Crude oil rose to an eight-month high, as Israeli preparations for a retaliatory strike against the Palestinians for a suicide bombing on Tuesday renewed concern that supplies from the Middle East might be disrupted.
Israel has been expected to hit Palestinian targets in the Gaza Strip in response to the bombing that killed 15 Israelis.
Last month Iraq halted oil exports for 30 days to protest Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory on the West Bank. Export operations resumed yesterday, according to Iraqi officials.
Any mistakes by the Israelis "could further enrage the Arabs," said Michael Fitzpatrick, a futures broker at Fimat USA Inc in New York. "It's a risky time. A great deal could change over the weekend."
Crude oil for June delivery rose US$0.31, or 1.1 percent, to US$27.99 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest closing price since Sept. 17. Prices, which have risen 41 percent this year, were up 5.1 percent this week.
In London, the June Brent crude-oil futures contract rose US$0.44, or 1.7 percent, to US$26.38 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange. Prices were up 2.4 percent this week.
Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered the Gaza Strip town of Rafah as the army massed troops on the Gaza border in preparation for an attack, the Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported.
"Obviously, there's a Middle East crisis premium in all crude-oil prices around the world," Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in Chicago. "Obviously, we are potentially vulnerable."
Arab producers, with the exception of Iraq, haven't restricted supplies for political reasons since the oil crisis of 1973, when Saudi Arabia and other states cut off exports to the US because of its support of Israel.
"Oil is a vital commodity and markets have to factor in even an outside chance" of an embargo, said Jim Steel, a director of commodity research at Refco Inc in New York. "In the past, there have been oil stoppages that have hurt. You don't know how the situation in the Middle East will be resolved, so you try to anticipate every possible outcome."
Arab oil producers meeting in Cairo this weekend may debate whether to place an embargo on exports in retaliation for an Israeli attack on Palestinian targets.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day