Kathmandu, Nepal (AHN) – Hundreds of Nepalese Gurkha soldiers are expected to lose their jobs in the British army in the defense ministry’s latest round of reduction in military strength.

“As part of further work on defense restructuring the British Army has announced today (17 January 2012) the arrangements for a second phase of Army redundancies,” a statement released by the British Embassy in Kathmandu said.

Around 400 Gurkhas are expected to be made redundant out of the 2,900 positions to be cut.

The Brigade of Gurkhas in the British Army has 3,740 soldiers. They have been the part of the British army for almost 200 years.

The defense review, which was published in 2010, demanded 7,000 job losses, but that figure more than doubled last year as the Ministry of Defense struggled to contain its ballooning budget. The ministry argues that the Gurkha brigade has grown too big in recent years, and is bound to face further cuts.

Opponents of the reduction say the soldiers, who are recruited from Nepal, are an easy target. A “Save the Gurkha” petition has been launched by the same group that fought successfully for the Gurkhas to have the same rights as other soldiers.

The Brigade of Gurkhas has been growing in size since modernization in 2007, which also allowed them to serve for 22 years instead of 15.

According to the British media, around 140 Gurkhas lost their jobs in the first wave of defense cuts last year.

View full post on All Stories

Tehran, Iran David Rosenberg / The Med – Can Europe – or for that matter, the world — live without Iranian oil?

That’s the question as the continent’s leaders gear up to impose an embargo on oil from the Islamic Republic.

While Iran accounts for less than 5 percent of the world’s petroleum production, for many key economies the Islamic Republic’s oil is critical to keeping vehicles and factories running and homes heated. It supplies 11 percent of China and India’s needs and 10 percent of Japan’s. Overall, Europe is far less reliant on Iranian oil, but Greece, Italy and Spain, three of Europe’s weakest economies, depend heavily on Iranian crude.

Nevertheless, analysts are pretty close to a consensus that an embargo can be successfully imposed without creating energy bottlenecks or causing prices to spike.

“The shortfall could be made up with increased production from Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia would be happy to do that because of the tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran. There aren’t two countries — apart from Iran and Israel — that hate each more,” Julian Jessop, chief global economist at London-based Capital Economics, told The Media Line.

But just as important a factor in the supply-and-demand calculation is the likelihood that European demand for petroleum will go down this year as its debt crisis spins into a generalized economic slowdown, said Jessop. “Europe might need less oil than last year because of the recession,” he said.

As U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was making the rounds in Asia to drum up support for sanctions, the Organization for Economic Cooperation Development reported that its composite leading indicators, which point to changes in the direction of the economy, continued pointing to a slowdown in activity in most member countries, notably China and the eurozone.

Oil prices have been rising amid what many observers say are fears that a sharpening war of words between the U.S. and Iran may cross the line into military or other action that would hit oil supplies coming from Iran and/or its Gulf neighbors. But a Goldman Sachs report on Thursday discounted Iran fears and attributed higher oil prices to improved economic prospects in the U.S. and China.

“The market remains focused on the improving economic outlook rather than on the risk that the Iranian tension escalates into a severe supply shortage,” David Greely, head of energy research, said in a note.

The sanctions campaign is gaining momentum amid concerns by Western powers that that Iran is moving closer to acquiring nuclear weapons. Although Tehran maintains that its program is for peaceful purposes, it announced this week that it started to enrich uranium at its Fordo production facility to a level of 20 percent.

On Thursday, Japan became the latest country to line up behind U.S.-led sanctions campaign, saying it would cut imports of Iranian oil. The European Union is scheduled to consider a ban on Iranian crude imports when the bloc’s foreign ministers meet on Jan. 23. U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law at the end of last year measures that block foreign lenders doing business with Iran’s central bank from accessing the U.S. financial system.

Beijing this week turned down a plea by Geithner to cut back, but China has reduced crude purchases from Iran for January and February in a dispute over contract pricing terms. Last year, China purchased close to a quarter of Iran’s oil exports. While analysts say China is interested in getting a better price from Iran, the tactics will cut purchases by about 40 percent for the two months.

The Paris-based International Energy Association estimates that Saudi Arabia has the capacity to produce as much as 12.5 million barrels per day (bpd), about 2.5 million more than it is producing now. That is about equal Iranian export levels, which are approximately 2.6 million bpd.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia’s spare capacity mimics the kind of oil Iran produces, heavy sour crude, so a transition for importers from one supplier to another will not entail any upheavals, analysts said.

