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Poland updates its green bond framework in anticipation of the first possible issuance within six years
The Finance Ministry announced late Wednesday that Poland had updated its green bonds framework. Poland is one of the most coal-dependent economies in the European Union and could be preparing for its first green bond issue in six years. Karol Czarnecki, the debt chief at the finance ministry, said in January that there was a "high probability" Poland would be issuing green bonds this coming year. He did not provide any further details on the timing of the issuance or its size. The last time it sold green bonds was in March 2019. Sovereign Green Bonds are debt instruments issued by governments to finance environmentally-friendly projects and sustainable development. The updated framework is based upon the International Capital Market Association's (ICMA) 2021 principles and pre-issuance check list, which outline the use and management of proceeds, the project evaluation and selection process, and the reporting requirements. The document states that eligible projects include those dealing with renewable energy, energy efficient buildings, "green infrastructure", and clean transport as well as sustainable land management, water, wastewater, and climate change adaption. Green infrastructure is the construction and operation the electricity grid. It can be either interconnected with the European system, or it can enable low-carbon generation. The Polish parliament passed legislation Wednesday that eases the rules for building onshore wind farm. According to the government, this is an important step in increasing renewable energy production and lowering power prices, as part of the broader effort to reduce Poland's dependence on coal. It is not clear if the bill will be approved in its final form, given the political opposition of both the outgoing president and the newly elected one, who are opposed to some of the reforms proposed by the liberal government. The first nuclear reactor in Poland will be completed by 2036. (Reporting and editing by Gergely szakacs, Hugh Lawson and Karol Badohal)
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China's stimulus plans and dollar weakness are driving up the price of iron ore
Iron ore prices rose on Thursday after reversing earlier losses. A weaker dollar and Chinese officials' promises to boost domestic consumption boosted investor sentiment. The day-traded iron ore contract for September on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange ended 0.64% higher, at 705.5 Yuan ($98.44). As of 0705 GMT, the benchmark July iron ore traded on Singapore Exchange was trading at $93.25 per ton. The dollar fell to a multi-year low on Thursday, after U.S. president Donald Trump's remarks about replacing Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell raised concerns over the independence of central bank. Dollar-denominated investments are cheaper for holders of currencies other than the greenback. China also expressed its support, with Premier Li Qiang saying on Thursday that the government would take "forceful measures" to increase domestic consumption. Despite the gains, China's production and rising inventories kept them in check. Data from Chinese consultancy Mysteel shows that inventories of imported iron-ore sintering-fines increased for the third consecutive week, reaching 12.3 million metric tons as of 25 June. Meanwhile, consumption of sintering-fines dropped 1.5% on a weekly basis. Analysts at ANZ said that "Iron Ore Futures are on the verge of a new low for the year as strong supplies and lower production in China weigh down sentiment." Everbright Futures, a broker, said that iron ore exports from Australia and Brazil have increased. Vale, a major producer of iron ore in Brazil has also ramped up its supply to meet the demand for end-of-season products. Coking coal and coke, which are used to make steel, also rose on the DCE. They increased by 3.6% and 1.8%, respectively. Haitong Futures, a broker, reported that coal production was reduced by coal mines due to accidents and environmental concerns. The Shanghai Futures Exchange has seen a rise in most steel benchmarks. Rebar increased by 0.1%, while hot-rolled steel coils gained 0.39%. Stainless steels climbed 1.16 percent, and wire rod dropped 0.06%. ($1 = 7.1671 Chinese yuan). (Reporting and editing by Sonia Cheema, Mrigank Dhaniwala).
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Israeli attacks kill at minimum 21 Gazans, doctors say
Local health officials said that Israeli airstrikes and gunfire killed at least 21 Palestinians on Thursday in the Gaza Strip, while mediators sought to reach out to Israel and Hamas and resume ceasefire talks for the end of the war. Local health officials said that an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City killed at least nine people in a school for displaced families. Another strike in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the enclave, killed nine more people. Three more people were also killed and dozens wounded by Israeli gunfire as crowds waited for U.N. trucks on a major route in central Gaza. This is the latest of a string of deaths at distribution points. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incidents that occurred Thursday. Israel claims it wants to free the hostages and eliminate Hamas militants who attacked southern Israel in 2023 from Gaza. According to Hamas, the new deaths came as Arab mediators Egypt and Qatar reached out to warring parties to try to start new ceasefire negotiations. However, no timetable was given for the new round of talks. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, who heads a coalition of far-right parties insists on Hamas, the group that has ruled Gaza since nearly 20 years, releasing all hostages and laying down their weapons. Hamas has said it will release hostages only if Israel agrees on a ceasefire permanent and withdraws its troops from Gaza. Hamas, while it conceded that it would no long govern Gaza has refused to talk about disarmament. According to Israel's tallies, Hamas militants took 251 hostages and killed more than 1,200 people when they attacked Israel in 2023. Israel responded with a massive military campaign. According to local health officials, Israel's retaliatory conflict has killed over 56,000 Palestinians and destroyed much coastal strip. The majority of hostages freed so far were released through indirect negotiations between Hamas & Israel.
