Baosteel Says Steel Prices Are Close to Output Costs (Update2)

Baosteel Says Steel Prices Are Close to Output Costs (Update2)
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By Helen Yuan

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Baosteel Group Corp., China’s largest steelmaker, said prices are close to its production costs, indicating that the country hasn’t had a “real” demand recovery.

Baosteel is “cautious” about the demand outlook, Wang Jing, the company’s general manager for international trading, said in an interview in Beijing, while attending the National People’s Congress.

Benchmark steel prices in China jumped 46 percent between November and February on optimism that the government’s 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) stimulus package would revive metals demand. The price recovery was because of traders replenishing inventories, Wang said today.

“Demand hasn’t had a substantial recovery, but output rose faster because of higher prices,” Wang said. “Our prices are on the verge of production costs.”

Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., the listed unit of Baosteel, dropped 1.8 percent to 5.49 yuan in Shanghai trading at 1:21 p.m. local time.

Chinese steelmakers may have to cut output by 20 percent, Shougang Corp., the eighth-largest mill, said yesterday. More than 60 percent of the mills in China are making losses, the China Iron and Steel Association said last month.

Baoshan was profitable in January and February, and will probably make money this month based on orders received, Wang said. Baoshan cut April prices, the first drop in three months, by as much as 5.3 percent, according to Mysteel Research Institute on March 3. Baoshan’s prices are still above market rates.

Price Cuts

“If we gave our prices a one-time cut to match the market levels, we’re afraid that would hurt the market confidence,” Wang said.

The government’s stimulus plan may increase steel demand by 50 million metric tons, Wang said, citing industry estimates. She didn’t give details. Still, the stimulus probably won’t have much impact on Baosteel because its products are used in consumer goods like cars and appliances, rather than in construction, she said

The government is planning to build infrastructure projects, such as railways and ports, to support an economy hurting from slumping exports.

The worst may be over for Chinese automakers as their inventories are now lower than in the fourth quarter, Wang said. Steel demand for shipbuilding may take longer to recover because of the global recession, she said.

Baosteel plans to export 10 percent of its production this year, similar to 2008, she said, without giving details.

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Credit Suisse Resort Loans Default From Beverly Hills to Idaho
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By Anthony Effinger and Daniel Taub

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- To Jean-Pierre Boespflug, French- born developer of a ski resort in the Idaho outback, the $250 million loan from Credit Suisse Group AG was too good to pass up.

Dealmakers from the Swiss bank’s Los Angeles office arrived to pitch Boespflug on the unorthodox loan in 2006, just when his Tamarack Resort was lining up financing for its base village beneath newly cut ski trails.

Unlike regular construction loans, which dole out enough money to complete one project at a time, this one would let him build several clusters of homes and condominiums at the resort simultaneously. The loan would cover just a portion of the development cost. The idea was that proceeds from selling units in one building would be used to finish the next, and so on. As long as the homes and condos sold, Boespflug would be fine.

“It was like putting candy in front of a 4-year-old,” Boespflug, 54, says. “It looked like a dream.”

Boespflug signed the documents in May 2006. Credit Suisse collected its fee and sold the loan to a syndicate of investors it had lined up. Mutual funds run by Morgan Stanley’s Van Kampen Funds Inc. unit bought the loan when it was made, or shortly after, according to regulatory filings.

Then the real estate market went south, and sales at Tamarack slowed. In December 2007, just 19 months after taking the Credit Suisse loan, Boespflug missed a $5 million payment.

Tamarack is one of at least eight high-end projects in the U.S. West, Florida and the Caribbean financed by Zurich-based Credit Suisse that are either in default or in bankruptcy.

CLOs

Those failures reverberate in the financial system because Credit Suisse sold loans to investors who, in turn, put them into mutual funds or packaged them into securities called collateralized-loan obligations.

CLOs are similar to the collateralized-debt obligations that banks crafted out of subprime residential mortgages: bundled securities that are divided into tranches, each of which has a different credit rating and interest rate.

Both CDOs and CLOs paid interest that often exceeded that of conventional bonds. Both were popular when real estate was hot, and both are hurting now as the loans inside them go bad.

Many banks matched borrowers with eager investors during the real estate boom. Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second- largest bank, was unusual in that it made big loans -- $250 million to $675 million each -- and because it almost cornered the market on syndicated loans to posh developments such as Tamarack, says Joseph Snider, senior credit officer at Moody’s Investors Service, which rated the projects for a fee so that Credit Suisse could sell the debt.

Fat Fees

Many of the loans, which earned the bank millions of dollars in fees, were made out of Credit Suisse’s Los Angeles office and were then sold to investors by a group of Credit Suisse bankers in New York.

The Swiss bank has had extensive operations in the U.S. ever since it acquired a majority stake in New York-based investment bank First Boston in 1990. It then bought investment bank Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette Inc. for $13.4 billion in 2000.

In February, Credit Suisse reported a record loss for 2008 of 8.2 billion Swiss francs ($7 billion), in part because of its exposure to toxic U.S. real estate-related debt.

In its quest to loan money to the ski- and golf-resort operators, the bank was unusually aggressive.

“Usually, bankers don’t come to you; you go to them,” says Boespflug, a former executive at computer networking company Cisco Systems Inc. who taught skiing at Lake Tahoe on weekends when he worked at technology companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. “They came to us with a very fancy PowerPoint presentation.”

Luxe Loans

The list of Credit Suisse loan clients is synonymous with luxury: $375 million went to the Yellowstone Club, a private ski and golf resort in Montana; $540 million to Lake Las Vegas resort, a 3,592-acre (1,454-hectare) golf community in Nevada; $275 million to Promontory, a high-end ski enclave in Utah; $400 million to Turtle Bay Resort, a beach development in Hawaii; and $675 million to Ginn Resorts in Celebration, Florida.

Arranging the loans paid well. Credit Suisse made $7.74 million in fees from the Yellowstone loan alone, according to court documents.

Credit Suisse bankers in New York sold the loans to syndicates of investors at mutual funds, insurance companies and hedge funds. Babson Capital Management LLC, a Boston company that manages $108 billion, and its affiliates owned $40 million of the Yellowstone loan at one point, according to a list of owners obtained by Bloomberg News.

‘Potent Machine’

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation held $1.8 million, according to the list. The Microsoft Corp. founder and his wife are members of the Yellowstone Club.

“It was a potent machine that they had,” Snider at Moody’s says. “And it worked for a while.”

Most of the projects got going in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when real estate prices soared, prompting developers to build extravagant resorts. The Yellowstone Club installed ski lifts to serve small clusters of homes, at great expense.

When Yellowstone declared bankruptcy in November, it listed among its assets a trove of pricey furniture and baubles, including two winged griffins, sculpted from marble, that Yellowstone bought for $19,250.

Some of the developments were in remote locations and thus were likely to attract only the most adventurous condo buyers. Tamarack is 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Boise, up a two- lane road, and has no commercial air service.

Investors Aplenty

Even so, Credit Suisse had no trouble finding buyers for the loans. The Tamarack and Yellowstone loans were fully subscribed, meaning that Credit Suisse found investors for all of the debt.

Credit Suisse’s Los Angeles office is located in Fox Plaza, a 34-story tower recognizable to film buffs around the world as Nakatomi Plaza, the fictional high-rise taken over by terrorists in the 1988 Bruce Willis movie “Die Hard”.

Until late 2005, the point man on many of the loans was Jeff Barcy, now 39, who has both a bachelor’s degree and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University. He’s listed as the first investment banking contact in the “pitch book” sent to potential investors in the Yellowstone Club loan.

Barcy appears to have been well paid for his work. He left Credit Suisse in late 2005 to become chief executive officer of Hearthstone Inc., a real estate investment firm in San Rafael, near San Francisco. When he moved north, he bought a house in nearby Tiburon for $3.3 million, according to property records.

Troubled List

Barcy listed the projects he financed at Credit Suisse in a biography that appeared on Hearthstone’s Web site: Yellowstone Club, Lake Las Vegas, Promontory and Turtle Bay Resort.

Barcy, who left Hearthstone in October 2007, didn’t answer e-mails or return phone calls to his home.

Boespflug says the lead banker when he took his Tamarack loan was Arik Prawer, who is now a Credit Suisse managing director. “These were young technocrats,” Boespflug says. “The bosses were not there. They were not at the table.”

Prawer didn’t return phone calls and e-mails seeking comment. Credit Suisse spokesman Duncan King says Prawer and others who worked on the loans decline to comment.

Boespflug says Prawer and his colleagues solved a persistent problem in the development business: having to start the borrowing process all over each time you want to erect another building.

The hitch in the Credit Suisse loan was that it didn’t include enough money to finish the entire project, forcing the borrower to pay for much of the development with proceeds from unit sales, Boespflug says. If sales slowed, which seemed a remote possibility in 2006, Tamarack wouldn’t have the money it needed to finish the buildings.

‘Monster’

The other hitch was that because of the revolving feature of the loans, they required a huge pile of difficult-to- comprehend spreadsheets and terms. “They had the best of intentions, but they created a monster,” Boespflug says. “Nobody could see the consequences of a 2-foot-thick pile of documents.”

Today, the consequences are clear: Tamarack closed for business this week. A receiver took over after Boespflug and his co-owner, a Mexican industrialist named Alfredo Miguel Afif, defaulted. Six buildings in the base village remain incomplete, as are a cluster of townhomes. They now stand sealed from the wind and snow.

