According to reports, the world's biggest energy group announced a first-quarter record profit of $10.9 billion but its oil production fell almost 10 per cent in the first three months of the year. Moreover, its refining profits also slumped. Reports said that the company's broader market rallied, but Exxon shares fell 3.6 per cent to $89.70.
And she has blamed the 'growing Indian and Chinese appetite in contributing to the global food crisis'. The US Secretary of State is technically correct since both the countries dominate the world food consumption. But analysts feel she is morally and socially wrong.
World food prices have been rising since 2000, but this sped up slightly in 2007, then sharply in early 2008. High prices have hit the urban poor especially hard, and led to food shortages, riots and demonstrations worldwide. IRRI is part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, a network of international agricultural research institutes started in the 1960s.
Many schools across the world received breakfast or lunch for their students under World Food Program. But even this aid is under serious threat. UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon has put the priority on feeding the hungry by closing a $755m funding gap for the UN's World Food Programme this year.
In an effort to produce biofuel from a variety of elephant grass, Monsanto Co of Creve Coeur and Mendel Biotechnology Inc are joining hands. According to the two companies, Monsanto will lend its crop-testing, breeding and seed-production expertise to the Bioenergy Seeds & Feedstocks unit of Mendel, based in Hayward, California.
In today's world if the diamond is over one carat in size it will usually come with a certificate from the laboratory specifying the inclusions, color and size. The carat itself is made of one hundred particular parts called points. While it is possible to estimate the weight of a mounted diamond, the lab uses ultrasensitive scales to achieve an exact weight, measured 3 decimal places, although the third decimal place is not usually mentioned at the retail level.
According to the Third Advance Estimates for 2007-08, the total foodgrains production is slated to reach an all-time high at 227.3 million tonnes, recording an increase of 4.6 per cent over the previous year (217.3 million tonnes). The production during 2007-08 would exceed the target set earlier (221.5 million tonnes) by 5.8 million tonnes. Notwithstanding the moderation, the growth performance was in tune with the high average real GDP growth of 8.7 per cent.
HUL has recently developed a new process of manufacturing soap based on 'Plough Share Mixer' technology which eliminates the need for steam in soap making. The new technology cuts carbon emissions by 15,000 tons per year and HUL has been awarded carbon credits for this under the Clean Development Mechanism scheme operated by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The first leap towards an organized derivatives market came in 1848, when the Chicago Board of Trade, the largest derivative exchange in the world, was established. Today, equity and commodity derivative markets are rapidly gaining in size in India. In terms of popularity too, these markets are catching on like a forest fire.
This is as definitive as it can get. Dutch global beer major Heineken is understood to have outlined its intent to Vijay Mallya's United Breweries that it does not want to have any conflicting presence in India.
After 14 months of deliberation, the five-member Abhijit Sen Committee on futures trading has failed to reach a consensus on whether to support or oppose the ban on futures trading in all farm commodities. Earlier, the committee had planned to recommend continuation of the existing ban on futures trading in some farm commodities and had included it in its draft report. The government had suspended futures trading in tur, urad, wheat and rice last year.
The desperation in countries like the United States is turning into forlornness. History says that whenever the West gets desperate enough over any festering issue, they find a solution. The discovery of penicillin is the product of such desperation. With this level of hopelessness, it will not be surprising if the world is seeing the last days of the lordship of the almighty crude oil.
The premier Indian Institutes of Management will have to draw on all their management skills to solve the current financial imbroglio they are in. On the one hand, the fee hike by IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore has caused heartburn not only among students and the Union Human Resource Development Ministry but also among the other IIMs who say they were not consulted despite an existing agreement to do so. IIM-A and IIM-B have said that a fee hike is a prerogative of their own
OPEC expects an additional daily average output growth of 1.2 million barrels or a daily average oil output of 87 million barrels in 2008. The OPEC output quota this year will be less than 32 million bpd and non-OPEC output would be about 50.3 million bpd, according to a report . OPEC's actual production will be higher than the quota but that will not be sufficient to coverup the demand-supply imbalance in the international market.
Wheat is among the planet's most important food crops, but it has a natural enemy that can turn the crop into a black tangle of broken stems. Cornell University hopes a new $26.8 million grant can help them combat the emergence of deadly new strains of rust disease and help avert a pandemic that could produce catastrophic wheat crop losses worldwide.
The only element of demand for gold likely to be affected by a recession is investment demand, "but that in turn will depend on the 'type' of recession,". Recessions can be bad for commodity prices, as consumer and business confidence falls, demand for goods and services is cut, weighing on demand for raw materials and depressing prices.
The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development stopped short of an explicit global action plan, but highlighted several options that leaders throughout the public and private might consider in an effort to assure affordable food is produced in a sustainable manner. The report said agricultural knowledge, science and technology alone cannot solve problems "caused by complex political and social dynamics"
In a significant development, India's National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited on Thursday launched its futures contract for Certified Emission Reduction. Forward Markets Commission, chairman, B. C. Khatua inaugurated the launch at NCDEX Exchange Platform. The CER contract of NCDEX will be traded in multiples of one lot of 500 CERs each.
Even as experts were debating pros and cons of the waiver, came the first-ever announcement in the history of commodity markets anywhere in the world the introduction of Commodity Transaction Tax and this, coupled with service tax imposed on commodity exchanges, was a blow to the nascent commodity Futures industry in the country.
The food processing sector in the country with its vast potential has emerged as one of the major driver of economic growth. It is encouraging to note that while the country's GDP growth rate had increase from 3.5 per cent in 2002-03 to 9 percent in 2006-07, the food processing sector has grown from 7 per cent to 13.1 per cent during the same period. India is a country of over 1.10 billion consumers, there is a large untapped domestic market of 1,000 million consumers.
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