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Australian shares fall as tech stocks weigh
Australian shares ended lower on Thursday. Technology stocks were the main drag, with software giant Xero falling after raising capital for a discounted price to fund Melio Payments' buyout. The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed at 8,550.8, a 0.1% decrease. The benchmark index ended Wednesday with a flat finish. Technology stocks fell 2.1% and closed at their lowest level in over three weeks. Xero, which dropped 5.3%, was the main culprit. The accounting software maker's shares resumed trading a few days after Melio Payments, a U.S./Israeli payments provider, announced that it was acquiring it for up to $3 billion. The company raised A$1.85billion ($1.21billion) at a discounted price of A$176/share, which is 9.4% lower. The deal is expected to help Xero establish itself as a leading global software provider, but there are still questions about the price, the possible dilution in free cash flow margin, and how the company's loss-making business will be integrated with Xero. This was stated by Tony Sycamore at IG, a market analyst. WiseTech Global, a larger competitor, fell by 0.6%. The Industrial sub-index dropped 0.4%, and Real Estate stocks fell 0.7%. After three sessions of new record highs, heavyweight financial stocks closed flat. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Australia's largest lender, closed down by 0.4%. Sycamore stated that the financial industry is overbought, and there could be a slight cooling. Copper prices reached a new two-week high. Healthcare stocks rose by 0.4%. Investors in the local market are now waiting for retail sales figures due next week. Sycamore stated that there are concerns about Australia's growth trajectory. Retail sales data could reinforce the case for rate cuts in July, and possibly a follow-up in August. The benchmark S&P/NZX 50 Index in New Zealand ended a six-day loss streak by finishing 0.2% higher, at 12,480.05. $1 = 1.5335 Australian Dollars (Reporting and editing by Vijay Kishore in Bengaluru)
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Wall Street Journal, June 26,
These are the most popular stories from the Wall Street Journal. These stories have not been verified and we cannot vouch their accuracy. Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has spoken to U.S. president Donald Trump at least two times this month, as he attempts to take advantage of a rivalry between SpaceX founder Elon Mush and Trump to bag more government contracts. Shell denied that it had approached BP and was involved in negotiations for the largest oil deal of a generation. Conagra Brands is removing certified colors for food, drugs and cosmetics from its U.S. frozen products portfolio by 2025. Ulta Beauty announced that its finance chief Paula Oyibo had resigned after just a few months and appointed Chris Lialios, an insider as its interim CFO. The U.S. Antitrust Commission cleared Mars' $36 billion acquisition of Pringles maker Kellanova, but the EU has opened a full investigation, claiming that it could result in price increases. - The President has toyed around with the idea that he would announce and select Jerome Powell as his replacement before September or October.
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India's rice harvest is a record crop, resulting in a surplus of ethanol.
India has allocated record volumes of rice for ethanol production, as it battles with unprecedented inventories. These are expected to grow further when the new crop arrives. This is a turnaround from the earlier shortages which led to export restrictions. The conversion of more rice into ethanol helps reduce the rice stock in the world’s largest producer and exporter. It also keeps India’s ambitious ethanol blend programme on track, despite the drop in sugar cane supplies. India lifted the last of two years' worth of export restrictions in March. The poor rains had curtailed rice production. The abundant monsoon rainfall this year is expected to produce a bumper harvest. A senior government official, who declined to be identified because he wasn't authorised to talk to the media, said: "Our number one priority is to make sure that we have enough food." The official explained, "We have a lot more rice than is needed for this purpose and we decided to use some for ethanol production." Food Corporation of India, a state-run company, has allotted a record amount of rice to ethanol. This is equivalent to almost 9% of the global rice shipment in 2024/25's marketing year that ends in June. The previous year, FCI rice was used to make ethanol in less than 3,000 tonnes. FCI purchases nearly half of India’s rice crop. It currently has reserves of 59.5 million metric tonnes, including unmilled rice, on June 1. This is far more than the government’s target of 13.5 millions tons for July. Rice for ethanol is a great alternative to corn, which was spiking last year and forcing India to import record amounts of corn. Grain-based distilleries can use damaged grains, corn, or rice as their feedstock. They switch between them based on the price. India, which is the world's third largest oil importer, and the biggest consumer of petroleum products, wants to blend 20% ethanol in gasoline by 2025/26. It almost reached that target last month, with 19.8% ethanol thanks to abundant rice. In 2023, sugarcane supply, which had accounted for 80 percent of ethanol feedstock up until then, plummeted due to drought, forcing the largest consumer of sweetener in the world to drastically reduce sugar diversion for ethanol. In India, the gasoline last year contained 14.6% ethanol. PROBLEM of PLENTY Arushi JAIN, joint secretary of the Grain Ethanol Manufacturers Association, stated that even more rice would be used to produce ethanol if government lowers the price of rice or increases the price for buying ethanol. According to Akshay Modi of Modi Naturals, an ethanol producer, the FCI sells rice for 22,500 Indian Rupees ($262.19) a ton while oil marketing companies purchase rice-based bioethanol at 58.5 rupees a litre. This doesn't leave enough margin to increase rice-based bioethanol production. FCI stocks may rise as India will likely harvest a bumper crop in October, according to B.V. Krishna Rao of the Rice Exporters Association. Rao said that India could only increase its exports so far, since it already accounts more than 40% for global rice shipments. India has aggressively exported rice since removing export restrictions. Shipments are likely to increase by nearly 25%, reaching a record of 22.5 million tonnes in 2025, reducing the exports from rivals such as Thailand and Vietnam. