President Hugo Chavez

CARACAS, Venezuela,
Feb. 11--President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States in an “economic war“ if Exxon Mobil Corp. wins court judgments to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.
Exxon Mobil has gone after the assets of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA in US, British and Dutch courts as it challenges the nationalization of a multibillion dollar oil project by Chavez’ government, AP wrote.
A British court has issued an injunction “freezing“ as much as $12 billion in assets.
“If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we’re going to harm you,“ Chavez said during his weekly radio and television program, “Hello, President.“ “Do you know how? We aren’t going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger.“
Chavez has repeatedly threatened to cut off oil shipments to the United States, which is Venezuela’s No. 1 client, if Washington tries to oust him. Chavez’ warnings on Sunday appeared to extend that threat to attempts by oil companies to challenge his government’s nationalization drive through lawsuits.
“I speak to the US empire, because that’s the master: continue and you will see that we won’t send one drop of oil to the empire of the United States,“ Chavez said Sunday.
“The outlaws of Exxon Mobil will never again rob us,“ Chavez said, accusing the Irving, Texas-based oil company of acting in concert with Washington.
Exxon Mobil spokeswoman Margaret Ross said the company had no comment. A US Embassy spokeswoman in Caracas did not return a call.
Venezuela accounted for about 12 percent of US crude oil imports in November, the latest figures available from the US Energy Department. The 1.23 million barrels a day from Venezuela makes that country the US’ fourth-biggest oil importer behind Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico.
Oil rose nearly $1 on Monday to match its highest in almost a month, extending last week’s late gains as Venezuela threatened to halt oil exports to the United States and bomb alerts shut down one of Britain’s largest gas fields, Reuters reported.
US light crude for March delivery rose as high as $92.71 a barrel in early trade, matching its recent January 30 peak, the highest point since January 15.
Futures were up 56 cents to $92.33 by 00:53 GMT, while London Brent rose 66 cents to $92.60.

TOKYO, Feb. 11--Group of Seven finance ministers meeting here on Saturday failed to deliver the quick fix that jittery investors had been hoping for to ease the gloom on global markets, analysts said.
They said the absence of any concrete new measures from the G7 industrialized nations to boost economic growth would likely weigh on global share prices and the dollar, AFP reported.
The G7--Britain, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States-- warned in a joint statement after a one-day meeting in Tokyo that “risks have become more skewed to the downside“ in the United States.
They said they stood ready to take further action if needed to tackle slowing global growth but that each country would decide its own policies.
“There is no doubt markets may show some disappointment although we didn’t have high expectations to start with,“ said Hironobu Hagi, a deputy general manager in the capital markets division at Shinsei Bank. “It may be a factor to sell the dollar.“
Analysts said the G7 statement appeared to reflect growing caution about the economic outlook. “In all our economies, to varying degrees, growth is expected to slow somewhat in the short-term, reflecting wider global economic and financial developments,“ the statement said.
But overall the G7 “simply repeated what is common knowledge,“ said Ryohei Muramatsu, head of Group Treasury Asia of Commerzbank in Tokyo. “The market needs a quick fix to address two issues at the same time: the collapse of the financial markets and an economy (in the US) that is headed towards a recession,“ he said.
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he was confident that the US economy would avoid a recession, although growth was likely to slow.
“I believe that we are going to keep growing. If you are growing, you are not in recession,“ he told reporters.
But, in a prepared statement, he said it would “take time to work through the current financial market turmoil“. “As the financial markets recover from this period of stress, as of course they will, we should expect continued volatility as risk is repriced,“ he said.

