Zig’s Place Chat and News Late Thursday PM 5-6-21

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butterfly   2021-05-06 15:12  Shafaq News/ Qatar’s prosecutor ordered the arrest of Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al-Emadi to question him over an alleged abuse of power and misuse of public funds, state-run Qatar News Agency reported.

Al-Emadi was named finance minister a day after Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani took over leadership of the country in June 2013, and has held the role since. The prosecutor has launched an investigation, QNA said on Thursday. No further details were immediately available.

Al-Emadi had been a stalwart of the country’s financial system, helping transform Qatar National Bank from a local champion into the region’s biggest lender as its chief executive from 2007 to 2013. He currently serves as chairman of the bank’s board, is president of the executive board of Qatar Airways, and is also on the board of Qatar Investment Authority, the country’s sovereign wealth fund.

More recently, amid speculation that Al-Emadi had fallen out of favor, he was replaced as chairman of the Qatar Financial Centre — a platform through which most foreign financial firms working in the country are registered and among agencies that encourage foreign investment.

Qatar’s dollar bonds held on to most of their earlier gains following the news, with the yield on the security due 2050 down about 5 basis points to 3.4 per cent. The country’s stock market has closed for the weekend. Source: Bloomberg

butterfly  2021-05-06 13:20   Shafaq News/ France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain urged Israel on Thursday to halt its decision to further building of new settlements in the West Bank.

"We urge the government of Israel to reverse its decision to advance the construction of 540 settlement units in the Har Homa E area of the occupied West Bank, and to cease its policy of settlement expansion across the Occupied Palestinian Territories," the European nations said in a joint statement.

"If implemented, the decision to advance settlements in Har Homa, between East Jerusalem and Bethlehem, will cause further damage to the prospects for a viable Palestinian State, with Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and a Palestinian State," they said.   Source: Reuters

butterfly   2021-05-06 09:19 Lebanon’s lights may go off this month because cash for electricity generation is running out, a lawmaker said on Thursday, as the country grapples with a deep economic crisis.

Lebanon’s parliament had approved a $200 million emergency loan to finance fuel imports for power generation in March, but a committee reviewing the loan has yet to approve it.

“We should not forget that starting May 15, gradual darkness will start,” said Nazih Negm, a member of parliament, according to a government statement released after he met the caretaker finance and energy ministers.

The Lebanese have long learned to live with regular power cuts that run for at least three hours a day in the capital and much longer in other areas, because the state’s power plants cannot meet demand. Many people rely on private generators.

But the financial crisis has exacerbated the heavily indebted nation’s problems, as the government struggles to find enough foreign exchange to pay for fuel and other basic imports.

The loan, approved by lawmakers in March, is being reviewed by a constitutional committee, which is studying whether it is lawful. The government resigned after a massive blast in Beirut in August and is now acting in a caretaker capacity.

“We hope that the constitutional committee does not take a month to reach its decision because the situation can’t wait,” Negm said, according to the government statement.

Lebanon usually keeps enough fuel for about two months or so, as it is too costly to hold strategic reserves for longer.

The economic meltdown, the biggest crisis since the end of Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, has fuelled unrest, locked depositors out of their accounts and hammered the currency, which has lost around 90% of its value against the dollar.

Source: Reuters

butterfly   2021-05-06 03:13  Shafaq News / At least 155 million people faced acute hunger in 2020, including 133,000 who needed urgent food to prevent widespread death from starvation -- and the outlook for 2021 is equally grim or worse, a report by 16 organizations said Wednesday, AFP reported.

The report, which focuses on 55 countries that account for 97% of humanitarian assistance, said the magnitude and severity of food crises last year worsened as a result of protracted conflicts, the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, and weather extremes that exacerbated “pre-existing fragilities.”

The 155 million people faced “crisis,” “emergency” or “catastrophe/famine” levels of food needs, an increase of around 20 million people from 2019, it said.

According to the report, two-thirds of the people in those crisis levels were in 10 countries -- Congo, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, northern Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Zimbabwe and Haiti. The 133,000 facing starvation, death and destitution were in Burkina Faso, South Sudan and Yemen.

“The number of people facing acute food insecurity and requiring urgent food, nutrition and livelihoods assistance is on the rise,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote in the forward to the 307-page Global Report on Food Crises.

“There is no place for famine and starvation in the 21st century,” he said. “We need to tackle hunger and conflict together to solve either.”

Arif Husain, the World Food Program’s chief economist, said at a U.N. news conference for the release of the fifth annual report that the biggest driver of food crises is conflict, which accounted for 99 million people in 23 countries facing a food crisis last year.

“Unless we start finding political solutions to conflicts,” the number of people needing humanitarian assistance will keep increasing, he said.

butterfly  According to the report, 40.5 million people in 17 countries faced acute food insecurity last year because of “economic shocks” including the fallout from the pandemic.

First and foremost, Husain pointed to declining incomes as a result of the 255 million jobs lost in the pandemic — “four times more than the financial crisis” in 2008. He also expressed concern that the amount of debt taken on by countries large and small to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus “has exploded.”

Dominique Burgeon, director of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s office in Geneva, said 60% to 80% of the 155 million people facing acute food insecurity depend on agriculture, but last year FAO was able to assist only about 30%.