All of the resort projects that Barcy lists in his bio are hurting, and all fell apart after the credit markets started to freeze up in mid-2007.

Fast Declines

Lake Las Vegas borrowed $540 million in June 2007 to refinance an earlier, $570 million Credit Suisse loan and went bankrupt in July 2008. The Yellowstone Club borrowed $375 million in September 2005 and declared bankruptcy in November 2008. Promontory took $275 million from Credit Suisse lenders in 2005 and was forced into bankruptcy by its creditors in March 2008. Turtle Bay, owned by Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management through an affiliate called Kuilima Resort Co., borrowed $400 million in September 2005 and went into default in December 2007.

Barcy’s resort projects have another feature in common: In each of them, Credit Suisse allowed the developers to give themselves millions of dollars as distributions or loans, according to Snider at Moody’s.

Some of those distributions went to people with spotty credit histories. Tim Blixseth and his wife, Edra, the founders of the Yellowstone Club, declared bankruptcy in Oregon in 1986 when Tim’s timber business faltered. The trustee in charge of that bankruptcy, Eric Roost, sued, saying they failed to report all of their assets.

Money for Founders

Even so, Credit Suisse not only gave the Blixseths a $375 million loan; it also allowed them to take $209 million of the money “for purposes unrelated” to the Yellowstone development, according to Credit Suisse’s agreement with the club.

Cyclist Greg LeMond, an early member of the club and an investor there, says Blixseth and his wife used most of the money to buy houses and cars and failed to share the distribution with other investors, LeMond included. LeMond sued in 2006, and Edra Blixseth settled the case when she took ownership of the club last August after a divorce from Tim.

The club still owes LeMond $13.5 million of the $39.5 million settlement, according to a filing by LeMond in Montana state court in Virginia City.

The generous distributions didn’t matter to investors who bought the Credit Suisse loans because real estate prices were going up, and as long as they did, there would be enough collateral to back up the loans, Snider says. “Real estate was going through the roof, and people were looking for yield,” he says. “And this was good yield.”

Coupon

The Tamarack loan, maturing in 2011, had a coupon of 8 percent, according to the annual report for the Van Kampen Dynamic Credit Opportunities Fund, which owned it as of July 31. Some investors milked that yield by blending the loans into CLOs, which are divvied up into tranches. The riskier tranches carried higher interest rates.

Aladdin Capital Management LLC, in Stamford, Connecticut, for one, folded its Yellowstone debt into a series of CLOs and sold them to investors. Aladdin and other firms collected fees for managing the CLOs and often kept a stake in them, hoping to profit as interest from the loans poured into the pool.

Sandelman Realty CRE CDO I, a collateralized-debt obligation put together by New York hedge fund Sandelman Partners LP, had its credit rating cut by Fitch Ratings Ltd. in January, in part because it owned some of the Yellowstone Club loan.

Repeat Buyers

Some buyers came back again and again. The Van Kampen Senior Loan Fund is one of at least four funds at New York-based Morgan Stanley that own loans arranged by Credit Suisse.

As of July 31, the end of its fiscal year, the Senior Loan Fund held a Ginn loan with a principal amount of $13.9 million and a value of $5.24 million, and Lake Las Vegas loans with principal amounts of $5.16 million (written down to $1.03 million), $1 million (unchanged) and $602,000 (written down to $120,370).

The fund also held a Tamarack loan with a $3.96 million principal amount and a value of $2.62 million; a Yellowstone loan with a $6.15 million principal amount, cut to $5.21 million; and a Kuilima/Turtle Bay loan for $4.49 million, valued at $542,624.

Since the Senior Loan Fund’s July annual report, Ginn and the Yellowstone Club have gone bankrupt, further reducing the value of the loans. Tamarack is closed, and Turtle Bay is under the control of a foreclosure administrator.

Loan Load

The Van Kampen Senior Income Trust owned slices of the same loans in different amounts. The Van Kampen Dynamic Credit Opportunities Fund disclosed in its July 31, 2008, annual report that it held loans made to Ginn Resorts, Kuilima/Turtle Bay, Lake Las Vegas, Promontory and Tamarack.

Phil Yarrow, manager of the Van Kampen Senior Loan Fund, declined to discuss the loans, saying, “I’m really not allowed to make comments about individual holdings.”

Spokeswoman Erica Platt said Van Kampen had $109 million of debt from Credit Suisse’s resort projects in the three funds, representing just 2 percent of the three funds’ $5.2 billion of investments as of Jan. 30.

The Van Kampen Senior Loan Fund fell 49 percent in 2008, including reinvested dividends, while the Credit Opportunities Fund dropped 50 percent.

As of Sept. 30, the Morgan Stanley Prime Income Trust owned loans to Ginn Resorts, Kuilima/Turtle Bay, Tamarack and Yellowstone. It fell 35.1 percent in 2008, including reinvested dividends.

Invesco Ltd.’s AIM Floating Rate Fund was another repeat customer. It owned loans to Ginn, Lake Las Vegas and the Yellowstone Club as of Aug. 31, according to regulatory filings. BlackRock Inc.’s Debt Strategies Fund owned a piece of the Yellowstone loan as of the same date.

Nothing Sinister

One buyer of the Yellowstone Club debt who spoke on condition that he not be named says there’s nothing sinister about the Credit Suisse deals. The whole real estate market is in trouble, he says, and fledgling developments like Tamarack need constant real estate sales because they don’t generate enough cash to survive without them.

“It has nothing to do with there being something flawed about Tamarack or something wrong with the Yellowstone Club,” the buyer says. “Everything was overheated. There was too much debt on everything.”

The Credit Suisse loan machine didn’t neglect urban luxury real estate. In April 2007, the bank arranged a $365 million loan to CPC Group Ltd. to buy 8 acres of land on Wilshire Boulevard in the opulent heart of Beverly Hills, California.

High Price

CPC was founded by Christian Candy, who along with his brother, Nick, develops luxury properties via London-based Candy & Candy Ltd. They planned to build a hotel, condominiums and stores on the site.

The price was the highest ever paid in North America for a development site where zoning variances were still being sought, according to the seller, closely held New Pacific Realty Corp. in Beverly Hills. A notice of default was filed with the Los Angeles County Registrar’s office in October, just 18 months after Credit Suisse arranged the loan.

Another project that went into default before a brick was laid was a hotel resort in Las Vegas with an Elvis Presley theme. In July 2007, Credit Suisse arranged $475 million in loans for FX Real Estate & Entertainment Inc. to refinance the 18-acre piece of property. In November, FX said it was in default because the value of the land had dropped so much that it violated the covenants of the loan. Another company controlled by FX founder Robert Sillerman owns rights to images of Presley and boxer Muhammad Ali.

Tuscany in Nevada

Among the biggest of the Credit Suisse-backed projects is Lake Las Vegas, an Italian-themed resort 20 miles east of Las Vegas in Henderson. The development surrounds a private lake and boasts a palm-fringed golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus. There’s a Tuscan-themed Ritz-Carlton hotel there, complete with a replica of the Ponte Vecchio bridge in Florence.

The resort has been in the planning stages for four decades. In the 1960s, an actor named J. Carlton Adair bought the land and tried to build “Lake Adair.” He went bankrupt in 1972, according to The New York Times. Several more developers gave it a try during the next two decades.

A builder named Transcontinental Corp., backed by billionaires Sid and Lee Bass, bought the property in 1990. Transcontinental built three golf courses, a Ritz-Carlton and hundreds of houses.

15 Bathrooms

Transcontinental borrowed $570 million through Credit Suisse in May 2005 to expand the resort and then refinanced that loan with another for $540 million two years later, in June 2007. The good times were still rolling then. One of the largest homes at Lake Las Vegas, a 20,000-square-foot (1,858-square-meter) villa with 9 bedrooms, 15 bathrooms and 2 elevators, sold for $10 million in February 2007, according to Clark County property records.

Then the Nevada real estate market collapsed. Sales at Lake Las Vegas slowed. Banks foreclosed. One house, a three-bedroom on Via Salerno with views of the golf course, sold for $820,000 in June 2005, a month after Credit Suisse made its first loan. The same house is now being offered by a bank for $348,900, according to the listing agent.

Atalon Group, a company led by Frederick Chin that specializes in financial turnarounds, took over development of Lake Las Vegas after Transcontinental defaulted.

Bobby Ginn

Credit Suisse’s boldest move may have been convincing investors to take a chance on Edward Robert “Bobby” Ginn III. In the 1980s, Ginn took control of Hilton Head Co. and Sea Pines Co., the original developers of Hilton Head and the largest owners of undeveloped land on the island, a resort and retirement community off the coast of Ginn’s native South Carolina.

The company Ginn put together, Hilton Head Holdings, racked up debt in the course of construction and then struggled as the economy soured and the savings-and-loan crisis hobbled his lenders, Southern Floridabanc SA and Intercapital Savings, according to the book “Profits and Politics in Paradise” (University of South Carolina Press, 1995) by Michael N. Danielson. Both got into commercial lending after Congress deregulated their industry.

Hilton Head Holdings filed for bankruptcy protection in 1986, as did Ginn himself in 1988. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. sued Ginn that same year, alleging that he’d repeatedly borrowed money from small banks, often with help from corrupt bankers, and then funneled it to himself and others with no intention of paying off the loans.

