Showing posts with label asia. Show all posts

SINGAPORE: Oil fell in Asia Thursday as a larger than expected rise in US crude inventories eroded overnight gains sparked by Fed forecasts of a pick-up in growth, analysts said.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in June, fell 10 cents to $104.02 per barrel. Brent North Sea crude for June delivery shed 20 cents to $118.92.

"Oil prices have edged down some... primarily because the market is reacting to the oil inventory report from the US," said Victor Shum, senior principal of Purvin and Gertz energy consultants in Singapore.

"The inventory for crude rose four million barrels, the market expectation was only for 1.5 million barrels," he told.

Over the past four weeks, crude inventories have added 23 million barrels, pointing to slack energy demand in the massive economy.

Crude's price slip came on the back of overnight gains sparked off by Federal Reserve predictions of a gradual pick-up in US economic growth.

Winding up a two-day meeting in Washington, central bank policymakers left the central bank's key interest rate near zero, predicting that economic growth would remain moderate over the coming quarters and then "pick up gradually".

"When they (Fed policymakers) say they are looking for growth to be gradually picking up, that gives you a better prospect for (oil) demand growth," said David Bouckhout at TD Securities. (AFP)

BERRYVILLE, Virginia: A Virginia woman found out on April 7 she won $1 million in a lottery drawing. And then she won again.

Virginia Fike of Berryville, Virginia, had the good luck to buy not one but two lottery tickets from a truck stop that both turned out to be $1 million winners, matching five of the six Powerball numbers. Lottery officials presented her with a $2 million check on Friday.

Fike said she found out that she had won - and won again - while sitting in a hospital room with her mother, according to a statement distributed by the Virginia lottery.

"I saw a scroll on TV about there being two $1 million winners," she said. "I looked at my mom and said ‘Wouldn't it be funny if it was us?'"

She said she planned on using the money to "take care of my parents" and pay bills.

For selling the tickets, the lottery awarded a $20,000 bonus to the Olde Stone Truck Stop.

To win the full Powerball jackpot, which currently stands at $131 million, a ticket must match the numbers on all five white balls in the drawing, plus the red Powerball. The $1 million cash prize is awarded for a ticket that matches the five numbers on the white balls, in any order.

The odds of winning $1 million? One in 5,153,632.65. The drawing takes place every Wednesday and Saturday night.

"I just love the jackpot games and I play when I can afford it," Fike said in the statement. (Reuters)

NEW DELHI: India is to declare tea as its national drink to celebrate the life of a pioneering tea-planter who was hanged by British colonial rulers for taking part in the rebellion of 1857.

Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Saturday announced the decision while on a visit to Assam, the tea-producing northeastern state that borders on Bhutan and Bangladesh.

Assam was the home state of Maniram Dewan, who is celebrated for introducing commercial tea production to the region and for his role in a plot to throw the British out of Assam during the 1857 mutiny.

The uprising, which is often called the Sepoy Mutiny, started in Meerut, a city close to New Delhi, and spread across northern India before being brutally crushed by British forces with many Indian soldiers and civilians killed.

"The drink would be accorded national drink status by April 17 next year to coincide with the 212th birth anniversary of first Assamese tea-planter and Sepoy Mutiny leader Maniram Dewan," Ahluwalia said.

He added that tea should also be celebrated as "half of the tea industry labour comprises women and is the largest employer in the organised sector".

The Asian Age reported that awarding tea the status of national drink may stir up trouble among "naturopaths" who suggest popular Indian beverages such as coconut water, lemon water and yoghurt-based lassi are healthier options.

Tea is generally served in India with milk and plenty of sugar, and often spiced with cardamom.

Coffee, which is grown in the southern states of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, is becoming rapidly more popular among young urban Indians. (AFP)

JEDDAH: A Saudi Arabian man who was jailed for three years in 1997 has spent a further 12 years behind bars waiting for his father to pardon him, a local human rights group has said.

Eid al-Sinani, 43, was originally sentenced to three years in prison and 200 lashes for beating up his step mother, Musab al-Zahrani, a researcher at the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), told Reuters.

However, when the sentence had been served the father asked a judge to keep his son in prison "until he is proven to be righteous by his father". The judge agreed and 12 years later Sinani is still in jail, Zahrani said.

Under the kingdom's Islamic legal system, law is not systematically codified and judicial rulings are subject to individual judges' interpretation of sharia.

Some judges view children's "disobedience" towards their parents as an offence worthy of lashing and even jail sentences.

A spokesman for Saudi Arabia's Justice Ministry, which oversees courts in the conservative Islamic kingdom, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the case.

Rulings in Saudi Arabia are not based on precedent and, even with the same charge, they can differ from one judge to another.

"We are optimistic that he will be released because he has been jailed for (almost) 16 years and there is no real charge… This is legally problematic because they gave absolute power to the father and the son is left under his mercy," Zahrani said.

NSHR is affiliated with the Saudi government. (Reuters)

SINGAPORE: Oil prices edged higher in Asian trade Tuesday on easing concerns about a sharp economic slowdown in China, the world's biggest energy user, analysts said.

However, economic and political uncertainty in Europe capped prices and a weaker euro was helping dampen demand for dollar-priced crude.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate crude for delivery in June was up six cents to $103.17 per barrel while Brent North Sea crude for June gained 14 cents to $118.85 in morning trade.

Oil prices had slipped on Monday following an HSBC purchasing managers' index showing China's manufacturing activity contracted for a sixth straight month in April.

Analysts, however, said there was a silver lining in the data that indicated recovering demand in the world's second largest economy.

The PMI reading was 49.1 in April, up from 48.3 in March, denoting an improvement but no return to expansion just yet. A reading below 50 indicates contraction while anything above 50 shows growth. (AFP)(Geo News)

The Shaan News!
ISLAMABAD: Government has accepted the demand of journalists and appointed a sitting judge of the Supreme Court Justice Saqib Nisar to head the commission for the investigation of the murder of journalist Saleem Shehzad, Geo News reported.

Federal Information Minister Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan on early Thursday development announced that the government has accepted the demand of journalists and announced that Justice Saqib Nisar will now head the commission.

Dr Firdous said that Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has signed the summary to appoint Justice Saqib Nisar as the head of the commission.

Journalists had boycotted the National Assembly and Senate sessions on Wednesday and launched a 24-hour sit-in in front of the Parliament House to protest the killing of Shehzad.

However, after the announcement by Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan the protesting media personnel decided to end the sit-in which was planned to continue till 4pm on Thursday.