The report presented some other grim statistics from 2020: 75.2 million children under 5 years old living in the 55 countries were “stunted” in their growth and 15.8 million were “wasted,” or underweight for their height.

In terms of the prevalence of people facing crisis, emergency or famine levels of food needs, the report said Central African Republic, South Sudan and Syria had more than half their analyzed populations at the crisis level or worse, and five countries -- Afghanistan, Haiti, Lesotho, Yemen and Zimbabwe -- had between 40% and 45% of their populations at those levels.

Looking to 2021, the report said, “food crises are becoming increasingly protracted and the ability to recover from new adverse events is becoming more difficult.”

“Conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic, and large-scale economic crises are expected to extend food-crisis situations in 2021, necessitating continuing large-scale humanitarian assistance,” it said.

The report made forecasts based on 40 of the 55 countries, saying those for the other 15 countries weren’t available.

butterfly It said over 142 million people in those 40 countries are forecast to face food crises, emergencies or catastrophes this year. Around 155,000 people are likely to face “catastrophe/famine” through mid-2021 — around 108,000 in South Sudan and 47,000 in Yemen, the report said.

WFP’s Husain said, for example, that providing one single meal per day for a year for 34 million people would cost about $5 billion, saying that the most critical needs are funding and humanitarian access.

“Without that, we won’t be able to save lives,” he said.

butterfly   2021-05-06 03:28 Shafaq News / India accounted for 46% of the new COVID-19 cases recorded worldwide last week and one in four of deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

The surge of the coronavirus in India, including of a highly infectious new variant first identified there, has seen hospitals runs out of beds and oxygen, and morgues and crematoriums overflowing. Many people have died in ambulances and car parks waiting for a bed or oxygen.

Worldwide, 5.7 million new cases were reported last week and more than 93,000 deaths, the WHO said in its weekly epidemiological report. India reported nearly 2.6 million new cases, a 20% increase on the previous week, and 23,231 deaths.

The figures are based on official tallies, so India's proportion could be even larger if, as many experts believe, a large number of cases and deaths are not being recorded there as the system becomes overwhelmed. India accounts for almost 18% of the world's population.

There are signs that India's outbreak is spreading to its neighbours. Nepal recorded a 137% increase in cases to 31,088 last week, while Sri Lanka's COVID-19 outbreak was also growing, the WHO said.

On Tuesday India became the second country to record 20 million infections, after the United States. India's coronavirus deaths rose by a record 3,780 during the last 24 hours, with daily infections rising by 382,315 on Wednesday, health ministry data showed.

PeteV  hey spark  anything new

Sparky ... nothing on the IQD front, as to my knowledge ... baby steps ... 2024 maybe ...

PeteV all good Sparky

Sparky  ... all *'s gonna break out in the Middle East come 9/11/2021 ... you can take that to the bank .... Maliki will be running to Iran for safety ...  ... I'm thinking of going big into crypto's ...... penny stocks ...

PeteV  not me for now

Sparky ... .03 or less, $1,000 each ...... it's a gamble ...... blockchain is rockin' the financial world ...

PeteV  cool as longa as u can spend

Sparky ... and, social media can push up a coin in 3 hours ...... aka " viral " ...

PeteV great

Sparky  ... just playing spyders would make you prosper ... 26,000 last year this time ... 32,000 now ....DJIA ..34,500 +  ... taking off like a rocket ... ... resistance at 34,200 ...

Sparky  ... wait until Uncle Joe pushes through the American Family Plan ... with the assistance of my boy ... Marty Walsh ... new Sec of Labor ...... unemployment will drop to it's lowest in history ... people may be able to achieve the American Dream again ...... without working 80 hours a week ...

Sparky  ... after all, we are supposedly the richest country on earth ... should share the wealth ...

Dave   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zzub5BZbCU

Sparky ... all our underground resourses are ours ... should be an HCL here in the states ... but, that's yesterday ...

Dave  Sparky Wanna retire....but cant go anywhere........

Sparky   Dave ... pack it up and go to Portugal, only bring a change of clothes, then carry on .... and your bank book ...

... a credit card will sufffice ...

Dave  Sparky St Petersberg Russia on my bucket list

Dave  cart before the horse.......

Sparky  ... I also hear Uruguay is nice ...

Dave  Never been to South America

Sparky ... shorts and t shirts ... flip flops with umbrella drinks ... imagine what we'll do when this thing " pops " ...

Dave  nicer car pretty much all i really need......

Sparky  ... that's ok, but dream BIG ! .... bigly ...

Dave Porsche Panamera GTS /Lexus LS 500

Dave  too old to squeeze into those supercars........

Sparky  Dave ... nice to be able to give the keys to a valet, and say " keep it " ...

Dave even better   nice to go to really good restaurant any not look at the price list

Sparky  ... yup, no more price tags ...

Dave no complaints life has been good to me

Sparky ... although, I have always been anti conspicuous consumption ...

Sheila  USE YOUR OWN DISCERNMENT: Nicks Intel Update, May 6, 2021: https://nicksintel.wordpress.com/2021/05/06/05-06-2021-nda/  -- and -- Nicks Podcast "Let's Talk NDA", May 5, 2021, https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-dr255-102c437

Dave   NDA......?????

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