The Saudis stepped in to replace an oil shortfall earlier this year when revolution in Libya cut off the North African country’s exports. Riyadh is fearful of Iranian nuclear and military ambitions, and officials have signaled they will do their part in the campaign to stop Tehran.

But Paul Stevens, a senior research fellow for energy at Chatham House, warned that the Saudis may disappoint.

“They have ability to replace it [Iranian oil], but there is question in my mind if they would be willing to replace it,” Stevens told The Media Line. “They will be concerned about upsetting the Iranians. They are deeply suspicious of the U.S. following the way U.S. government ditched Mubarak. I must add that I have some sympathy with that.”

Riyadh was deeply upset when Washington urged Egyptian President Husni Mubarak to leave office after mass protests erupted against his rule nearly a year ago. Like Saudi Arabia’s ruling Al-Saud family, Mubarak had been a key U.S. ally.

A Reuters report on Wednesday cited unnamed Gulf sources as saying that Saudi Arabia is nearing its comfortable operational production limits at 10 million bpd and might struggle to do much to make up for shortages that arise from new sanctions on Iran. But most analysts said the IEA estimate is likely to be correct.

Without Saudi help, the world would be hard-pressed to find enough oil to replace Iran’s, said Stevens. The United Arab Emirates has space capacity of about 200,000 bpd and Kuwait has some as well. After quickly recovering to 150,000 bpd, Libyan production growth has leveled off as its struggles to fix war-related damage.

“In a way, it’s the Saudis or nothing,” he said.

In any case, Europe’s ban on Iranian oil is likely to come into force slowly because Italy, Spain and Greece cannot afford another blow to their already troubled economies. Reuters cited EU diplomats as saying a consensus was emerging that the sanctions would come into force after six months and the petrochemical product ban after three — similar to provisions in U.S. legislation.

“I think the transition would be smooth,” said Capital Economics’ Jessop. “We’ve been talking about sanctions for a long time and there has been time for parties to prepare. They could also in the short-term draw on strategic reserves. The idea that the world will be different from a day before is a bit naive.”

View full post on All Stories

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – First time claims for unemployment compensation benefits during the week ending Dec. 31 dropped by 15,000 from the previous week to 372,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The less volatile 4-week moving average also fell, registering a decrease of 3,250 to 373,250 initial claims.

However, the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate also fell. It dropped by 0.1 percentage point to 2.8 percent for the week ending Dec. 24, the most recent week for which such data is available.

Analysts say the decrease in filing for jobless benefits is a move in the right direction.

The total number of people claiming benefits in all unemployment programs for the week ending Dec. 17 dropped by 8,311 from the previous week to 7,223,203.

The unemployment rate for December was 8.5 percent.

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Dec. 24 were:

• California (+16,490)
• Pennsylvania (+6,764)
• Michigan (+5,632)
• Kentucky (+5,263)
• Indiana (+5,084)

View full post on All Stories

Manila, Philippines (AHN) – A second landslide occurred Thursday in the same southern Philippines mountainside where 13 gold panners were buried by mud in April last year. The latest disaster reportedly killed 25 people after tons of mud buried makeshift homes in a village in Pantukan town, Compostela Valley province.

Rescuers dug up 15 survivors, who were sent to a hospital for treatment of their injuries. More than a hundred remain missing.

Compostela Valley Gov. Arturo Uy told TV station TV Patrol Thursday evening that 18 bodies had been recovered so far.

Inspectors from the military saw from a helicopter that a mudslide 164 foot wide and 492 foot swept over parts of Napnapan village, which is near Kingking village, the site of the earlier landslide. The mudslide was caused by continuous rains that softened the soil in the mountainside, disaster officials said.

Mining authorities and geologists declared Napnapan and Kingking villages as landslide prone areas after last year’s disaster. Local officials subsequently evacuated people living in the areas. However, families of gold panners and miners apparently returned because they depend on the sites for their livelihood.

View full post on All Stories

Washington, D.C, United States (AHN) – It appears that quite a few Americans got pink slips for Christmas.

In the week before the holiday, the number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits rose.

Roughly 381,000 people filed initial jobless claims in the week ended Dec. 24, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That was more than forecast and marked an increase of 15,000 from the prior week when claims dropped to their lowest level since April 2008.

