It was a good while it lasted… Copper falls from 5 month high

Copper prices rose to their highest in nearly five months on Friday, but slipped as doubts grew about the strength of real demand from manufacturers, particularly in China. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange traded at $3,995 a tonne in official rings, down from an earlier $4,168, the highest since Nov. 10. The metal used in power and construction closed at $4,085 a tonne on Thursday.

A major reason behind the price rise is the flow of copper to China, the world’s largest consumer, in recent months. But analysts say most of it is heading for consumer or government stockpiles and does not mean real demand is picking up.

“We’re still seeing Chinese buying…I’m assuming most of this buying is going into stockpiles at the moment,” David Wilson, analyst at Societe Generale, said.

Click here to access this article in its entirety

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Qatar Airways considering flights South America

The Gulf Times, one of the better English publications from the region in my opinion reported that Qatar Airways had expressed a “keen interest” in flying to a South American city. Emirates already flies to Sao Paulo, so Qatar Airways would be the second major carrier from the region to establish this new, strategic route.

Ibrahim Mohie El-Din a representative of the League of Arab States at the second Arab – South American Business Forum in Doha, explained that direct air links between the regions would boost bilateral trade. Easing visa restrictions would also enable businessmen and tourists to fly between these emerging blocks frequently.

Click here if you want to book a round trip ticket from Sao Paulo to Dubai for that dream vacation you’ve always wanted! Only $1900 for a round trip ticket right now, without fees!

$1913 Roundtrip
10:35 am Depart Dubai (DXB) Arrive Sao Paulo (GRU) 6:30 pm	Sat 30-May Duration: 14hr 55mn	Emirates 261 Nonstop flight

Wow airfare is definitely down…

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Taiwan loosing ground in Latin America

The election of left-leaning Mauricio Funes in El Salvador is not about to cause the country to dismantle private property laws, retreat on free trade or any of the other major fears associated with left-wing politics.

Funes will however finally move El Salvador from Taiwan’s speed-dial to that of the People’s Republic of China (the Mainland).

Taiwan maintains official diplomatic relations with roughly 23 countries around the world, a good handful of which are in Central and South America. Taiwan has typically been able to maintain these relations thanks to “money diplomacy.”

China may be a huge economy, but by and large it is still relatively poor and filling the void of billions of Taiwanese aid $’s hasn’t been on the top of China’s agenda, especially for the countries that have bananas to offer in terms of commodities (instead of metals or energy).

Experts seem to think Taiwan’s best bet is to attempt to achieve some type of “dual recognition,” meaning acknowledging the coexistence of both the PRC and the Republic of China on Taiwan. Making for “two Chinas” or “one China, one Taiwan” stance.

Hey Taiwan! I love you and think your country is a wonderful place and you have all the right to fight for what you believe… but common’ get real.

As you can see in this previous post, when the PRC visits leaders in Africa and Latin America one of the first courteous gestures is to emphasize the given countries dedication to support the the PRC’s “one China” policy.

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Good weekend reading: South-South Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean, ways ahead following Accra

This 6-page Spanish document aims to analyze the opportunities and challenges of South-South cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean.

South-South Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean: Ways Ahead from Accra

Below I have copy and pasted the opening of the document. Click the link above to download the PDF to your desktop. It’s only 6 pages and not a bad read. Enjoy.

South-South cooperation has gained prominence in global development policies as a result of its inclusion in the Accra Agenda for Action, the September 2008 agreement which reinforces the aid effectiveness principles of the Paris Declaration. This opens up an important forum for encouraging South-South cooperation as a mechanism for horizontal learning and for promoting the development of national capacities. However, strengthening South-South cooperation at the conceptual and operational levels still poses major challenges, as does improving the measurement of its scale and impact.

Looking to the new task team on South-South Cooperation within the Working Group on Aid Effectiveness (WP-EFF), the following pages aim to analyze the opportunities and challenges of South-South cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean. As a region containing countries with numerous similarities in their political and institutional history and patterns of social and economic development, Latin America and the Caribbean constitutes a privileged environment where a number of shared agendas are already evolving. However, the operationalisation of South-South cooperation within the framework of the Accra Agenda for Action and the Paris Declaration also faces a series of specific circumstances1 that future political decisions and analytical work need to address in concrete ways.

The ideas expressed in this document stem from the joint reflections of two researchers from the Colombian organization Enlaza and the European think tank FRIDE, respectively. The analysis has benefit ted particularly from bilateral talks with Latin American and European experts over the past three months, on the one hand, and a workshop held on 6 March 2009 in Bogota, on the other. Both authors wish to express their deep gratitude to all interviewees for sharing their vision on South-South cooperation, which is increasingly important to Latin America and the Caribbean.

María Clara Sanín Betancourt, Nils-Sjard Schulz of FRIDA
— Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior

About FRIDE
FRIDE is a think tank based in Madrid that aims to provide the best and most innovative thinking on Europe’s role in the international arena. It strives to break new ground in its core research interests of peace and security, human rights, democracy promotion, and development and humanitarian aid, and mould debate in governmental and non-governmental bodies through rigorous analysis, rooted in the values of justice, equality and democracy.

FRIDE seeks to provide fresh and innovative thinking on Europe’s role on the international stage. As a prominent European think tank, FRIDE benefits from political independence, diversity of views and the intellectual background of its international staff.