ZURICH, Switzerland, Feb. 11--Swiss banking titans UBS and Credit Suisse risk losing clients to smaller rivals as annual results next week reveal the heavy impact of the US subprime crisis on their balance sheets.
UBS already said last month it expects its first ever full year net loss due to its subprime exposure, closing 2007 some 4.4 billion Swiss francs ($3.5 billion, 2.75 billion euros) in the red, AFP wrote.
Subprime losses amount to about $12 billion, with the loss of a further $2.0 billion attributable to other aspects of the US housing market, the bank said.
The US economy has been hit by a downturn in the property market that has exposed banks to billions of dollars of losses and caused a general tightening of credit to businesses and consumers, with knock-on effects felt all around the globe.
UBS “has lost the confidence of its clients,“ said a Zurich-based trader who expects a downturn in the bank’s key asset management business.
Funds research agency Lipper said that UBS has seen an 8.4 percent decline in its assets under management in the past six months, while Credit Suisse has seen a 1.9 percent fall.
At the same time, medium-sized Swiss banks such as Pictet and Julius Baer have seen their assets under management rise 11.9 percent and 12.3 percent respectively over the same period.
Julius Baer said on Friday that some of this rise came from “a certain number of new clients,“ without providing further details.
UBS publishes its full results on Thursday, but already has the unenviable status of the third-biggest loser from the subprime crisis, after Citigroup ($21.1 billion in losses) and Merrill Lynch ($19.4 billion).
The bank warned in January that 2008 would be a difficult year owing to the fallout from the subprime crisis and turmoil on global financial markets.
“We cannot, at this time, accurately predict the future development of US residential mortgage markets and therefore the ultimate impact on our positions in subprime mortgage-related securities,“ UBS said in a letter to shareholders.

A businessman watches the video economic monitor at the window of a securities company in Tokyo in this file photo.

PARIS, Feb.11--World stockmarkets lost $5.2 trillion (3.6 trillion euros) in January thanks to the fallout from the US subprime crisis and fears of a global economic slowdown, Standard & Poor’s said Saturday.
“If investors thought the market could only go up, January’s wake-up call pulled them back into reality,“ the independent credit ratings’ provider was quoted by AFP as saying.
Standard & Poor’s said the world’s equity markets lost a combined $5.2 trillion as emerging markets fell 12.44 percent and developed markets lost 7.83 percent to register one of the worst starts to a new year.
“There were few safe havens in January as 50 of the 52 global equity markets ended the month in negative territory, with 25 of them posting double-digit losses,“ said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&Ps.
All 26 developed equity markets posted negative returns in January, with 16 losing at least 10 percent of their value.
The January declines negated all previous market gains, leaving all of the developed markets in the red for the trailing three-month period.
In Paris, the stock exchange lost 12.27 percent over the course of January, 15.27 percent over the past three months, more than wiping out its gains over the last 12 months--down 0.74 percent).
The situation was even worse in London--down 8.85 percent in January, down 16.54 percent for the past three months and down 2.22 percent over 12 months--and in the US, which was down 6.07 percent in January, down 10.78 percent over three months and down 2.42 percent over 12 months.
The story was similar in Japan, where the market lost 4.47 percent in January, 10.31 percent over three months and down 10.44 percent over the past 12 months.
In Germany, in contrast, although the stock exchange lost 13.72 percent in January and 13.84 percent over three months, it was up 13.43 percent over the year.
Equity markets in emerging countries also suffered heavy losses in January, apart from Morocco which gained 10.17 percent and Jordan, which was up by 3.11 percent. Turkey was the most affected with January losses reaching 22.70 percent, followed by China on 21.40 percent, Russia on 16.12 percent and India at 16 percent.
But only Argentina and Taiwan slipped into negative territory for the 12-month period.

KIEV, Ukraine,
Feb. 11--Ukraine’s state gas company was ready to honor a hefty debt to Gazprom if the Russian energy giant dealt with it directly, Kiev said Sunday, even as negotiators headed to Moscow to settle the dispute.
“The public Ukrainian company Naftogaz is ready to honor the totality of its debts on condition that a direct contract is signed with Gazprom,“ Ukraine’s vice-Prime Minister Alexander Turchinov was quoted by AFP as saying in a statement.
His remarks came as Naftogaz negotiators headed to Moscow Sunday to resolve the spat, Turchinov and Ukrainian gas officials said.
Talks between the two sides were expected to take place Monday, Naftogaz says--a day before Gazprom’s threatened cutoff date of gas supplies to Ukraine if Kiev does not settle what it claims is a 1.5 billion-dollar (one billion-euros) payment.
The dispute threatens to overshadow a planned visit to Moscow on Tuesday by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, a pro-western leader who has riled Russia by seeking closer ties with Europe.
Gazprom says it will cut off gas as of 10:00 am Tuesday if the debt--which Turchinov described as a legacy of the previous, pro-Russian government--is not settled.
But Naftogaz says it is not concerned by the threat since it uses exclusively Central Asian gas and claims that the debt was in any case incurred by RosUkrEnergo, a trading company that is 50-percent owned by Gazprom.
Russia and Ukraine have had numerous bitter rows over energy supplies in recent years and a price dispute in 2006 led to supply disruptions across Europe after Gazprom cut off gas to Ukraine.
Ukraine accounts for the transit of almost all of Russia’s gas exports to the European Union.
This time, however, both Gazprom and Naftogaz have emphasized that European energy supplies will not be affected by the current dispute. But the European Commission has nonetheless urged Moscow and Kiev to resolve the row.
In an interview published Saturday, Naftogaz head Oleg Dubina said his company should deal directly with Gazprom and cut out intermediary RosUkrEnergo, a Swiss-registered company that is controlled 50 percent by Gazprom and 50 percent by two Ukrainian businessmen.