Continuing claims, which include Americans filing for their second week of claims or more, increased 34,000 to 3,601,000 in the week ended Dec. 17, the most recent data shows.

Initial claims tend to be volatile around the holidays, so many economist say not to read too much into the increase. Thursday’s numbers are still well below the level of applications for claims during the same period a year ago.

View full post on All Stories

Nicosia, Cyprus David Rosenberg / The Med – The discovery of large quantities of natural gas offshore Cyprus could give a push for ending the decades-long dispute dividing the island. But it could also end up ratcheting up tensions with Turkey.

Disputes over how to divide the spoils of the eastern Mediterranean Sea’s vast gas reserves have pitted the island state and nearby Israel against Turkey in a war characterized so far by harsh language and stepped up naval activity. But the stakes rose Wednesday after Cyprus announced that an exploration partnership had discovered as much as 8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in its waters.

For Cyprus, the discovery is a bonanza – at current prices, the estimated reserves are valued at $32 billion in an economy whose output came to $23 billion in 2010. And that’s just the beginning: Last month, Cyprus’s government announced a second oil and gas licensing round that will cover 12 of 13 blocks in the ocean south of the island.

Known as Block 12, the field of the discovery announced on Wednesday covers about 40 square miles. It will require additional drilling prior to development, but it was hailed as a “significant” discovery by Charles D. Davidson, chief executive officer of the U.S. company Noble Energy, which led the exploration consortium.

The U.S. Geological Survey last year estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in the Levant Basin Province, to which Cyprus belongs. Israel has already uncovered huge reserves in waters under its control

But to exploit the gas, Cyprus will have to reach an accommodation with Turkey over the future of the island, which has been divided into Greek and Turkish zones since 1974, said Sinan Ulgen, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Brussels. Without an agreement, Cyprus risks a perpetual crisis with its powerful neighbor, he said.

“This raises the stakes for reaching a lasting settlement with regard to the political division of the island,” Ulgen told The Media Line. “For Greek Cypriots, if such a settlement is reached they can comfortably take advantage of these offshore resources. If a settlement is not reached it will always be problematic … Turkey will always try to put up an obstacle one way or the other.”

Although the Greek Cypriot government is recognized as the official one and belongs to the European Union, Ankara backs the breakaway ethnic-Turkish northern part of the island and claims rights to the island’s energy reserves. It has employed its navy to confront Cypriot oil drilling and escort Turkish vessels conducting geological surveys in Cypriot waters.

Greek and Turkish Cypriot sides have held on-and-off peace talks under United Nations auspices for decades. The latest round began three years ago.

Both the rhetoric and the naval muscle-flexing peaked last autumn after the Noble began exploratory activities with a license awarded by Cyprus. Israel became ensnared by virtue of an agreement that Ankara rejects dividing economic rights to the seabed they share. Two Israeli companies are partners with Noble in the Cyprus drilling.

Speaking at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington earlier this month, Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis called Turkey the “neighborhood bully” and said it had become a country that went from advocating a foreign policy of “zero problems” with its neighbors to one of “only problems.”

Nevertheless, tensions gradually wound down after Turkey reached a quiet understanding with the U.S. not to intervene in Cyprus’ exploration activities. But Ulgen said Ankara may be under no obligation to restrain itself now that Cyprus moves out of the exploration phase into developing a gas infrastructure.

“What is still unclear is whether the agreement covers only the first step of exploration or whether it concerns the whole process. The incentive on Turkish side would be to try to hinder this process, to show to Greek Cypriots that settlement on the island would be beneficial to Greek Cypriots as well,” he said.

A rising economic and military power at a time when the U.S. and Europe are in retreat in the Middle East, Turkey is in position to make use of its navy, said Eric Grove, director of the Center for International Security and War Studies at Britain’s University of Salford, said in an essay in World Politics Review this month. “Turkey’s current naval fleet is not only significant but also pre-eminent among those of local actors.”

But James Dorsey, senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said he is doubtful that Turkey would use it, pointing out that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stepped back from possible confrontations with Israel over its blockage of the Gaza Strip and with Syria over its deadly crackdown of rebels.

“I would not be surprised if there would be more acrimony over where the maritime border line is and what is the Turkish Cypriot stake in this,” Dorsey told The Media Line. “Whatever bluster you have out of Ankara, it is clear that the Turks are gun-shy. I’m not saying that negatively. But this is not the OK Corral for them.”