Silverware, Wine

In one instance, Ginn’s La Coquille Investment Co. borrowed $25 million for a project in Palm Beach, Florida, the FDIC said in a complaint filed in South Carolina Bankruptcy Court.

“Defendant Ginn did not reasonably anticipate that the project could be developed to pay off even a substantial portion of the indebtedness,” it said.

In addition to cash, Ginn and others took silverware, wine and other property from La Coquille, the FDIC said.

Ginn denied the allegations in an answer to the FDIC’s complaint. Ginn spokesman Ryan Julison declined to comment on either Ginn’s Hilton Head or more recent projects.

“He was hated on Hilton Head. He was despised on Hilton Head,” says Robert F. Anderson, a Columbia, South Carolina, attorney who was the trustee on the Hilton Head bankruptcy. A common bumper sticker on Hilton Head Island back then read “Honk if Bobby Owes You.”

Anderson remembers Ginn as “very charming” and an “excellent salesman” whose “failures were tied directly to the collapse of the S&Ls and banks” in the 1980s.

Second Chance

Anderson says Ginn, now 60, rebounded from the Hilton Head collapse. He says he wasn’t surprised Credit Suisse took a chance on him even with his past high-profile failure.

“Isn’t that the whole American idea?” he says. “You stick your neck out, you get it whacked off and then you turn around and try right again.”

Ginn started his new company, based in Celebration, in 1998. Credit Suisse arranged a total of $675 million in loans to Ginn in 2006, according to credit rating company Standard & Poor’s. He and his partners planned to take a $333 million distribution, also known as a return of capital, according to Snider.

According to S&P, Ginn used the remainder to develop five properties: Tesoro, a gated community in Port St. Lucie, Florida, with two golf courses, one of which was designed by Arnold Palmer; Quail West in Naples, Florida; Hammock Beach River Club in Palm Coast, Florida; Laurelmor, a community under development in Boone, North Carolina; and Ginn sur Mer, a resort on Grand Bahama Island, the Bahamas.

Bad Timing

Ginn’s timing was as bad this time as it was in the 1980s. The company missed principal and interest payments due on June 30, 2008, according to S&P. Several of its affiliates filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection -- that is, liquidation -- in West Palm Beach, Florida, in December.

Sales at the developments “have been severely affected by ongoing economic pressures and the drastic downturn in the real estate market,” Ginn said in a court filing.

“As far as I know, it’s all market driven,” says Drew M. Dillworth, the Miami-based trustee assigned to sell off Tesoro and Quail West. “What you’re reading about South Florida is very true. Our market is just unbelievable.”

Any money investors made on the Credit Suisse loans is being eaten up by fees paid to attorneys like Mark Chehi of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, who flies to Montana regularly to try to wring some money out of the Yellowstone Club and Edra Blixseth.

‘Enormous Burden’

Other creditors say Credit Suisse put the club on course for bankruptcy when it made the loan and let the Blixseths take a huge chunk of it for themselves.

“The loan enriched the Blixseths (who took most of the proceeds) and Credit Suisse (which earned a seven-figure fee, plus interest),” the creditors say in a complaint against Credit Suisse filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Montana on Tuesday. “But it saddled the Yellowstone Club with an enormous burden -- a debt for which it received almost no benefit.”

Credit Suisse says the suit has no merit.

Boespflug and Afif of Tamarack didn’t distribute any money to themselves out of their Credit Suisse loan, according to Snider. Boespflug says all he wanted to do was build his resort, quickly. Credit Suisse obliged.

Boespflug blames himself for the fiasco. “I could have said no to the loan,” he says. “It looked so good, though.”

Real estate and anything associated with it looked good to just about everyone in 2006. Credit Suisse earned fees making loans, investors earned high yields on the CLOs and project developers got financing. Some, like Blixseth and Ginn, even got cash back. Now, the only profits from Credit Suisse’s more than $3 billion in resort loans are going to bankruptcy lawyers.

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Israel Sees Energy Independence in Natural Gas Offshore Fields
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By Tal Barak Harif and Susan Lerner

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- For the first time since the country was founded in 1948, the reality is sinking in that Israel may be able to take care of its own energy needs with a natural gas field off the coast of Haifa.

Noble Energy Inc. discovered a field that may hold 5 trillion cubic feet of gas, enough to supply half of Israel’s demand for the next 20 years, said Amit Mor, chief executive officer of financial consultants Eco Energy Ltd. Delek Group Ltd. and Avner Oil Exploration LP said they won 12 three-year licenses to explore sites adjacent to the find this week. Israel doubled the offshore area licensed for exploration since 2003.

Gas may flow from Noble’s Tamar find within three years, reducing the need for oil and coal imports from as far away as Mexico, Norway and Russia. Shares of Avner Oil and Delek, partners with Houston-based Noble, more than doubled in Tel Aviv trading since the field was announced in January.

“The new find deeply decreases Israel’s dependence” on energy imports, Mor said. The benefit to companies such as Israel’s Electric Corp., which can burn either natural gas or oil to run power stations, “of not needing an alternative energy source sums up to tens of billions of dollars in the next 20 years,” he said.

Israel, which imports 85 percent of its energy, has explored for resources since the 1950s with little success. About 400 onshore and 25 offshore wells have been drilled, according to the Ministry of Infrastructure. The average cost onshore is $5 million per hole, while offshore it’s $60 million, the ministry said.

Ashkelon Field

The country’s only domestic gas source now, located offshore Ashkelon in the south, will dry up early in the next decade, the Infrastructure Ministry forecasts. That field, with reserves of about 848 billion cubic feet, was the biggest find in the country before Tamar.

BG Group Plc, the Reading, England-based oil and gas explorer, ended negotiations to sell Israel reserves off the Gaza Strip’s Mediterranean coast last year, citing differences over price. Talks were previously halted on concern the Hamas Islamic movement that controls Gaza would get some of the funds because the Palestinian Authority owns 10 percent of the rights.

Shares of the partners in the Tamar prospect have surged, pushing the benchmark TA-100 Index 5.4 percent higher since the start of the year, compared with a 21 percent drop in the MSCI World Index. Noble is down about 10 percent along with the broader market.

Shares Surge

Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva’s Delek, which owns 16 percent of the find through a unit, has more than doubled in Tel Aviv trading this year, after being the second-worst performer in the benchmark in 2008. Isramco Negev 2, with a 29 percent interest, has quadrupled since the discovery announcement, while Avner Oil, with about 16 percent, has added 55 percent. The MSCI World Energy Index dropped 13 percent.

Delek Drilling LP, the energy explorer owned by Delek, and Avner were awarded the licenses to explore at the Ruth and Alon sites near Tamar.

The awards bring the total of Israel’s offshore area that has been licensed for oil and gas exploration to more than 50 percent, according to the Infrastructure Ministry. It was 23 percent in 2003.

“They finally have a valuable asset in their hands,” said Yuval Zehira, the head of research at Israel Brokerage & Investments Ltd. in Tel Aviv.

Estimates of 5 trillion cubic feet of gas are almost four times Israel’s proven reserves of 1.28 trillion cubic feet at the end of 2007, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Energy Importer

The discovery may not eliminate Israel’s energy imports and needs more study before its true value is known.

“It’s still too early to figure out what is out there as it takes a long time to understand what is the true magnitude of the discovery,” said Gal Luft, the executive director of the Potomac, Maryland-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. “The initial signs are encouraging but my experience is that until you really know the extent of the resource, you can’t make forecasts.”

Israel has relied on imports since it became a state in 1948. Concerns about supplies haven’t disappeared since 1973, when Arab states led by Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. In response to U.S. support of Israel during the war, Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries embargoed sales to the U.S.

During Israel’s 22-day conflict with Hamas two months ago, Iran called on Arab nations to stop oil supplies to countries that supported the Jewish state. No embargoes followed.

More Important for Israel

“It’s always good news to find oil or gas, but it’s much more important for Israel because of its political situation in the Middle East,” said Francis Perrin, an analyst at the Paris- based Arab Petroleum Research Center. “It’s very important to be as self-sufficient as possible.”

“Having our own Israeli gas resources is something that we have dreamed of for generations,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an e-mailed statement on Feb. 26 following a meeting with Noble Chief Executive Officer Charles Davidson.

During the past five years, Israel has moved to increase its use of cleaner-burning natural gas, which amounts to 15 percent of local energy consumption. The country expects gas to provide 40 percent of its energy needs in the next decade, with 50 percent coming from coal and 10 percent from renewable sources such as solar and wind.

Israel signed a supply accord with Egypt in 2005 to boost imports, and deliveries of gas started in July last year.

Egypt Contract

Egypt, which now supplies Israel with 60 billion cubic feet of gas a year under a 15-year contract, will eventually deliver almost 1 trillion cubic feet, or about 20 percent of current estimates of what lies at the Tamar prospect.

Egyptian parliamentary opposition to the terms of the country’s export deals, particularly to the Israeli accord, prompted Oil Minister Sameh Fahmy to agree last year to renegotiate all gas contracts and hold off signing new deals until 2010.

“We never want to depend on one source only,” Israeli Petroleum Commissioner Yaakov Mimran said. “This finding gives us some breathing room in order to rethink our energy strategy.”

While Noble’s Davidson said it will take a “few months” to clarify the size of the Tamar deposit, the company in February raised its estimate from the initially announced 3 trillion cubic feet. More gas may lie beneath the seabed, said Moshe Shahal, who was minister of energy until 1996.

