Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alex who wrote (23716)	12/2/1998 6:08:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116756

Full story FOCUS-Palestinian attack draws Israeli ultimatum 05:03 p.m Dec 02, 1998 Eastern By Danny Gur-arieh JERUSALEM, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Israel served Palestinians an ultimatum on Wednesday that could scuttle implementation of the latest Middle East peace deal after a Palestinian mob assaulted two Israelis in the West Bank. A government statement said Israel would cede no more land to the Palestinian Authority until its leaders promised not to declare a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip next year. The statement, issued after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu consulted members of his security cabinet, also said Palestinians must agree to Israel's terms for the release of prisoners from Israeli jails. ''Israel will carry out the next stage of the withdrawal only if...the Palestinian Authority announces clearly that it is abandoning its intention to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state,'' the statement said. Israel agreed in an accord signed in Washington in October to hand over another 13 percent of the West Bank in three stages. It was already carried out the first stage. The language was the toughest Israel has used since the Wye accord was reached. Palestinians quickly rejected the ultimatum. ''This is completely unacceptable,'' said top Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat. He told Reuters he had asked for intervention by the United States, which has mediated in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, ''to stop this Israeli policy of preconditions.'' The attack on the two Israelis, a soldier and a civilian, took place near Ramallah during a student protest against the detention by Israel of Palestinian political prisoners. Dozens of Palestinians pelted their car with stones when the Israelis drove past the site of the protest, shattering the windows and forcing the vehicle to a halt. The civilian fled as the mob closed in on the car. Palestinians pulled the soldier from the vehicle, grabbed his rifle and beat and kicked him while he crouched on the ground. He sustained a slight head injury. Palestinian security officials later traced the gun and returned it to Israel. Netanyahu's communications chief David Bar-Illan said the violence was ''instigated by the Palestinian Authority,'' pointing to remarks by top Palestinian officials calling for confrontation with Israel. The fate of Palestinian ''political prisoners'' has been at the centre of Israeli-Palestinian wrangling since the Wye deal was signed. Israel agreed at the talks to free 750 Palestinians in three stages but terms of the release were not included in the agreement nor in accompanying letters. Palestinians say those released must be political prisoners -- Palestinians jailed for fighting against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including members of the Islamic militant Hamas group. ''Israel will carry out the next stage of the withdrawal only if the Palestinian Authority makes clear that it is committed to the agreement reached at Wye based on which prisoners with blood on their hands will not be released nor will Hamas members,'' said the government statement. Israel freed the first 250 prisoners last month but angered Palestinians by including 150 common criminals. Bar-Illan said earlier that Netanyahu had written to U.S. President Bill Clinton on November 30 citing ''major areas of violations'' by Palestinians of the peace deal. He said the letter accused Arafat of violating undertakings to negotiate a permanent peace by saying he would unilaterally declare an independent state when the period set for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate that deal expires on May 4, 1999. In East Jerusalem, hundreds of Palestinians clashed with Israeli police during the funeral of a 41-year-old Palestinian stabbed to death earlier in the day in an attack police said may have been the work of a Jewish serial killer. Witnesses said Israeli forces responded to a hail of stones with teargas and rubber-coated bullets. Several people were wounded in the violence, including two television cameramen. Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.

To: Alex who wrote (23716)	12/2/1998 7:29:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116756

IMF admits controls could be a bulwark By Joanne Gray, Washington A chink has appeared in the once impermeable armour of the International Monetary Fund. It has conceded that controls on short-term capital flows can be useful, contradicting the policy stance of the United States, its most influential member. The IMF's assistant research director, Mr Charles Adams, said at an IMF seminar in Washington that there was "a case" for "Chilean-type taxes on short-term capital inflows" because the financial sectors in many emerging economies were not strong enough to withstand massive capital withdrawals. However, he said such controls should be part of broader measures aimed at strengthening prudential regulation, liquidity and risk management. "Against that background a Chilean-type tax may play some role," Mr Adams said. But he added that there would be strong incentive to avoid such a tax. Mr Adams' comments also back a recent IMF study which concluded that a tax on short-term capital flows could prevent bank runs, and through this channel, could increase the expected returns of investing in emerging markets. The enormous costs of the economic crisis in Asia have caused a sustained bout of navel-gazing at the IMF. It appears to have accepted some responsibility for worsening the crisis by imposing excessively deflationary monetary and fiscal regimes on the stricken countries, whose economies have plunged into recession. The IMF relaxed its strict adherence to tough fiscal and monetary regimes in subsequent rescue negotiations. The World Bank has already concluded that taxes on short-term capital inflows may reduce the risk of financial crises, and a growing number of advocates in Australia, (including Reserve Bank governor Mr Ian Macfarlane), Japan and France argue that such controls would be useful. The US however, has not ceded any ground on the issue. The Treasury Secretary, Mr Robert Rubin, said in October that capital controls were not the remedy for the financial crisis. But a recent IMF working paper found that by imposing a tax on short-term capital inflows, a government could prevents bank runs, thereby reducing the costs of withdrawing from emerging markets. It assumed a tax that was inversely proportional to the length of the stay of the inflow. "A large international bank is more prone to invest in any particular emerging market if it knows the liquidity conditions in that market do not create obstacles to eventual disinvestment," the study found. Such a tax could reduce the vulnerability of an emerging market to financial crises, increase the total volume of funds entering the country and improve the expected returns of investments, it found. At the IMF seminar Mr Adams said that as the crisis evolved and spread to Russia and threatened to embrace Latin America as well, an important question was being asked. "Are there features of the system . . . that contribute to the difficulties over and above the problems of individual countries? This questioning is part of this process of trying to prescribe cures. "What we have at the moment is a system in which many emerging markets have begun to participate in international capital markets. We have simultaneously some very mature, sophisticated financial markets, strong financial infrastructures, strong financial systems. "In an ideal world one might have imagined one would perhaps have seen less capital flow into some of these emerging markets, given all the problems that have subsequently been noted," Mr Adams said. "But capital did flow. So we got ourselves into a system where we had the flows of capital before we had all the supporting infrastructure and financial strength, and perhaps before it was possible for this capital to be digested efficiently. So we had a problem there. We didn't have all the elements of crisis management there." afr.com.au