 39, the British Chancellor, will reassure hotel staff that they are not dealing with a Saga Holidays tour. Other members of this clandestine coven include Queen Sofia of Spain and Queen Beatrix of Holland. No doubt their views will be sought on the Swedish royal wedding later this month. Is it right, for example, that a young princess should marry her personal trainer? Fortunately, the Dolce has a team of personal trainers on hand ready to chip into the debate. Last year Bilderberg held its meeting at the Nafsika Astir Palace hotel in Greece and apparently failed to spot how close their host country was to melting down. Watch out, Spain! The weather forecast is for three days of sunshine -- time for the Bilderbergers to slink out of the shadows.

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Economy

Dollar facing 'power-shift': analysts

2009-10-13

The dollar's position as the world's leading reserve currency faces increased pressure as the financial crisis allows emerging economies greater influence on the world stage, analysts said. A report last week in The Independent claiming that China, Russia and Gulf States are among nations prepared to ditch the dollar for oil trades has heightened the uncertainty surrounding the US currency's future. The dollar slumped against rivals last week in the wake of the British daily's controversial report. "The US dollar is being hurt by the continued talk of a shift away from a dollar-centric world," said Kit Juckes, an analyst at currency traders ECU Group. "Three conclusions stand out very clearly. Firstly, the shift in economic power away from the G7 economies is continuing. "Secondly, there is a growing acceptance amongst those winners that one consequence of this power shift will be to strengthen their currencies. "And finally, as long as the US economy is not strong enough for any rise in interest rates to be conceivable for a long time, the dollar's underlying downtrend will remain in place," added Juckes. The Independent, under the front-page headline "The Demise of the Dollar", reported last Tuesday that Gulf states, together with China, Russia, Japan and France, were considering replacing the dollar as the currency for oil deals. "In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning -- along with China, Russia, Japan and France -- to end dollar dealings for oil," wrote The Independent's Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk. They would switch "to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar," added Fisk, citing Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources. The report was denied by a host of countries, including Kuwait, Qatar and Russia, while France dismissed it as "pure speculation." Even so, the United Nations itself last week called for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy, which had allowed the United States the "privilege" of building up a huge trade deficit. UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Sha Zukang, said "important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the (dollar) reserve currency country's 'privilege' to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity." Zukang was speaking at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, whose President Robert Zoellick recently warned that the United States should not "take for granted" the dollar's role as preeminent global reserve currency. Meanwhile at a G20 summit in Pittsburgh last month, world leaders unveiled a new vision for economic governance, with bold plans to fix global imbalances and give more clout to emerging giants such as China and India. Following the summit, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner repeated Washington's commitment to a strong dollar. But last week the finance chief was left to watch as traders used The Independent's report as an opportunity to push lower the troubled US unit.

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Economy

Obama under fire over falling dollar

2009-10-08

The falling US dollar is giving ammunition to the critics of the Obama administration and fuelling broader concerns about the potential erosion of America’s reserve currency status. The depreciation of the US dollar is sparking growing jitters among critics of the Obama administration over the potential loss of America’s reserve currency status. Economists point out that a declining dollar could prove a boon to the US economy in the absence of credible anxiety over inflation. Republican politicians have highlighted the dollar’s slide as evidence of waning US power. Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential Republican candidate, on Wednesday sought to link the dollar decline to rising US indebtedness and dependence on foreign oil. “We can see the effect of this in the price of gold, which hit a record high today in response to fears about the weakened dollar,” she wrote on her Facebook site. With other nations also expressing concern about dollar weakness, the administration is at pains to emphasise that it understands the responsibilities that come with issuing the world’s reserve currency and will live up to them. “It is very important to the United States that we continue to have a strong dollar,” Tim Geithner, Treasury secretary, said at the weekend. “We recognise that the dollar’s important role in the system conveys special burdens and responsibilities on us and we are going to do everything necessary to make sure we sustain confidence.” Angst about the dollar – which has fallen 11.5 per cent on a trade-weighted basis over the past six months – extends beyond ideological conservative political circles. Last week, Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, warned that “the United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency.” Much of today’s debate echoes the traditional political response in the US whenever the currency depreciates. But it is now accompanied by warnings from America’s creditors, many of which are widely rumoured to be eyeing large purchases of US real assets such as property and companies. While the latest swoon in the dollar is attracting attention, analysts say that it needs to be put in context. In trade-weighted terms, the dollar is essentially back to where it was at the start of the financial crisis on August 9, 2007, according to Federal Reserve data. While the price of gold has gone up, financial market measures of inflation expectations have not. The yield on the 10-year note was trading at 3.18 per cent on Wednesday. Indeed, analysts say that the dollar’s slide stems more from investors’ growing appetite for risk and the prospects of interest rate rises elsewhere. “The first order reason for the decline in the dollar has been the normalisation of markets,” said Ken Rogoff, a Harvard professor and former IMF chief economist. “The financial crisis probably has brought forward the day when the dollar is no longer dominant – but maybe from 75 years to 40 years.”