“The finding strengthens the idea that there probably are more energy resources in our area,” Shahal said.

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Buffett-Backed Atomic Fuel Bank Founders at UN Agency (Update1)
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By Jonathan Tirone

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Warren Buffett’s plan to help the United Nations create a safe supply of enriched uranium is foundering because countries fear it will restrict their development of nuclear technology, officials and diplomats say.

Resistance among some emerging-market countries on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-member board of governors is threatening to derail a $150 million plan that includes a $50 million pledge from Buffett and the rest from donors including the U.S. and the European Union, according to two UN officials and two diplomats with firsthand knowledge of the talks.

A nuclear-fuel bank, monitored by the Vienna-based IAEA, has been under discussion for decades as a way to assure supplies of reactor-grade uranium. The agency has promoted the establishment of a nuclear-fuel bank to dissuade countries such as Iran from setting up uranium programs that could be used to increase enrichment to the level required for atomic weapons.

“I remain convinced that a multilateral approach has great potential to facilitate the expanded use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, 66, said this week at the agency’s Vienna offices. “This is a bold agenda and it is clearly not going to happen overnight.”

Rift Develops

A rift has developed between nations that have nuclear programs and those that don’t.

Countries that already enrich uranium favor the fuel bank because it may keep competitors from entering the market. About a third of the 30 countries that run nuclear power stations produce their own enriched uranium. The rest rely on the market for supplies from Europe, Japan and Russia. Those that plan programs say the fuel bank threatens their right to enrich uranium, guaranteed under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Buffett spokeswoman Carrie Kizer referred questions to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the Washington-based arms control organization handling Buffett’s donation.

To access the money for the proposed fuel bank, countries won’t be required by the NTI to put aside their own uranium- enrichment programs, as originally envisioned, said Charles Curtis, an NTI co-chairman. An announcement by Kuwait that the desert kingdom will also contribute money to the project shows that the plan is gaining support, NTI spokeswoman Cathy Gwin said today by e-mail.

“It’s an issue of trust, and there’s been a lot of fraying of relationships between IAEA states,” said Curtis, deputy secretary of energy under President Bill Clinton. “I’d ask they reserve political judgment until they see what the terms and conditions are.”

The NTI wants ElBaradei to come up with a plan to administer the money, Curtis said. ElBaradei says there won’t be a plan until the board authorizes the agency to accept the money.

Members’ Resistance

Some IAEA member states have resisted giving any more than a token amount of funding because they fear endorsing the fuel bank will eventually place restrictions on their own enrichment programs, the officials said.

When Buffett and the NTI first offered the money in 2006, they envisioned that the enriched uranium would be available to countries “that have made the sovereign choice to develop their nuclear energy based on foreign sources of fuel-supply services and therefore have no indigenous enrichment facilities,” former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, the other NTI co-chairman, said on the organization’s Web site.

Among the nations under scrutiny by the IAEA is Iran, which has produced enough low-grade enriched uranium to make a bomb if the material was enriched to weapons grade. Iran says it doesn’t seek atomic weapons and needs the uranium to fuel atomic reactors.

“It simply seems a real battlefield,” Iran’s IAEA ambassador, Aliasghar Soltanieh, told reporters yesterday. “Nuclear suppliers and nuclear recipients, nuclear-weapons states and non-nuclear-weapons states” are fighting over the future of the agency, he said.

Russian Plan

On Feb. 23, Russia submitted to the IAEA a separate plan for a nuclear fuel bank that provides for the enrichment of uranium in a shared facility in the Russian province of Angarsk, according to a restricted agency document obtained by Bloomberg News. Armenia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine are participating in the project, which doesn’t require them to give up their own enrichment technologies.

“We hope to see a tangible product emerge before the current era of agency leadership draws to a close,” the U.S. said in a statement to the IAEA board. The U.S. said it supports the Russian proposal and that it’s possible to implement more than one fuel-bank plan.

ElBaradei will retire from the agency in November after 12 years in office.

Buffett called his pledge “an investment in a safer world” when he made the promise to donate in September 2006. The 78- year-old chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is the wealthiest American, according to Forbes magazine.

----------------------------
EBS confirms FX platform temporarily down
Thu Mar 5, 2009 10:24am EST

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NEW YORK, March 5 (Reuters) - ICAP said on Thursday its electronic foreign exchange trading platform EBS is currently unavailable but every effort is being made to return operations to normal.

ICAP spokesman Mike Sheard in an email said "an ongoing issue caused by a network services provider" has affected the EBS platform. EBS is owned by ICAP.

Currency traders in New York, London, and Canada have cited glitches with the EBS system and one specifically complained about prices on the dollar/yen pair.

Reuters, meanwhile, competes with EBS in the foreign exchange market.

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ICAP: Electronic volumes down but market position strong

In an interim statement ICAP has stated that volumes in electronic broking have fallen recently, but stated that its market position in both foreign exchange and fixed income remains strong and has the potential to grow as the banks focus more on "flow" businesses.

Total average daily electronic broking volume on ICAP's OTC electronic broking platforms EBS and BrokerTec in the 12 months to January 2009 was $780bn, down four percent on the corresponding period 12 months earlier. The interdealer broker said: "We continue to invest in the expansion and development of the Group's electronic systems to keep pace with customer demand."

In the back office, ICAP says that it sees: "Significant demand both within and beyond ICAP's existing customer base to improve the efficiency of post-trade processing and to reduce the capital allocated to existing positions. The regulatory authorities are also keen that the infrastructure behind the OTC markets is as robust as possible and the banks have made a series of commitments to improve post trade processing in the OTC derivatives markets."

The statement continues, "ICAP is building a range of other post-trade processing, portfolio compression and reconciliation and risk management services - Traiana, TriOptima and Reset. All three are experiencing significant growth in the volumes that they process."

ICAP acknowledged that in electronic markets, algorithmic trading is accounting for an increasing share of trading volumes wehich it sees as an opportunity in areas such as equities and futures. It concluded noting that, "There is potential for further consolidation of market share among interdealer brokers as traders concentrate their business in the largest, deepest and most reliable liquidity pools."

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Primorsky territory cuts quota for migrant workers by 10%

04.03.2009, 09.54

VLADIVOSTOK, March 4 (Itar-Tass) - Around 4,000 residents of the Primorsky Territory can be employed after the quota for migrant workers is cut by 10 percent in 2009, the territory’s law enforcement coordination department said on Wednesday.

Thus, 38,884 foreign workers, including 26,351 – from non-CIS countries and 9,533 – from CIS countries are expected to be employed at the region’s enterprises.

This is already a second reduction of the quota for foreign workforce. Earlier the government reduced it from 50,844 to 39,878.

Additional reduction of the quota is aimed at easing tensions on the region’s labour market.

The Primorsky Territory will also create 3,300 temporary jobs, including 600 for graduates of vocational institutions. Small businesses will create no less than 92 new jobs in the region.

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Number of foreigners registered in Moscow up by 17%

03.03.2009, 18.47

MOSCOW, March 3 (Itar-Tass) - The number of foreigners registered in Moscow reached 190,000 as of January 1, 2009, up by 17 percent as against the same period of last year, the head of the capital’s labour and employment department, Oleg Neterebsky, told a news conference on Tuesday.

“Of them only 32,000 people are officially employed, while the rest remain unaccounted for,” he said.

He noted that not all foreigners in the capital are labour migrants, however these figures “prove the trend towards aggravation of the situation on the labour market.”

“Moscow asked for the quota of 250,000 migrant workers, while the Health and Social Development Ministry approved the quota for 392,000,” Neterebsky said.

He called for amending the rules of attracting foreign workforce to safeguard jobs for Muscovites and Russian citizens. It is necessary to protect domestic producers and place orders for Russian enterprises to keep jobs.

---------------------------
US plane takes cargoes to Afghanistan through Russia

03.03.2009, 17.09

MOSCOW, March 3 (Itar-Tass) -- A US plane carrying non-military cargoes has delivered non-military cargoes to Afghanistan through Russian airspace, a source at the Defense Ministry told Itar-Tass.

“Such a flight was carried out with Russia’s consent several days ago,” the source said. “The permission applies to only to civilian cargoes US planes are to deliver to Afghanistan.”

------------------------
Russia's Gazprom says Ukraine fully pays off gas debts


MOSCOW, Mar 5 (Prime-Tass) -- Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy has fully paid off its debts for Russian gas supplied in February, Russian gas giant Gazprom said Thursday.

Naftogaz Ukrainy owed a total of U.S. $360 million for gas supplied in February. It paid $310 million to Gazprom on Wednesday and had pledged to pay the remaining $50 million in the coming days.

By fully paying off its gas debt for February, Ukraine has apparently averted a new gas conflict with Russia, which had set a Saturday deadline for Kiev to settle its debt.

--------------------------
Armenia wants to use rubles to deal with Russia
05.03.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru URL: http://english.pravda.ru/business/finance/107191-Armenia-0

Armenia is interested in paying off its debts to Russia in rubles, not in dollars, the nation’s Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said.

"It leads to the diversification of our external assets and currency transactions for our businesses which reduce our dependence on external changes", the head of the Armenian government said in an interview with the Armenian television.

The Russian authorities repeatedly declared their intention to make ruble the regional reserve currency. At the beginning of February Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that it was quite realistic to use the ruble as the reserve currency within the neighbouring states. Such a step will be very useful both for the Russian economy, and for CIS countries.

