The Star Online: Business
The Star Online: Business |
- Rajaratnam's prison date changes to Dec. 5
- Asia faces rocky road in securing energy needs
- Australia new home sales lowest in a decade
| Rajaratnam's prison date changes to Dec. 5 Posted: 31 Oct 2011 05:55 PM PDT NEW YORK, Oct 31 (Reuters) Convicted hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam will report to prison on Dec. 5 to begin serving his 11year prison sentence for insider trading, a U.S. judge ruled on Monday, extending his liberty by a week. Rajaratnam, 54, had previously been scheduled to go to prison on Nov. 28. No reason for the change was given in a written order by U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell. The judge imposed sentence on Oct. 13 after the Galleon Group multimillionaire founder was convicted in May by a federal jury on 14 criminal charges of insider trading. Sri Lankanborn Rajaratnam was the central figure in a broad government crackdown using FBI phone taps. His lawyers have asked the Federal Bureau of Prisons to send him to a facility in Butner, North Carolina, where his health problems, including complications from diabetes, can be treated. It is the same prison where epic swindler Bernard Madoff, 73, is serving a life sentence for running a decadeslong investment fraud of tens of billions of dollars. The case is USA v Raj Rajaratnam et al, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 0901184. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Asia faces rocky road in securing energy needs Posted: 31 Oct 2011 05:50 PM PDT SINGAPORE, Oct 31 (Reuters) Governments in emerging Asian economies will struggle to secure their rising energy needs as rapidly swelling demand in leading consumers China and India outpaces growth in supplies, which is likely to keep oil prices over $100 a barrel. High fuel costs for importers are threatening their economies as they grapple with rising subsidy bills and inflation. The fuel burden, with oil imports costing around 5 percent of gross domestic product, is weighing on economic growth, said Richard Jones, deputy executive director of the International Energy Agency. "It's particularly sensitive in emerging markets, India is a country that has got a particularly high oil burden, they import a lot," Jones said. The rise in prices has been partly blamed on the growing energy appetite of Asian nations. China, the world's secondbiggest economy, has driven oil demand growth for a good part of the past decade. India is also competing to secure scarce energy resources for its billionplus people. The global economy needs to see lower prices, Nobuo Tanaka, former head of the International Energy Agency, said. "If $100 oil continues, it will be as bad as 2008," Tanaka told the Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) conference. Brent prices have averaged over $111 a barrel so far this year, sharply up from an average of around $80 in 2010. The front-month contract hit a high of $147.50 in July 2008, just ahead of the global financial crisis of that year. Brent at over $100 would cut global oil demand by around 1 million barrels per day (bpd) from what fuel consumption would be at a price of $70 to $80 per barrel, Tanaka said. That would slice more than 1 percent from total world fuel consumption. Brent will average $106.80 per barrel next year and $108.60 in 2013, a recent Reuters poll of 35 analysts showed, as demand for fuel from China and other emerging economies keeps the global oil market tight. The burden of high energy costs on growth contributed to the sharp slowdown in the global economy in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. High prices led to such a sharp slowdown in fuel demand that oil producer group OPEC was forced to make record output cuts. The oil minister for the United Arab Emirates did say producers can tolerate a further fall in oil prices to $80$100 a barrel, the first indication of a preferred price range from a Gulf Arab producer since OPEC talks collapsed in June. High oil prices would help guarantee future supplies, UAE oil minister Mohammed bin Dhaen alHamli said, by encouraging more investment in crude production capacity, which would mean less volatile prices. "We need a reasonable price to continue building capacity," Hamli told the conference. "The higher the capacity, the less fluctuation in prices." The UAE, one of three Gulf OPEC producers with spare capacity, is pumping at 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) from capacity of 2.7 million bpd, Hamli said, having upped output to help meet a supply shortfall from Libya. The Arab Spring and the disruption to Libya's oil output have added to the difficulty policy makers face as they search for secure oil supplies. "The recent spate of unrest in the Middle East and North Africa has generated doubt over the reliability of energy supplies from the region," said S Iswaran, minister in the Singapore Prime Minister's office. "These events have caused increased volatility in energy markets and prices, heightening the policy challenge of governments to secure reliable and affordable energy supplies to sustain growth." Oil prices are not expected to decline in the longer term, the CEOs of two major oil companies said at the conference. "Oil prices will not come down for quite a long time," said Shell CEO Peter Voser, while Petrobras Chief Executive Jose Gabrielli said he didn't see a reason for a price decline in the next 5 to 10 years. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Australia new home sales lowest in a decade Posted: 31 Oct 2011 05:46 PM PDT SYDNEY, Nov 1 (Reuters) Sales of new homes in Australia fell by 3.5 percent in September to the lowest monthly reading in almost a decade, an industry survey showed on Tuesday. The Housing Industry Association (HIA) said its survey of major builders showed sales were the lowest since December 2000, while sales for the entire third quarter dropped 14 percent. Sales of detached new houses fell 3.3 percent in September, while multiunit sales dropped 5.5 percent. "The figures highlight the present soft conditions facing new home building and reinforce the importance that the Reserve Bank Board calls it right today by cutting interest rates," said HIA acting chief economist Andrew Harvey. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) holds its monthly policy meeting on Tuesday and many expect it will cut its cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.5 percent, the first easing since April 2009 Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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