Malaysia’s leader urged the world yesterday to consider drastic steps to ensure fuel and food security, including curbing oil speculation.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the steep rise in world oil and food prices demands a coordinated global response because “national and regional efforts are naturally limited.”
“The international community must be prepared to consider bold and unprecedented measures,” Abdullah said at a conference on regional security. “The burden which is now borne largely by the developing countries and the poor can easily spill into the developed societies.”
Abdullah said one option could be to suspend the trading of oil on the futures market “to prevent speculative biddings,” similar to how Japan has no trading in rice futures.
“We should examine such steps for possible application to the oil market, itself an important contributor to the soaring prices of other commodities,” Abdullah said, adding that such measures would “require negotiation and agreement at the international level.”
BUYING
Speculative buying has been cited as a major reason behind the more than doubling of the price of oil in a year. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has said the world is well supplied with oil and that the higher prices are driven by financial speculation.
High oil prices have also contributed to food prices skyrocketing worldwide along with other factors such as changing diets, urbanization, expanding populations, flawed trade policies, extreme weather, growth in biofuels production and speculation.
Abdullah urged other Southeast Asian nations to cooperate with China, Japan and South Korea to ensure food security, especially by creating “a viable rice reserve scheme that has the full commitment of all participating countries.”
Such measures could be taken under projects such as the East Asia Emergency Rice Reserve, Abdullah said. The rice reserve project — currently in a preliminary stage — is for use in natural emergencies or major disasters.
Malaysia is one of the countries hit hard by rocketing oil and rice prices.
It normally imports between 700,000 tonnes and 800,000 tonnes of rice annually, but its purchases are likely to be higher this year due to efforts to build up a buffer stock of three months, up from the current 15-day stock.
Malaysia plans to spend at least 725 million ringgit (US$224 million) to subsidize, for the first time, 550,000 tonnes of selected types of imported rice this year.
SUBSIDIES
But subsidies on fuel — predicted to cost the treasury 45 billion ringgit (US$14 billion) this year — are expected to be dismantled in August.
Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Shahrir Abdul Samad said yesterday that the government plans to remove price controls on gasoline and diesel, allowing their sale at world market prices by August.
Also See: UN resolution to let foreign navies help Somalia fight piracy
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of