| Shock for food prices as wheat futures rocket
THE price of wheat on the JSE futures exchange broke through R4000 a ton yesterday to a new record on supply concerns, making increases in the price of bread and other foodstuffs inevitable. After hovering around R3900 a ton for some time, the future prices for delivery in May broke the psychological barrier of R4000 a ton, and the price for delivery in July closed at R4000, although it was as high as R4030 during the day yesterday. Wheat prices have now more than doubled from R1878 a ton a year ago, and further increases are expected. Milling and bread companies warned yesterday that with the steep hike in the price of wheat, further increases in the price of bread were unavoidable.
Obama's Teamster 'Diplomacy'
Barack Obama has pledged to "renew American diplomacy." Except, apparently, when it might interfere with an endorsement from the Teamsters. President James Hoffa bestowed the powerful union's blessing on Mr. Obama yesterday, not so coincidentally only days after the Senator declared his opposition to the pending U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. In a statement inserted in the Congressional Record last week, Mr. Obama said he believes the pact doesn't pay "proper attention" to America's "key industries and agricultural sectors" like cars, rice and beef. Opposition to free-trade deals is now a union litmus test, especially for the Teamsters and Service Employees International Union, which endorsed the Senator last Friday. Try squaring Mr. Obama's views on the FTA with his criticism of the Bush Administration for not negotiating with unfriendly regimes, taken straight from an online position paper: It "makes us look arrogant, it denies us opportunities to make progress, and it makes it harder for America to rally international support for our leadership." Or consider this promise from his Asia policy paper: Mr.
US trading unsettles outlook
AUSTRALIAN shares are expected to be weaker when the market opens this morning after another skittish session in the US. The local market finished in positive territory last week, but more selling on Wall Street on Friday night may again leave Australian investors nervous. "The US market rallied at the end, but it was down sharply for a lot of the day and that will be viewed again negatively by a market that is generally looking for bad news," Equity Trustees head of private clients Shaun Manuell said yesterday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 64.9 points - or 0.5 per cent - to close at 12,182.1 on Friday night while the ASX/S&P500 closed 5.6 points down to 1331.3. With little economic news to digest, investors turned skittish as they reacted to the US Congress approving the new economic stimulus plan worth $US150 billion ($167.6 billion).
Pelosi-Kaufman a big wedding
Based in part on that collection, McCoy has curated his own tribute to Black History Month, a one-day exhibition on Friday at the Senior Citizens Activity Center in Clearlake (Lake County), which is his hometown now. -- Marcus Shelby's original musical score backs Word for Word's production of "Sonny's Blues," a dramatization of James Baldwin's short story. Shelby's music is moving and appropriate, but the most unforgettable tunes of the production are the ones Baldwin imparts, as though you're inside a musician's head. The story is about racism, poverty, striving, but the lingering notes are the author's evocation of getting lost in the music, a drug as addictive as anything Sonny injects. -- Before the beginning of the Gilbert & George press walk-through last week, Fine Arts Museums Director John Buchanan mentioned that he'd been also working with visiting curators from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, with whom he is planning a 2009 show centered on a Vermeer love letter, including many works of Dutch 17th century art.
Bill Gates - You Asked The Questions
I've just emerged from the Microsoft machine, shaken but unscathed. I've interviewed Bill Gates three or four times over a 12 year period, and each time I come out impressed by the sheer professionalism of the Microsoft PR operation but wondering whether we've been successfully spun. This time we tried a new tactic - getting BBC viewers, listeners and readers to ask the questions. We had thousands, covering every aspect of Bill Gates and Microsoft - past, present and future. Over two hundred were seeking jobs, one gentleman was proposing himself as the next CEO of Microsoft, and another wondered whether the secrets of Windows software had been recovered from a crashed UFO. We did not ask that one, but managed to get through around fifteen questions during our allotted fifteen minutes.
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