In a February 11 interview with the Russian news agencies, Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said that there is "a real chance" for such a move "if by ruble zone it is meant countries that use the ruble in their trade with Russia." The prime minister added that "if one means a union similar to the euro zone, so it is too early to speak about this."

Today the situation in Armenia appears to be the following:

Armenians rushed to buy bread, butter and other staples Tuesday and stores shut down in panic after the government announced it would let the national currency fall and was seeking a bailout from the IMF.

Banking authorities said the national currency — the dram — could sink up to 24 percent with the decision. The devaluation was sure to hurt ordinary Armenians, with prices for imported goods expected to rise sharply, the AP reports.

The Armenian Central Bank decided to limit currency interventions and return to free float policy "due to the financial and economic crisis, worsening terms of trade and slowing capital inflows," bank chairman Artur Dzhavadian told reporters Tuesday.

Armen Gevorkian, a 33-year-old engineer, was stocking up on food in downtown Yerevan, where staples typically include bread, butter, sugar, salt and vegetable oil.

"I'm buying food with all the drams I have because the dollar is going to rise and then the situation will be very difficult," he said.

Prices at some grocery stores shot up 20 to 30 percent on Tuesday. One of Yerevan's largest grocery chains, Star, closed all of its stores shortly after the Central Bank's announcement.

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Russia, Venezuela start visa-free travel regime
09:44 | 06/ 03/ 2009

Print version

MOSCOW, March 6 (RIA Novosti) - A Russian-Venezuelan agreement scrapping visa requirements entered into force on Friday.

The agreement will allow Russians and Venezuelans to visit each others' countries for up to 90 days without having to apply for visas.

"This greatly eases interaction between the countries and mutual travel of citizens, including businessmen... It simplifies the establishment of contacts as well as humanitarian, student and tourist exchanges," said Sergei Akopov, a deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Latin American department.

The deal was signed on November 26, 2008 in Caracas during Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's official visit to the South American country.

The official said tourist turnover between the two countries was "not strong", but that the agreement could significantly increase the number of Russians visiting Venezuela.

Venezuela has become the fifth state in Latin America to scrap visa requirements for Russian citizens, following Cuba, Peru, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.

Similar agreements are also expected to be signed with Brazil and Argentina.

The Colombian Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday it was planning to unilaterally introduce a visa-free agreement for Russia, which would enter into force within 30 days.

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Iran cannot be swapped for missile defense
17:29 | 05/ 03/ 2009

Print version

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) - The Obama administration made no attempt to offer Russia a deal: to make concessions over the deployment of a missile defense system in Europe in exchange for Russia's cooperation on the "Iran issue."

President Obama himself drew a line under the issue at a press conference held on Wednesday following his meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

What could this deal, or "tradeoff," have looked like? The media supposed that the United States would "forget" about deploying interceptor missiles in Eastern Europe on condition that Russia "formed a common front with the U.S." in the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear and missile problem.

The proposal looked meaningless and crudely simplistic from the very start. Russia's security interests call for a comprehensive discussion of a vast region comprising Iran, the Caspian, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iraq. In all these situations, many of which affect Moscow's interests, Iran plays the key role.

For the U.S., Russian support on the Iran issue is very important, because as it loses leverage over the situation America needs the support of a country that commands authority in the Middle East to preserve its levers of influence. At the same time it hardly makes sense for Russia to give up its authority: by directly supporting the U.S., Russia risks to lose much of its political clout built up in recent years in the relations with the Middle East and Central Asian countries. Granted, these issues can and must be discussed, but not in terms of "supporting" the U.S., but in terms of a new American policy in the region.

The missile defense problem has nothing to do with Iran, but it cannot be separated from Russia's relations with NATO countries. It is impossible to pluck the issue of missile defense out of the whole range of security issues in Europe.

The U.S. promise not to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern Europe is not an adequate replacement of talks on the security system in Europe. At the end of the day the possible deployment of American bases with strike weapons in the new NATO member countries is no less of a threat than the deployment of a missile defense system or the possible accession of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO.

Finally, the problem of missile defense is closely linked with the issue of preserving the nuclear and missile parity between the two countries, which has been the subject of a lively discussion in connection with reports about the U.S. initiative on drastic cuts of nuclear arsenals. The agreement between Russia and the U.S. on further nuclear arms cuts must include limitations on the development of missile defense systems, and not only in Eastern Europe but throughout the world. Ideally it should impose a total ban on the development of strategic missile defense systems and allow only the creation of theatre missile defense.

One should also bear in mind that in the current situation the "price" of the missile defense system as a bargaining chip has diminished significantly. In the pre-crisis times such expenditure for the U.S., though significant, was not unmanageable, and the prospects of creating a massive missile defense deployed in key points in the world looked quite realistic. But tomorrow it may very well happen that the U.S. will have to scrap its plans of a missile defense system without any negotiations disguising the fact with fine words about "additional tests" and "development of a more sophisticated system." The real reason would be simply that there will be no wherewithal to pay for such a huge project. That is a circumstance to be borne in mind too.

On balance, an Iran-missile defense deal plucks both problems out of the political and economic context without solving either.

To repeat, the two issues can and must be discussed between Russia and the U.S., but each in the framework of its range of problems. Iran, as part of the overall range of issues in the Middle East and Central Asia, and missile defense as part of the issues of European and world security. The current situation objectively favors an agreement between the two countries as both the Russian and American administrations have shown a readiness to negotiate, including on key issues.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

-----------------------------
17:47 GMT, Thursday, 5 March 2009
French unrest spreads to Reunion
Protest in Saint-Denis on Reunion, 5 Mar 09

Violence has flared on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion during demonstrations against high prices.

Police fired tear gas to disperse stone-throwing youths at a protest near Reunion's capital, Saint-Denis.

Thousands marched across the island to push for a 20% cut in the prices of essential goods and an extra 200 euros (£178) a month for low-paid workers.

The unrest came after unions on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe had agreed to end a 44-day strike.

The LKP collective signed a deal with officials and business owners to raise workers' pay and lower the cost of basic goods. Negotiations are continuing in nearby Martinique over a similar stoppage.

On Reunion, an island of about 800,000 people east of Madagascar, unions said their members would go on strike next Tuesday unless their demands were met.

High unemployment

As in the French Caribbean, union members complain that prices are considerably higher than in mainland France, and that their salaries have not kept pace with them. Map of Reunion

The overseas territories have the highest unemployment rates in France.

In the French Caribbean, some residents alleged that a wealthy, white elite was controlling imports and prices.

Hundreds of police and gendarmes have been deployed from France in recent weeks to help restore order. Dozens of protesters have been arrested since the strikes began.

Wednesday's agreement in Guadeloupe covered a wide range of issues, including the price of bread, the hiring of teachers and reduced air fares. But most importantly, it will see the wages of the lowest-paid workers supplemented with a 200-euro monthly payment.

-------------------------
07:33 GMT, Friday, 6 March 2009
US officer 'stole Iraq aid funds'
US soldier in Baghdad in April 2007

A US army captain has been charged with stealing nearly $700,000 intended for emergency reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Michael Dung Nguyen, 28, is accused of stealing the money and sending it back home while he was stationed in Iraq between April 2007 and February 2009.

He allegedly spent the money on luxury cars, electronics and furniture.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges including theft of government property and money laundering.

At a district court hearing, prosecutors claimed Nguyen stole $690,000 ($484,575) from the Commanders' Emergency Response Program (Cerp) - a pot of money designated to local commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan for urgent relief and reconstruction needs.

They allege Nguyen, who was working as a battalion civil affairs officer in Iraq, mailed bundles of $100 bills back to his home in Oregon state.

When he returned he opened numerous bank accounts and deposited the money in small amounts to avoid detection, the prosecutors claim.

He is also accused of attempting to launder the cash by buying a luxury BMW car and a 2009 model Hummer truck as well as computers, electronic equipment and furniture.

US Attorney Karin Immergut said the charges indicated a "flagrant and reprehensible disregard" of US military principles.

Nguyen is due to stand trial in May. If convicted, he could face up to 30 years in prison and a $500,000 fine.

----------------------------
17:18 GMT, Thursday, 5 March 2009
Britain drops Israel embassy move
The British embassy in Tel Aviv

The UK Foreign Office has dropped plans to move the British embassy in Tel Aviv into a skyscraper because of concerns over the building owners.

A spokeswoman said it was not satisfied with the company's involvement in settlement activity in the West Bank - which contravenes international law.

Israel's ambassador to London said the decision was "appeasement to those who slander Israel".

The UK has recently moved to toughen its policy towards Israeli settlements.

The Foreign Office said that moving the British embassy's location in Tel Aviv had been considered for years, with a plan to take over three floors in a skyscraper in Tel Aviv.

But last year pro-Palestinian groups began campaigning against the move, saying that the new building was part-owned by Africa-Israel Investments Ltd, a company which had built in the occupied Palestinian territories, in contravention of international law.


"Such a policy doesn't contribute anything to advancing a peace agreement in the Middle East"
Ron Prosor
Israeli ambassador to London


Officials in the Foreign Office have confirmed that their concerns about "settlement activity" led them to withdraw from lease negotiations with Africa-Israel.

Embassy spokeswoman Karen Kaufman told Associated Press news agency: "No leases were signed, and part of the reason was we looked into the issue of Africa-Israel and settlements and settlement holdings and we asked for clarification on those issues."

