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Gold/Mining/Energy : A Bottom in perishable commodities?/war stocks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (117)	1/2/1999 3:35:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 178

Palestinians Vow To Pursue State Saturday, 2 January 1999 G A Z A C I T Y , G A Z A S T R I P (AP) THOUSANDS OF Palestinians, some masked and firing rifles in the air to celebrate, rallied in the West Bank and Gaza Strip today and vowed to keep up a push for statehood this year. The rallies in Bethlehem and Gaza City were held to mark the 34th anniversary of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, which carried out a bloody armed struggle against Israel for decades before making peace with the Jewish state. In Gaza, about 4,000 Fatah members rallied in an auditorium draped with Palestinian flags and pictures of Arafat. A series of speakers denounced Israel for suspending the Wye River land-for-security accord. "Our battle is a battle of peace, and our hand is extended in peace ... The olive branch is still held high, and we will not drop it," said Ahmed Hilas, the Fatah secretary in Gaza. Israel says it has frozen compliance with the accord because of violations on the Palestinian side. The Palestinians insist they have been adhering to the terms of the agreement. Israel has demanded that Palestinians stop threatening to unilaterally declare statehood in May, but the topic came up again at today's rallies. "Establishing the Palestinian Authority on part of our land proves that the sacrifices of our people from the start of the revolution until today have not gone to waste," said Zakaria Agah, a member of the PLO executive committee, speaking on Arafat's behalf. "This authority is a strong foundation for an independent state, with Jerusalem as its capital." Israel claims all of Jerusalem, the eastern sector of which was captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as its capital. In Bethlehem, marchers in black masks and camouflage fatigues marched through the center of town. Some fired celebratory shots into the air with rifles and pistols. Denunciations of the Israeli freezing of the Wye accord also came at Friday night's Palestinian Cabinet meeting in the West Bank town of Ramallah. The ministers also denounced stepped-up activity by Jewish settlers in Jerusalem's eastern sector. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been encouraging more Jews to build in disputed neighborhoods, and settlers backed by Florida millionaire Irving Moskovitz say they want to begin work soon on another 132 homes for Jews in the neighborhood of Ras al-Amud.

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (117)	1/2/1999 9:45:00 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 178

$100 billion increase in defense spending. -that sounds like something Not a bad pay-off for the Pentagon spending a mere $500 million disposing of some aging Tomahawk missiles during our recent 4 day Iraq free for all, Operation "Free Willy". I need to move back out west. I'm becoming far too cynical for my years. Regards, Ron

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (117)	1/7/1999 8:27:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 178

Remember Reagan's Star War that helped to bankrupt Russia? Was he crazy? Clinton seeks $7 bil for national missile defense 05:46 p.m Jan 07, 1999 Eastern By Charles Aldinger WASHINGTON - Bowing to pressure from Republicans in Congress, the Defence Department announced on Thursday that President Bill Clinton will propose spending $7 billion over the next six years to build a U.S. national missile defence. ''It would protect the whole United States'' from accidental or limited nuclear attack if a decision is made to deploy such a system, Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon told reporters. But he stressed that the programme would be far less ambitious than a ''Star Wars'' defence proposed by former President Ronald Reagan more than a decade ago to protect American cities from massive Cold War nuclear attack. Bacon said the spending plan would be sent to Congress next month as part of Clinton's fiscal year 2000 defence budget and that any decision to deploy such a programme early in the next century would not come until at least next year. ''No decision about deployment (of a national missile defence) has been made. However, there will be money included in the future-year (2000) defence plan, approximately $7 billion, to give us the option of moving toward deployment should that decision be made,'' Bacon told reporters. The spokesman was questioned about a report in Thursday's New York Times that the money would be proposed despite major technical problems in the U.S. military's current efforts to simply protect troops and bases from short- and medium-range ballistic missile attack. The military is working on both a theatre and a national missile defence, but hitting missiles in flight - compared to striking ''a bullet with a bullet'' - has proved extremely difficult. ''Our basic programme is on track, which is to work to develop a national missile defence system that has the capability of providing defence against a relatively small attack,'' Bacon said. Unlike Reagan's ambitious Star Wars proposal, he said, such a defence would protect American cities against an accidental firing by another major nuclear power or an intentional strike by a rogue state. He stressed that no decision would be made until at least 2000 on whether such a missile defence could or should be deployed by 2003. Congressional Republicans, noting that a growing number of countries are developing both nuclear capability and the ability to deliver such a weapon on a missile, are pressing for deployment of not only defences against ''tactical'' limited-range missiles, but also against a long-range attack on America. The Pentagon has spent more than $50 billion in the past decade and concentrated -- with little success -- on developing anti-missile systems that might protect U.S. troops and specific targets from attack. That effort has been burdened by technological and other problems, including five successive test failures of the proposed theatre high-altitude missile defence system (THAAD). The budding national missile defence effort, already being integrated by Boeing Co., faces a key test in June when a dummy missile is to be fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. An interceptor missile will be fired from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands in an attempt to strike the dummy missile. Clinton announced recently that he will seek an additional $12 billion in overall U.S. defence spending for 2000 as part of a $110 billion boost for the Pentagon between then and 2005. It would be the first major increase in U.S. defence spending in more than a decade. U.S. military chiefs have warned that Pentagon budget cuts since the end of the Cold War have badly compromised force readiness, adding that necessary new weapons for the 21st century could not be built without more money. Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. A