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Positioning your energy in the global market – Russia to supply more oil to China

The two will find strength in working with one another.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov told reporters in China that “Russia is fully capable of becoming the biggest energy supplier for China in the upcoming 15 years.”

Zhukov made the remarks at the annual China-Russia Investment Forum and stressed the two nations should work together in many areas, but that energy cooperation was especially important and should be expanded.

The financial crisis has definitely affected the two nations. Russia being especially hard hit because of declining oil revenues and China because of plummeting demand for exports.

Nevertheless, the two BRIC countries have managed to a strengthen their level of economic and trade cooperation. Last month, China agreed to loan Russia $25 billion in exchange for 300 million tonnes of oil through pipelines to China from 2011 to 2030.

A new pipeline is already well into the planning stages from Russia’s Skovorodino in its far-eastern Amur region to China’s northeastern city of Daqing.

In 2008, China ranked as Russia’s second largest trading partner behind the European Union. On the flip side, Russia came in as China’s 9th largest trading partner, down 2 spots from 7th in 2007.

Volatile markets, record high commodity prices followed by record drops in prices mixed with separate agendas in both countries may have hindered the growth of bilateral cooperation in the past.

With two very different economies and complementary attributes, Sino-Russian Cooperation will continue to grow. Russia has the fuel and resources which China need to develop. China has the cheap manufactured goods Russian’s are learning to love. More importantly, China also has the cash Russia needs to finance it’s growth.

The two will find strength in working with one another.

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Jim Rogers says Geithner is smokin the rock’

Jimmy tells it how it is…

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Brazil’s Petrobras may want a piece of Iraq

Look out old giants. Petrobras may end up competing with one U.S and two European companies looking to secure the rights to develop Iraq’s Nahr Bin Umar oil field, reported a senior Iraqi official involved in the talks.

“Petrobras had carried out studies on Nahr Bin Umar during the 1970s and the Oil Ministry may invite it for negotiations,” the official said. Earlier this week, an Iraqi oil official said Baghdad had invited a consortium of Total SA and Chevron Corp. to compete against StatoilHydro ASA and a fourth company which he didn’t name.

Click here to read more about this development from the Dow Jones Newswires, courtesy of Rigzone

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Yahoo Widgets Lend Brains to Boob Tube – WSJ

If you missed this article about Yahoo’s new widget engine you should definitely take a moment to read a bit about.

The idea… Take all those people around the world who are sitting on their couch watching TV with their laptop on. Surfing the net, youtubing, twittering, facebooking, etc. Or those kids who are on their I-Phones text messaging the world and checking out some pics someone uploaded to their Picasa while their family is eating dinner with the TV on in the background. Note… you might not be able to relate too much to this if you’re not from the US, where we love to watch TV during dinner.

Basically Yahoo is capitalizing off that basic idea of combining the most common things people do on the Internet in multi-tasking mode. People will be able to social network, wikipedia things, google, youtube and more. Yahoo has designed some great widgets to facilitate the process and also help it generate some add revenue. So it might not be the worst idea in the world to pick up some shares of yahoo either.

Although as you can see the stock doesn’t have the most stellar appeal because of its still relatively high trading price considering the state of this current market. Nevertheless, the fact Yahoo has held up considerably well in this downturn while fighting off take-over bids from MSN and Google, is something worthy of mention and thinking about.

In other words, Yahoo is not going anywhere. If it does get bought out by some bully, it won’t be on the cheap. This offers shareholders some security in knowing their investment will not suddenly evaporate–which is a legitimate concern these days.

Here’s a excerpt from the Wall Street Journal article:

Your television set may be the most expensive, eye-catching piece of electronic equipment in your home, but compared to a computer with Internet access, it’s just a dumb box. With their low-tech IQs, TVs encourage a lot of family-room multitasking: While watching the big screen TV, lots of people are looking away to surf the Web with the computer on their lap or the mobile device in their hand.

…

If you’re reading this and thinking that Internet on the TV has been tried before with limited success, you’re right. For years, companies have designed external boxes that bring some form of the Web to your TV. These include Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox, Apple Inc.’s Apple TV and some features of TiVo. But the Yahoo Widget Engine differs from these boxes in two ways. First, Yahoo’s widget system works simultaneously with your TV programming, so you don’t have to turn off the college basketball game to pull up a news story about a star player. Second, it will include widgets with video content that directly compete with live programming.

…

With a few steps, snippets of information, or shortcuts, can be created for certain widgets, like Yahoo Weather and Finance, to save you from opening the widget to see more details in a left-side panel. I created a Yahoo Finance snippet for McDonald’s stock so I could see this stock’s status at the bottom of my screen without opening the Finance widget. People who have Yahoo accounts can synchronize their account settings with the TV, such as stocks saved in Yahoo Finance.

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China_South America: News and Analysis: Yahoo Widgets Lend Brains to Boob Tube – WSJ

China_South America: News and Analysis: Yahoo Widgets Lend Brains to Boob Tube – WSJ

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AlJazeera sheds light into how the economic crisis is hitting China

As the global economic crisis worsens and Chinese exports shrivel, thousands of factories are closing and already 20 million Chinese workers have lost their jobs. Is the global financial downturn creating potential political and social unrest in China?

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