She said the company's response was unsatisfactory.

"The UK government has always regarded settlements as illegal, but what has happened in recent months is that we are looking for ways to make a difference on this issue," she added.

Israeli bread

Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor told Haaretz website: "Such a policy doesn't contribute anything to advancing a peace agreement in the Middle East."

He added: "Diplomats in the British embassy in Tel Aviv are not expected to stop eating Israeli bread because it's also marketed in the West Bank."

Africa-Israel said in a statement carried by AP that Britain had a "fundamentally wrong" view of its activities in the West Bank.

It blamed pro-Palestinian organisations in Britain for promoting a "biased, one-sided political agenda" against Israel.

"It is lamentable that this pressure ends up being vented against Israeli business entities that have no impact whatsoever on the setting of Israel's policy," the statement said.

All Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territory are regarded as illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

More than 400,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas which were captured by Israeli in the 1967 war.

---------------------------
09:10 GMT, Thursday, 5 March 2009
Palestinian health care 'ailing'
Palestinian woman and child in Gaza hospital (file photo)

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza suffer from an "ailing landscape" of health services, a new study claims.

The Lancet medical journal report highlights how 10% of Palestinian children now have stunted growth.

The paper describes the healthcare system in the Palestinian territories as "fragmented and incoherent".

An Israeli government spokesperson said the Lancet had failed to seek its view, and said many Palestinians had accessed medical care in the country.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli government, called the report one-sided.

He said: "This is propaganda in the guise of a medical report."

Experts from Birzeit University say death rates among children and expectant mothers have failed to decline in recent years.

The plateau is in spite of good ante-natal care and high rates of child immunisation.

"The trend for stunting among children is increasing, and the concern is about the long-term effects"
Dr Hanan Abdul Rahim
Birzeit University

Dr Hanan Abdul Rahim said: "There are gaps in care. There's a low level of post-natal care and often it's not given in a timely manner.

"Mortality rates among infants and under-fives haven't declined much. This is unusual when compared with other Arab countries that used to have similar rates but have managed to bring them down.

"The trend for stunting among children is increasing, and the concern is about the long-term effects. It is caused by chronic malnutrition, and affects cognitive development and physical health.

"There are pockets in northern Gaza where the level of stunted growth reaches 30%.

"It's very important that women and children have access to quality care."

FROM THE BBC WORLD SERVICE
More from BBC World Service
Dr Rahim's paper mentions a previously published report from the UN, which says more than 60 Palestinian women have given birth at Israeli checkpoints and 36 of their babies have died as a result.

Another paper says the Palestinian health system fails to be effective and equitable.

'Heartbreaking'

The conditions of military occupation are blamed, but so is the political instability of the Palestinian Authority - which has appointed six health ministers in three years.

"Israel as a policy enables and encourages people from all over the world to come to Israel for advanced medical treatment"
Unit of Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories spokesman

The lead author, Dr Awad Mataria, also from Birzeit University, said: "Political havoc is one of the reasons for the failure of the health system - but this has been exaggerated and perpetuated under occupation.

"Also, the policies of foreign aid donors can be fragmented and contradictory."

Dr Mataria's paper note that the Palestinian Authority has received $10bn in recent years - mostly donated by the European Union.

But he and his colleagues say health programmes have focused on relief and emergency, rather than on long-term development.

In an editorial accompanying the series, the Lancet's editor Richard Horton said: "Our series is not about Arab politics, the status of Israel, or existing conventional diplomatic efforts to broker peace."

He added: "The latest storm of violence to engulf Gaza has been heartbreaking to watch, especially for those who have seen first hand the predicaments faced by health professionals trying to maintain a rudimentary, but ultimately failing, health system there."

Israeli response

An Israeli government spokesperson from the office responsible for coordination with the Palestinian territories said the researchers had failed to get a full picture of health care in the region.

He said: "In the two year period supposedly covered by the report over 28,000 Palestinians accessed Israel from the Gaza Strip for medical needs.

"Contrary to the indications of the writers, at no time was medical access from Gaza prevented as a policy.

"On the contrary, the only time medical aid in Israel was prevented was as a direct result of a Palestinian decision or on limited occasions when the crossing in to Israel was under direct threat and attack."

He added: "Israel as a policy enables and encourages people from all over the world to come to Israel for advanced medical treatment it is only natural that our closest neighbour, the Palestinians, enjoy this privilege."

--------------------------
07:54 GMT, Friday, 6 March 2009
Company sold workers' secret data
Computer

The information watchdog has shut down a company which it says sold workers' confidential data, including union activities, to building firms.

A raid on The Consulting Association in Droitwich, Worcs, revealed a serious breach of the Data Protection Act, the Information Commissioner's Office said.

The ICO said a secret system was run for over 15 years enabling employers to unlawfully vet job applicants.

Action is being considered against more than 40 firms who used the service.

Past and present customers included Taylor Woodrow, Laing O'Rourke and Balfour Beatty, the ICO added.

The Consulting Association's owner would also be prosecuted, it said.

"He should have been notified, registered with our office and he wasn't and that's a criminal offence and that's a clear prosecution," said deputy information commissioner David Smith.

"The information commissioner will need to look into this further to see whether these practices are more widespread and take the appropriate action"
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson

"The construction companies that were his customers, we have to investigate and find out just what their involvement is.

"But what we're looking to do there is issue enforcement proceedings against those that were involved and that'll put them essentially on notice that if they get involved in this illegal trade again, then they will face prosecution."

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said he was "sorry the practices have taken place" and welcomed the intervention of the information commissioner.

"He will need to look into this further to see whether these practices are more widespread and take the appropriate action, as he's already done in this case," the minister added.

'Trouble stirrer'

Not only was the database held without the workers' consent, but the existence of it was repeatedly denied.

Following the raid on 23 February, investigators discovered that The Consulting Association's database contained the details of some 3,213 workers, the ICO said.

Data included information concerning personal relationships, trade union activity and employment history, it added.

Comments included "lazy and a trouble stirrer", "Ex shop steward. Definite problems. No Go" and "Communist Party".

"Trading people's personal details in this way is unlawful and we are determined to stamp out this type of activity"
David Smith
Deputy Information Commissioner

Employers paid £3,000 as an annual fee, and £2.20 for individual details, the ICO said.

Invoices to construction firms for up to £7,500 were also seized during the raid.

The ICO said it had served an Enforcement Notice ordering The Consulting Association's owner to stop using the system, and expected the company to cease trading by the end of the week.

It added that the owner had failed to notify the ICO as a data controller.

Mr Smith said: "Trading people's personal details in this way is unlawful and we are determined to stamp out this type of activity."

Alan Ritchie, general secretary of building workers union Ucatt, said: "Take one of the issues that we have in the construction industry: we have just under two people killed every week through bad health and safety practices and if a whistleblower then raises these issues, then obviously he has found his name on this list.

"He has never had the chance to challenge it.

"He has never been able to turn around and say, 'You are classing me as lazy. How can that be?'"

-------------------------------
01:31 GMT, Friday, 6 March 2009
Middle age 'key for exercising'
A garden

Increasing activity levels in middle age can prolong life as much as giving up smoking, a study suggests.

Swedish researchers from Uppsala University monitored more than 2,200 men from the age of 50.

They found those who increased activity levels from 50 to 60 ended up living as long as those who were already exercising regularly by middle age.

Public health experts said the findings showed it was never too late to start exercising.

The team asked the men about their activity levels at the start of the study in the early 1970s, when they were aged 50.

"It shows that it is never too late to start exercising"
Karl Michaelsson, lead researcher

The men were put into three groups - high levels of activity, moderate levels and sedentary.

High levels was classed as those who did at least three hours of sports or heavy gardening each week.

Moderate was said to be the equivalent of several hours of walking or cycling, while people who were classed as sedentary spent most of their free time watching TV.

Their exercise habits were then reassessed at the age of 60.

The team found that those who were doing high levels of activity at the age of 50 lived 2.3 years longer than sedentary men and 1.1 years longer than those who reported medium levels of activity - once a range of factors such as weight, alcohol intake and smoking was taken into account.

But interestingly the researchers found that those who increased their activity level to high - whether they were in the moderate or low group - from the age of 50 to 60 also lived the longest.

It was not clear what effect reducing activity levels during this period had, the British Medical Journal report said.

Impact

Lead researcher Karl Michaelsson said the study showed it was essential to encourage men to become active, although he said more research would be needed to see if the effect was replicated in women.

He said the impact on lifespan was the same as for someone who gave up smoking during this period.

"Efforts for promotion of physical activity, even among middle aged and older men are important."

Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the Faculty of Public Health, said: "These results are very interesting.

"It shows that it is never too late to start exercising. I think this period is very important for men and what is probably happening here is that the exercise during these years is strengthening their cardiovascular system.

"But, of course, other factors such as diet will play an important role."

Cathy Ross, cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "The study adds support to what we already know, which is that people who are physically active are half as likely to get cardiovascular disease as those that are inactive.

"Being active at any age helps control your weight, reduce blood pressure and cholesterol and will provide long term benefits for your heart health and general health."

-----------------------------
00:48 GMT, Thursday, 5 March 2009
Universities share £8bn funding
molecules

English universities with a heavy involvement in science have had funding protected - at the expense of the social sciences, arts and humanities.

Almost £8bn has been divided up by the funding council (Hefce) for 2009-10, 4% more than last year, including £4.8bn for teaching and £1.5bn for research.