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (117)	1/7/1999 8:41:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 178

Oil edges up over $13, gold and hogs gain 06:51 p.m Jan 07, 1999 Eastern NEW YORK, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Oil prices climbed over the $13 level for the first time in six weeks on Thursday as winter storm forecasts and speculative buying overcame indications that worldwide oil supplies continue to be more than adequate. In other commodity markets, hog prices advanced as talk circulated of more government aid programmes for depressed hog farmers. Grain and cotton prices fell back on slower export business, but gold rose as speculators bought. At the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil for February delivery closed 29 cents higher at $13.09 a barrel, after a late surge of buying. ''We moved up on good support around $12.54-$12.55 where new buying came in the technically driven trade,'' said Victor Yu, vice president at Refco Energy Group. The late push in crude also helped refined products, with February heating oil ending 0.06 cent a gallon higher at 35.79 cents and February gasoline 0.43 cent a gallon higher at 38.86 cents. Cold weather in the U.S. Northeast, the nation's top consumer of heating oil, has underpinned product demand this week. But many analysts were puzzled by the gains, saying that a rally sparked by a huge 15-million-barrel year-end drawdown in U.S. crude inventories reported this week had left crude oil markets overbought and ripe for selling. World oil producers also continue to build abundant stocks. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries needs to cut oil output by a million barrels per day to correct the global oversupply, a senior oil analyst said on Thursday. ''OPEC needs to cut about a million barrels per day in its next meeting to redress the supply-and-demand imbalance by the end of the year,'' said Mark F. Lewis, managing director of Energy Market Consultants. Gold prices posted gains on speculative fund buying. A weak dollar has made bullion more attractive for overseas investors, and sentiment was also bolstered by a statement from European Central Bank Vice President Christian Noyer that the new bank would not buy or sell gold to manage its reserve holdings. At the COMEX, February gold closed $3.90 higher at $292.40 an ounce. March silver closed 7.5 cents higher at $5.24. Elsewhere, pork prices continued to recover at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on optimism that the government would soon announce fresh steps to aid hog farmers who have been hit hard in recent months by the lowest prices in 50 years. February hogs closed up the 2.00-cent-per-pound daily trading limit for a third consecutive day at 36.725 cents. February pork bellies were up 1.850 cents at 48.900 cents. Midwest hog supplies to packers this week have been slowed by snowstorms and icy roads, boosting prices. But the government, which has bought more than $80 million in pork since March for food aid programmes, was rumoured to be considering fresh moves to boost prices. These would include cash payments to farmers to eradicate pseudorabies, a swine disease, and efforts to boost hog exports. ''With all this talk of providing help to pork producers, it is adding definitely some emotional fuel to this market,'' said Paul Georgy, president of Allendale Inc., a consulting firm. Field crop prices were hit by lower-than-expected weekly export sales reported for last week by the U.S. Agriculture Department. These included net cancellations of 14,700 bales of cotton and sales of only 425,200 metric tons of corn, both the lowest weekly totals of the current marketing year. Soybean sales were also lower than traders had expected. At the New York Board of Trade, March cotton closed 1.13 cents a pound lower at 58.84 cents, just above its life-of-contract low. At the Chicago Board of Trade, March corn closed 4 cents a bushel lower at $2.19-3/4 and January soybeans 8-3/4 cents a bushel lower at $5.44-3/4. March wheat closed unchanged at $2.87-1/2, as traders awaited results from Wednesday's Commodity Credit Corporation food aid tender for 695,000 metric tons of U.S. wheat. ((Chicago commodities desk(312)408-8720, chicago.commods.newsroom+reuters.com)) Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.