But even the diplomatic route for Turkey presents a problem because Cyprus is due to take over the European Union rotating presidency in the second half of 2012, which will strengthen Cyprus’ hand. “Cyprus having the EU presidency for six months is a problem for the Turks. It’s going to be six months when Turkey will have a problem putting forward its issues,” Dorsey said.

View full post on All Stories

New York, NY, United States (AHN) – U.S. stocks rose Thursday following news that the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits hit a 3 1/2-year low.

Just after the opening bell on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 40 points, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 6 points and the NASDAQ advanced 18 points.

Initial jobless claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 364,000, the Labor Department reported, reaching the lowest level since April 2008.

The data shows that the labor market is showing strong signs of gains. The improving jobless situation softened the blow from a separate report from the Commerce Department revealing that gross domestic product grew at a 1.8 percent annual rate in the third quarter. Growth had previously been reported to have expanded at a 2 percent pace.

Despite the tepid pace of economic growth in the third quarter, it is a step up from the April-June period’s 1.3 percent pace.

Additionally, although the rest of the world is slowing down and a mild recession is forecast in Europe next year, the U.S. economy remains resilient. Households continue to spend, home building is picking up and factory output is expanding, putting the U.S. economy on course for at least a 3 percent growth pace in the fourth quarter. That would be the fastest pace in 18 months.

Commodities were mixed in morning trading. Oil was up 47 cents at $99.14 a barrel and gold was down $3.80 at $1,609 a troy ounce.

View full post on All Stories

Jakarta, Indonesia (AHN) – Indonesia’s defense ministry announced Wednesday it has signed a contract with South Korean shipbuilder Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering (DSME) to construct three submarines for the Indonesian navy.

The ministry’s Defense Facilities Agency chief, Maj. Gen. Ediwan Prabowo, and DSME president and CEO Nam Tae-sang signed the contract in Jakarta with South Korean ambassador Kim Young-sun, South Korean defense attaché Col. Cheol Moo-dae and officials from the Indonesian Defense Ministry, Indonesian Military and Navy headquarters as witnesses, according to the ministry.

Under the contract, worth a total $1.1 billion, DSME will build two submarines together with Indonesia’s state-owned shipbuilder PT PAL. The third submarine will be built in PT PAL’s yard in Surabaya.

Each submarine will be 200 feet long, weigh 1,400 tons and powered by diesel engines. It can accommodate 40 sailors and will be fitted with eight tubes for launching torpedoes and missiles.

The submarines are scheduled to be completed and delivered in 2018.

DSME won the submarine contract in a bidding that involved French, German and Russian rivals.

View full post on All Stories

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Initial filings for jobless benefits during the week ending Dec. 10 fell by 19,000 to 366,000 claims, the lowest level since May 31, 2008, according to the Labor Department.

That was welcome news, although it is not sufficient to affect the official unemployment rate of 8.6 percent.

Last week 385,000 jobless Americans filed first time unemployment claims.

Although jobless claims dipped below the 400,000 mark before, analysts are hopeful that they will stay below that critical mark now, which would signal a long-awaited recovery in the jobs sector of the economy is underway.

However, the unemployment compensation program does not cover many Americans. The insured unemployment rate was 2.9 percent for the week ending Dec. 3, the most recent week for which such figures are available from the Labor Department.

The less volatile four-week moving average was 387,750, a decrease of 6,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 394,250, the Labor Department said.

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Dec. 3 were in:

• California (+27,780)
• North Carolina (+15,427)
• New York (+14,048)
• Pennsylvania (+13,634)
• Georgia (+11,144)

View full post on All Stories

Nahal Oz, Israel Arieh O’Sullivan / The Me – After a volatile weekend of rocket fire and air strikes, a senior Israeli military commander warned on Monday that a military incursion against the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip is inevitable.

“I think that we can’t avoid another confrontation,” said Col. Yonatan Branski, deputy commander of the Gaza Division. “There are a lot of weapons inside the Gaza Strip. There are terror groups and they try to hit civilians. They do it all of the time. Just in the past days we have had 39 rockets and mortar shells fired into Israeli territory trying to hit Israeli civilians. Of course, that’s something we cannot [allow]. I guess there will be a confrontation. When and where exactly I can’t say.”

Speaking at the spot where Palestinians fired a rocket into a yellow school bus in April, killing one student, Branski told foreign reporters that the three years since Israel’s last incursion into the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead were used by Hamas to double its arsenal and bolster its forces.