Research grants reflected the recent assessment exercise, prioritising departments with the best work.

But some prestigious universities have seen their share of funding cut.

Conversely, some of England's newest universities, along with many university colleges and specialist institutions, were better off for having improved their research performance.

What each university is getting

The GuildHE organisation which represents them welcomed the decision.

"The announcement today is a just reward for academic colleagues in institutions that do not claim to be research-led; many of whom had made significant strides forward in research excellence on the basis of very limited financial support," it said.

'Victim'

Diana Warwick, chief executive of vice-chancellors group Universities UK, said: "We are pleased with this recognition of the world-class strength of the UK's research base, though we also note that some institutions face funding challenges as the result of changes in research allocations."

"It is the wholly predictable result of [ministers'] policy to spread money too thinly and it is a great pity that our world-class institutions... have lost out"
David Willetts
Shadow education secretary

The London School of Economics (LSE) saw its overall grant for research and teaching drop by 0.8% with research funding cut by more than 13%.

In a statement, the LSE said it was "disappointed" as its performance in the research assessment exercise had been "outstanding".

"The LSE is a victim of the Hefce funding formula which implements government policy to protect the Stem subjects (science-medicine, technology, engineering and maths) at the expense of social sciences, arts and humanities," it added.

In the non-Stem areas, faculty and student numbers had grown more rapidly, and the potential for small pockets of research excellence was greater.

The rector of Imperial College London, Sir Roy Anderson, said he was "reassured" the leading universities were the main recipients of research funding - but noted their share of these funds had declined.

'World class'

Sir Roy said: "At a time when the UK is looking to its science, technology and medicine powerhouses for ideas and innovations to help lead the economic recovery, it can't have been intended that we could be reducing the share of, and in many cases, actual, research funds to institutions which have demonstrated sustained excellence across successive research assessments."

He added: "It is surprising that Imperial College London, ranked top of all UK institutions for its proportion of research judged world-leading or internationally excellent should suffer a real decline in its allocation of research funding."

Universities secretary John Denham described Britain's university sector as "world class".

"The government is committed to ensuring that it remains so through a well-funded, successful and independent higher education sector," he said.

But his Tory shadow, David Willetts, described the cut in funding for some of the leading institutions as "a mess of ministers' own making".

"It is the wholly predictable result of their policy to spread money too thinly and it is a great pity that our world-class institutions like Imperial and the LSE have lost out, especially when we need them so badly at tough times like this," he added.

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01:26 GMT, Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Bionic eye gives blind man sight

A man who lost his sight 30 years ago says he can now see flashes of light after being fitted with a bionic eye.

Ron, 73, had the experimental surgery seven months ago at London's Moorfield's eye hospital.

He says he can now follow white lines on the road, and even sort socks, using the bionic eye, known as Argus II.

It uses a camera and video processor mounted on sunglasses to send captured images wirelessly to a tiny receiver on the outside of the eye.

"My one ambition at the moment is to be able to go out on a nice, clear evening and be able to pick up the moon"
Ron

In turn, the receiver passes on the data via a tiny cable to an array of electrodes which sit on the retina - the layer of specialised cells that normally respond to light found at the back of the eye.

When these electrodes are stimulated they send messages along the optic nerve to the brain, which is able to perceive patterns of light and dark spots corresponding to which electrodes have been stimulated.

The hope is that patients will learn to interpret the visual patterns produced into meaningful images.

The bionic eye has been developed by US company Second Sight. So far 18 patients across the world, including three at Moorfields, have been fitted with the device.

FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME
More from Today programme
It is designed to help people, like Ron, who have been made blind through retinitis pigmentosa, a group of inherited eye diseases that cause degeneration of the retina.

The disease progresses over a number of years, normally after people have been diagnosed when they are children.

It is estimated between 20,000 to 25,000 are affected in the UK.

Encouraging progress

Ron, who has not revealed his surname, told the BBC: "For 30 years I've seen absolutely nothing at all, it's all been black, but now light is coming through. Suddenly to be able to see light again is truly wonderful.

"I can actually sort out white socks, grey socks and black socks."

"My one ambition at the moment is to be able to go out on a nice, clear evening and be able to pick up the moon."

Ron's wife Tracy is also hugely encouraged by the progress he has made.She said: "He can do a lot more now than he could before, doing the washing, being able to tell white from a coloured item.

"I've taught him how to use the washing machine and away he goes. It's just the ironing next."

Consultant retinal surgeon Lyndon da Cruz, who carried out Ron's operation said the patients were starting to get meaningful visual stimuli from the technology.

He said: "We are very encouraged by the trial's progress so far.

"The implants have been stable and functioning for six months, with consistent visual perceptions generated by the device.

"The trial remains inspiring in terms of presenting a very real and tangible step forward in treating patients with total vision loss.

"But with more than two years of the trial left to run, these are early days and continued testing will be crucial in determining the success of the new technology."

Gregoire Cosendai, of Second Sight, is convinced the technology will prove to be invaluable - but also admits there is still much work to be done.

He said: "We are trying to see what level of vision we can provide with this.

"Theoretically, the people should be able to have reasonably good level of vision.

"We are not there yet, but what we are trying to see how best they can use it in their normal life."

• Ron's progress will be featured on a BBC Inside Out documentary in the London area at 1930 GMT on 4 March.

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パチンコ攻略法「効果なし」、情報会社に全額返還命令

　パチンコ攻略法で成果が上がらなかったとして大阪府内の派遣社員男性（５２）が、パチンコ情報を提供する「日本リサーチ攻略データバンク」（東京都）に支払った情報料計３８６万円の返還を求めた訴訟で、大阪地裁が「攻略法の効果はない」と認定し、同社に全額の返還を命じたことがわかった。

　４日の判決によると、男性はパチンコ雑誌で「スタッフが攻略法を実演後、大当たりまで指導する」とする同社の広告を見て、２００７年１１月、１０５万円を支払って大阪府内のパチンコ店で実演指導を受けたが、大当たりは出なかった。

　同社側はその後、「補充の攻略法がないと大当たりにならない」などと説明。男性は０８年６月まで、６度にわたって２０万～８０万円払ったが、効果はなかった。

　同社は「パチンコは遊技。原告は利殖の手段と認識した過失がある」と主張したが、小川浩裁判官は「攻略法に効果はなく、広告も事実に反し、違法な勧誘」と退けた。

　同社については兵庫県西宮市の男性も同様の訴訟を起こし、神戸地裁尼崎支部が先月、男性の支払った情報料の全額約７００万円の返還を命じている。

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イスラムへ和牛売り込め！埼玉の食肉場にＵＡＥからお墨付き
埼玉・本庄食肉センターを視察するアラブ首長国連邦政府の調査団＝昨年１０月

　埼玉からドバイに和牛を売り込め――。埼玉県本庄市の本庄食肉センターが昨年、国内では初めてアラブ首長国連邦（ＵＡＥ）政府からイスラム教に即した解体処理を行う「ハラール」施設の認証を受けた。

　２月には第１弾として牛肉を出荷。品質や安全性を武器に需要の開拓を目指す。

　イスラム教徒は、律法に基づいて解体、処理された牛肉しか食べることができない。教徒が祈りをささげながら解体し、処理の方法にも細かな決まりがある。このため、イスラム圏の国に牛肉を輸出する際は、各国政府から「ハラール」の認証を受けなければならない。

　本庄食肉センターは、隣接する群馬県にバングラデシュ人などイスラム教徒が多く住んでいることもあり、１９９６年頃から教徒の団体に場所を貸す形でハラール処理を行ってきた。国内でハラール処理ができる施設を探していた都内の業者から２年前に打診を受け、ドバイへの輸出に乗り出すことを決めた。

　昨年１０月中旬、農林水産省の協力を得て、ＵＡＥの政府関係者を招き、大阪、佐賀の施設と一緒に視察してもらった。その結果、大阪府の羽曳野市立南食食肉センターとともに、ＵＡＥ政府から日本で初めてハラール生産・輸出が可能な解体処理施設として承認された。

　ドバイは世界的な金融危機の影響を受け、景気は失速気味だが、いまだに富裕層を中心に高い購買力が期待できる。ちょうど現地では和食がブームで、豪州産などの赤身が主流ながら、和牛への関心も高まっている。

　本庄食肉センターは、ＵＡＥ政府から追加条件として出された、ハラール牛肉とその他の牛肉の処理施設の区分の明確化などをクリア。解体処理の一部に関して、イスラム教徒の団体と委託契約を正式に結んだ。輸出第１弾として、２月にドバイで開かれた中東最大の食品見本市に２頭分のロースを出品した。

　今後、同センター内にある「寄居食肉」を販売窓口にして、現地の高級ホテルやレストランなどを対象に輸出を本格化させる計画だ。当面は岩手県のブランド牛を主力とするが、将来的には県内産の和牛輸出も視野に入れている。本庄食肉センター専務理事で寄居食肉会長の井上克己氏（６５）は「味には自信がある。必ずドバイの方々にも満足してもらえるはず」と意気込んでいる。
（2009年3月6日15時04分 読売新聞）