MANAMA, Bahrain, Feb. 11--Around 1,300 migrant workers helping to build a luxury coastal development in Bahrain have gone on strike to demand higher wages, a company official said on Sunday.
The workers are employed by the contracting firm GP Zachariades to work on the Durrat Al-Bahrain development in the south of the wealthy Persian Gulf archipelago.
“Around 1,300 workers on the Durrat al-Bahrain project have been on strike since Saturday to demand an increase in their wages,“ the firm’s health and safety chief Abdul Wahed Al-Umran told AFP.
The workers have been confined to their living quarters by police while labor ministry officials try to persuade them to call off the strike, Umran added.
Official figures state Bahrain has approximately 270,000 expatriate workers who are mostly from the Asian sub-continent and employed mainly in unskilled jobs.
Umran said the laborers downed tools after hearing that around 750 workers employed by Almoayyed Contracting Group last week forced the firm to boost their salaries after going on strike for two days. The striking workers on the Durrat Al-Bahrain project earn between 120 and 180 Bahraini dinars ($319 and $478) a month, Umran said.
Durrat Al-Bahrain--the Arabic for “Pearl of Bahrain“--is a multi-billion-dollar residential and commercial development consisting of 15 man-made islands set out in the shape of a necklace.
Workers employed in non-vital sectors are permitted to strike in Bahrain, unlike in other oil-rich Persian Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
International Rights groups have criticized Persian Gulf Arab states for their treatment of migrant workers, on whom they rely to power their booming economies.

MOSCOW, Feb. 11--Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari arrived Sunday in Moscow to sign a deal that would see a large chunk of Iraq’s estimated $10 billion (6.9 billion euro) debt to Russia erased.
The debt began accumulating in the Soviet era and both sides hope the deal will encourage Russian investment in the war-torn country.
“At the previous negotiations in Moscow we agreed on a plan for canceling this debt. We are to sign an accord,“ said Zebari, according to Russian news agency Interfax. “This will open prospects for Russo-Iraqi cooperation in all areas,“ he added.
During a September 2007 visit to Russia, Zebari linked issues surrounding the development of Russian projects in Iraq to the problem of Iraqi debt.
While Zebari refused to specify the total amount of this debt, Russian media has estimated it at nearly $10 billion.
A representative from Iraq’s Moscow embassy, quoted by Interfax, said Sunday the agreement would see the cancellation of 80 percent of the Iraqi debt.
During his visit, Zebari was scheduled to meet Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov as well as Industry Minister Viktor Khristenko.
Russian petrol giant Lukoil is one of the parties likely to benefit from the agreement. In 1997, the company signed a contract worth several thousands of dollars to exploit the large oilfield West Qurna 2, but was then kicked out of Iraq due to disagreements with the regime at the time.

LONDON, Feb. 11--Yahoo has reportedly decided to reject Microsoft’s unsolicited takeover offer. Several newspapers and news agencies say Yahoo’s board was expected on Monday to dismiss the $44.6 billion (£22.9 billion) offer as being inadequate. When it was made, Microsoft’s $31 a share offer was 62 percent above the level at which Yahoo’s shares were trading, BBC reported.
Yahoo’s shares closed on Friday at $29.20, which may suggest doubt that the offer will be successful or that a higher price will be offered.
A source quoted by the Wall Street Journal said that Yahoo’s board would be unlikely to consider anything below $40 per share.
A $40 a share offer would be a 109 percent premium to the $19.18 closing price of Yahoo’s shares the day before the original offer was announced.
Yahoo’s shares have not traded above $40 for two years.
Although its shares have fallen sharply since then, Yahoo’s websites remain among the world’s most popular.
Microsoft and Yahoo have both declined to comment on the reports.
Yahoo is seeking to restart merger talks with AOL as a means of defending itself against an unsolicited bid approach from Microsoft, Reuters reported on Monday.