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

World Bank approves Dead Sea canal plan: Israel

2009-06-28

JERUSALEM - The World Bank has approved a pilot plan for a canal linking the Red Sea to the rapidly shrinking Dead Sea, Israeli Development Minister Sylvan Shalom announced on Saturday. Israeli public radio said the bank will provide 1.25 billion dollars in finance for the project. The initial proposal is for a 180 kilometre (110 miles) channel to transport 200 cubic metres of water, of which half would gush into the Dead Sea and half would feed a giant desalination plant jointly run by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, Shalom’s ministry said. The next stage would see the construction of a canal to supply two billion cubic meters of water a year to maintain and increase water levels in the Dead Sea, which is on course to dry out completely by 2050 if nothing is done. Shalom, who met World Bank president Robert Zoellick in Washington on Friday, said approval from the global institution was a “spectacular” development aimed at relaunching the project. The idea of a link between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the planet, was first mooted several years ago and in December 2006 representatives from Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority ordered a feasibility study. Progressed has been slow because of the stalling of the Middle East peace process. The level of the Dead Sea, a natural site of prime historic and economic importance, has been falling by a metre (three feet) every year, creating major environmental problems.

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Britain

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sees 'new world order' after economic crisis

2009-01-26

BRITISH Prime Minister Gordon Brown says that the current financial crisis should be viewed as an opportunity to create a "new global order", ahead of a week of meetings with world leaders. Speaking in London, Mr Brown - due to meet the leaders of Japan, South Korea and China in the next seven days - renewed a warning against protectionism, urging countries to instead help set "new rules for this new global order". Mr Brown, who will also meet the president of the World Bank, cautioned that if a consensus was not built supporting globalisation, "all our prosperities" would be imperiled. He has previously argued for stronger international co-operation better to regulate financial institutions, and said on Monday that he wanted to work towards better cross-border regulation at a summit of the Group of 20 industrialised and developing countries in London in April. His speech came just days after official data confirmed Britain was in its first recession - defined as two quarters running of negative economic growth - since 1991. "We face a choice. We could allow this crisis to start a retreat from globalisation," Mr Brown said in his speech. "As some want, we could close our markets - for capital, financial services, trade and for labour - and reduce the risks of globalisation, but that would reduce global growth, deny us the benefits of global trade, and confine millions to global poverty. "Or we could view the threats and challenges we face today as the difficult birth pangs of a new global order, and our task now as nothing less than making the transition through a new internationalism to the benefits of an expanding global economy, not muddling through as pessimists but making the necessary adjustment to a better future and setting new rules for this new global order." Mr Brown's spokesman Michael Ellam said that the premier would meet South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo and Japanese premier Taro Aso, as well as World Bank chief Robert Zoellick at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Friday. He is also set to meet Chinese premier Wen Jiabao in London later this week. Mr Brown's Downing Street office said he would discuss with them "how we can best work internationally on financial reform, economic expansion and the creation of jobs in new sectors such as the environment".

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