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畜産・酪農農家の支援、総額１９０１億円に

　政府・自民党は５日、２００９年度の畜産・酪農農家に対する支援策の総額を１９０１億円とする方針を固めた。

　バターや脱脂粉乳に使われる加工用の牛乳を生産している酪農家への補給金の実質的な引き上げなどが柱だ。６日に正式決定する。

　政府は毎年この時期に、翌年度の支援総額を決めているが、今回の１９０１億円は、昨年２月に決めた額より約２３０億円多い。飼料価格はピーク時から下がったものの、畜産・酪農家の経営状況は苦しいとして、手厚い支援の継続が必要だと判断した。

　加工用牛乳への補給金を、現在１キロ・グラム当たり１１・８５円から、実質１２円に引き上げるほか、食肉用の牛を飼育する畜産農家への支援も拡充する。

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ラオスに一番列車が走る、構想１５年～悲願の鉄道開通
特集 線路は続くよ
５日、ビエンチャン郊外のタナレン駅に到着した一番列車＝田原徳容撮影

　【ビエンチャン＝田原徳容】東南アジアの内陸に位置する最貧国のひとつラオスで５日、隣国タイとつながるラオス初の鉄道が開通した。

　構想から１５年。１９９７年のアジア通貨危機による作業中断など苦難を経て、ラオス国民の悲願がようやくかなった。

　開通したのは、ラオスの首都ビエンチャン郊外のタナレンからメコン川を渡りタイ東北部ノンカイまでの３・５キロ。タイ国営鉄道会社が運営する。メコン川では、「ラオス―タイ第１友好橋」の中央部分に線路が敷かれた。ディーゼル車両が１日２往復する。

　友好橋が完成した９４年に両国が建設を計画。アジア通貨危機で資金難に陥り、ラオス側の工事が一時中断したが、２００６年に再開し、開通にこぎつけた。総工費は５億４７００万バーツ（約１４億６０００万円）。

　５日は、タイのシリントン王女やアピシット首相を乗せた一番列車がノンカイ駅を発車し、１５分かけて新設のタナレン駅に到着した。

　平地がメコン川沿いに限られたラオスでは、フランスによる植民地時代なども物資輸送はもっぱら河川交通が用いられ、鉄道は発達しなかった。

　ラオス政府は、車頼みだった物資輸送のコストを約４０％削減できると見込んでおり、将来は、中国雲南省やベトナムにも路線を拡大する考え。ビエンチャンとタイの首都バンコクも線路１本で結ばれたことで、観光活性化にも期待がかかる。

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政府高官「自民に及ばぬ」発言、与野党が批判　西松献金事件

　政府高官が西松建設の巨額献金事件に絡み「自民党に及ぶことは絶対ない。金額が違う」などと発言したことに6日午前、与野党から問題視する声が相次いだ。民主党の鳩山由紀夫幹事長は都内で記者団に「献金額の多寡の問題ではない。検察側と政府筋との間で出来レースがあると思わざるをえない」と厳しく批判した。

　一方、自民党役員連絡会でも出席者から「わかったようなことを言うべきではない」との批判が出た。細田博之幹事長は役員連絡会後の記者会見で「実態はわからない。そう言うことはおかしい」と発言は不適切との認識を表明。笹川尭総務会長は記者会見で「原則として政治は検察に介入しない。検察も政治に介入しない」と述べた。(14:04)

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官邸情報を漏らしているのは漆間巌

　黙って見ててやったんだがやっぱりダメだな。例の件、早く執行しましょう。＞関係各位

　てなわけで、昨日今日の官邸がらみの報道、読売、朝日、ＮＨＫがいう「政治筋」あるいは「政府高官」は漆間巌のこと。漆間が記者にペラペラしゃべっている。それなのに、なぜか大島理森も「河村が悪い」といっている。河村のせいにしているが、発言したのは漆間じゃねぇか。漆間と大島は組んでんのか？



　・・・とまぁ、どこからともかく届く天の声。官邸の周りはすべて私の草が押さえている。職員、秘書、掃除のおばさんから運転手・・・ウチの”草”と”風”は幅広く・・・笑。

　河村官房長官を追い落とすつもりでいろいろやってるんだろうが、漆間より河村の方がよっぽどまともだと思います。政治的な政策は別としてね。追い落とすと言えば、大島理森も同類。アレも話になりません。大島官房長官を夢見ているようですが、そりゃ無理だろう。選挙も危ないもんな。

http://www.nikaidou.com/2009/03/post_2415.php

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民主・鳩山幹事長「政府と検察の出来レースだ」

3月6日12時50分配信 産経新聞

　民主党の小沢一郎代表の秘書が政治資金規正法違反容疑で逮捕された事件で、政府高官が「捜査は自民党議員に及ばない」と発言していることについて、民主党の鳩山由紀夫幹事長は６日、「自民党には及ばないということを政府筋がおっしゃるということは、政府筋と検察の間で何らかのできレースが存在しているのではないか。彼らが、なぜ、自分たちには及ばないと確信を持てるのか、強い疑念を感じる」と批判した。都内で記者団に語った。

　ただ、今回の事件が次期衆院選に影響するとの見方を示し、「選挙に影響があるのは、明らかだ。私どもは、小沢代表が申された言葉を信じて、潔白であるということを信じていく。（次期衆院選での）影響を最少に抑えるために全力を尽くしていく」と述べた。

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石原知事、「宿敵」小沢氏を痛烈批判

　自民党時代小沢氏と対立した石原慎太郎都知事（７６）は「べらぼうな献金をする関係はめったにない」と、両者の関係を批判した。

　石原知事が、西松建設の巨額献金事件で公設第１秘書が逮捕された「宿敵」小沢氏を痛烈に批判した。「あの企業と経世会の金脈は、金丸（信・元自民党副総裁）―小沢時代から続いている。１つの企業が、１０年間で３億というべらぼうな献金をする関係はめったにない」と指摘。会見で検察批判したことにも触れて「検察の国策捜査とか、検察ファッショみたいな言い方をしているが、検察だってプライドがある。公判維持できないものをやるわけがない」と述べた。

　石原氏は自民党の国会議員時代、小沢氏が所属した旧田中派や経世会と対立。８９年の党総裁選でも経世会支配の前に惨敗し、感情的なしこりがある。０７年参院選の演説では「政権交代なんてちゃんちゃらおかしい」「金丸小沢体制が何をしてきた。米国と約束し、８年で４３兆円の無駄遣いをした」と、こき下ろした。１６年の五輪東京招致へ向けた国会決議が遅れているのも、石原氏が民主党への協力要請に難色を示したためといわれる。

　「検察がどんな形で洗い出すか見ものだ。私は、経世会が象徴する金権と戦ってきたのだから」と、推移を見守る考えも示した。

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【小沢氏秘書逮捕】石原都知事「検察は公判維持できないものはやらない」
2009.3.5 14:54
このニュースのトピックス：民主・小沢一郎代表秘書逮捕

　東京都の石原慎太郎知事は５日、報道陣の取材に応じ、民主党の小沢一郎代表の公設第１秘書が逮捕された事件について、「（小沢代表が）検察の国策捜査、検察ファッショみたいな言い方をしているが、検察だってプライドがある。公判維持できないものをやるわけがない」と述べ、違法献金受け取りを全面否定する小沢氏を批判した。

　石原知事は「これからいろんなものが出てくるから今の段階で何が、誰がどうこういう段階ではない」としたうえで、「検察はよほどの自信があったのだろう。なければやらない」との見方を示した。

　さらに、「経世会（旧竹下派）の金脈というのは、要するに『金丸－小沢時代』からずっと続いている。やっぱり、１企業が１０年間にわたってべらぼうな献金をする関係はめったに他にない」と指摘。

　「検察がどういう形で（真実を）洗い出すか。見物でしょう。私は経世会が象徴する金権と戦ってきたんだから」と話した。

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卸売市場での火災、不況のさなかの被災に関係者は落胆/相模原

* 2009/03/05

　「市民の台所」として市内の飲食店や小売業者が業務用食材などを買い求めていた相模原綜合卸売市場（相模原市東淵野辺四丁目）で四日夜に起きた火災は、同市場の約千平方メートルのＨ棟が全焼し、市場関係者に落胆の色が濃くにじんだ。不況のさなかの被災に「再建できるのか」との声も漏れた。

　火災は四日午後十時五十分ごろ発生し、店舗兼事務所を兼ねた同棟が全焼した。

　場長によると、同棟は二階には市場事務所や民主党県第14区総支部や県議会議員事務所など五つ事務所、一階には鮮魚店など八店が入居。四日は市場の定休日で、一階の食料品店では翌日の仕事に備えて女性従業員（63）が店舗内で仮眠していた。「パチパチとした音で目覚めたら、壁が燃えていた。火勢が強く、靴も履かずに夢中で外へ飛び出した」などと振り返る。

　この建物で鮮魚店を営む男性（57）によると、建物は少なくとも築三十年は経過しているという。男性は「店舗が密集しているので火の気には注意していたが、残念。魚を保管していたので手痛い損害」と落胆した表情で話した。

　鮮魚を仕入れている料理店の男性店主（33）は、「五日の分の食材は別な市場などで賄い、今後もそれが続くだろう。早く復旧してほしい」と話す。

　事務所が焼けた本村賢太郎県議は次期衆議院選挙への立候補を表明している。出火当時、現場の事務所で選挙準備の作業などに当たっていた男性秘書（35）は「後援会の名簿など書類は別な場所に予備を保管しているので無事だったが、最近の書類などは無くなってしまった。影響は大きい」と話した。

　現場は、ＪＲ横浜線古淵駅から約六百メートル離れた住宅と店舗が並ぶ一角。