“Our duty as an army is to be ready all the time for every kind of operation. If there’s an escalation we are ready for it and we know exactly what to do and where to hit the Hamas and the other terror groups in the Gaza Strip,” he said.

The latest flare up erupted last Thursday after an Israeli air strike assassinated the leader of a terrorist group who had dispatched a squad to attack Israel. Palestinians retaliated by firing salvos of rockets into cities in southern Israel. Most of those rockets hit empty areas and one was intercepted by the new Iron Dome anti-rocket batteries.

Quiet returned by Monday morning and farmers were back in their fields bordering the Gaza Strip, home to some 1.2 million Palestinians. The flare-up came at a time when the economy in the coastal zone is flourishing. Ironically, this could be the result of Israel’s blockade, which it imposed after Hamas seized control of the enclave from Fatah in a bloody coup in 2007.

After Israel barred exports, tunnels that had once been used to smuggle weapons from Egypt became the main conduit for commercial merchandise. According to Palestinian figures, unemployment has fallen to 25 percent, compared with 45 percent just three years ago. There is currently a building boom underway and even skilled construction workers are hard to find.

“There are not enough skilled workers in Gaza right now, can you believe that,” said one senior Israeli military official involved with the Palestinian economy. The official indicated with frustration that Hamas had used the Israeli policy to slowly gain control over the Gazan economy.

Israel changed its policy 18 months ago – after nine Turks died in a botched operation by Israel to prevent them from breaking the blockade – and started to allow more items into Gaza as well as agriculture exports out to Europe through Israeli ports. In 2010, the Palestinians exported 400 tons of strawberries, cherry tomatoes and flowers.

Currently some 4,187 trucks from Israel and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority cross into the Gaza Strip per month, generating an annual trade of about $1 billion. Conversely, another $1 billion in goods comes in through a clandestine network of more than 1,000 tunnels running under the Egyptian-Gaza border.

“Hamas is gaining in strength and also the Islamic Jihad,” said a senior Israeli commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They’ll never be strong enough to be a serious contender against the Israeli Defense Forces, but right now they are 100 percent more ready than before Cast Lead,” he said.

The army assessment is that Hamas wants quiet to prevail until at least the conclusion of a prisoner release later this month. The release is the second phase of a prisoner exchange that began in October with the return of Israeli hostage Sgt. Gilad Shalit for 479 Palestinian prisoners. Israel is to release another 550 Palestinians in the coming weeks.

While Israel pulled out from the Gaza Strip in 2005, it didn’t completely disengage from its economy and over 95 percent of the enclave’s trade remained with Israel. But when Hamas took over two years later it began to accelerate the disengagement and to look to the Arab world in general and Egypt in particular as its natural trade partners.

“Hamas is leading Gaza in the direction which we see will lead it to dire straits,” said the Israeli officer closely involved with Palestinian trade. He repeatedly warned that Hamas’ “very aggressive and autocratic” rule was edging out private businesses and taking over the economy. It has replaced 70,000 civil service workers of the Palestinian Authority with 40,000 of its own and is investing heavily in military build up.

“Gaza is moving away from Israel and toward Sinai and Egypt. The markets are over stocked and everything is available in Gaza. Whoever says there is a blockade there is not in touch with reality,” the officer said. “In its mind, Hamas sees itself connected to the Arab economy and disconnecting from Israel.”

The problem, the officer explained, is that Egypt is much poorer than Gaza and there is no demand for Gaza produce in Egypt. Also, water and electricity are two areas that Gaza has failed to develop to keep pace with its rapidly growing population.

The officer said because Islamists have been in power since 2006, he views Gaza as five years ahead of the Arab Spring countries, like Egypt and Tunisia, which are only now electing Islamists. He warned that Islamist rule bode ill for these countries.

“They [the Gazans] are now paying the price of an Islamic extremist government in control,” he said. “I’m not sure if elections took place now that Hamas would do as well as it did in 2006. Hamas is creating a lot of antagonism in Gaza and sowing the seeds of future problems.”

“The reality in Gaza is that Hamas is not addressing the general needs of the population and they will at a certain stage become a critical problem for Hamas. It is putting Gaza on a collision course with the population,” he said.

“The Hamas regime is driving Gaza people to a calamity and not providing the needs the street wants. The people of Gaza know that they must be connected with Israel. There is no other way. We are waiting for a change of heart in Gaza,” the senior Israeli officer said.

View full post on All Stories