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, India harvested 146.1 million tonnes of rice in this crop year that ended in June. This was a record harvest, and far exceeded local demand, which was 120.7 millions tons. Himanshu Agrawal is the executive director of rice exporter Satyam Balajee. He said that rising stockpiles would force India to allocate more rice for ethanol next marketing year. Agrawal said, "The government is going to find it difficult to sell all the rice that they purchased from farmers." $1 = 85.8140 Indian Rupees
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Peabody extends lockout of Helensburgh coalmine in Australia
The U.S. coal company Peabody Energy has extended a lockout in one of its New South Wales mining operations, the Mining and Energy Union said Thursday. This follows a protest by its workers who demanded better wages and job security. According to the union, Peabody informed MEU members that the lockout of the Helensburgh underground mine would continue until July 6. The union stated that the workers had been locked out and without pay since 18 June. It also urged the Federal Government for a change in workplace laws which allow employers to take excessively "disproportionate" or "punitive actions" against workers exercising their rights to bargain. Matt Potter, Helensburgh mineworker delegate of the MEU and a MEU member, said that workers would not be intimidated and continue to fight for a fair wage and job security. Peabody's spokesperson stated, "We have extended the lawful action period to match the extended notification period of strike action by the union." The spokesperson said that "the company will cancel lockout action" if the union ceases its industrial action and their illegal 'go slowly' activities. The union didn't immediately respond to the company claiming that union workers were "going slow". Adwitiya Shrivastava reported from Bengaluru, and Janane Venkatraman edited the story.
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China's Guangxi province is flooded by water from an upstream province
Floodwaters from an upstream province swept into the mountainous area of China's Guangxi, causing towns and villages to be half submerged. A tropical cyclone is expected to land in the region later on Thursday, adding further disaster risk. Massive flooding in Guizhou province, in the cities of Rongjiang, Congjiang, and other areas, has now spread to the southwest, including Guangxi, where rural settlements are located on the banks of Liu River, which originates in Guizhou. State media reported that the Guangxi township Meilin had been hit hardest, with floodwaters reaching a height of more than four metres (13 feet), above what is considered safe. As floodwaters receded and surface runoff became less dangerous, southwest China, from Guizhou to Chongqing to Yunnan to Sichuan, was on alert for secondary disasters like road collapses, land slides and hydro-dam spillovers. Chen Xiaoguang is a professor at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu. He said that rural areas face many challenges because of their limited infrastructure and resources. Strengthening these systems will help reduce the impact of severe weather on rural areas. He said that urban areas are better equipped to deal with floods than other cities, but they're not all the same. Rongjiang, for example, is a county level area where resources are limited. The flood that hit Rongjiang in Guizhou, located at the confluence three rivers, on Tuesday was so large that Chinese meteorologists estimated that it would only occur once every 50 years. It also happened at such a rapid pace that its 300,000 inhabitants were shocked. One section of the Liu River in Rongjiang swelled to 11,800 cubic meters per second. This is the equivalent of five Olympic-sized pools. This was 80 times higher than the average flow rate. Six people died. Rains from the tropical depression that is expected to land in Guangxi Thursday night may affect restoration work and cause a second round of flooding. Tropical depressions made landfall in China's island province Hainan on Thursday morning, and then again on the mainland of Guangdong, bringing even more rain to an area still recovering from Typhoon Wutip, which hit two weeks earlier. (Reporting by Joe Cash and Shi Bu in Beijing and Farah Master in Hong Kong; writing by Ryan Woo; editing and retouching Jamie Freed and Raju Gopalakrishnan) Extreme storms are causing severe flooding that is linked to climate change. They threaten to overwhelm the ageing flood defenses, displace thousands of people, and cause economic losses of billions of dollars. Reporting by Joe Cash in Beijing, Shi Bu in Hong Kong and Ryan Woo in Hong kong. Writing by Jamie Freed; Editing and Raju by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Jamie Freed.
The ethics committee of the Norway Fund reviews Israeli bank stakes in West Bank settlement loans
The ethics watchdog of Norway's $1.9 trillion fund is reviewing the practice by Israeli banks to underwrite Israeli settlers' commitments to build houses in the occupied West Bank. This review could lead up $500 million in divestments.
The Council on Ethics (a public body established by the Ministry of Finance) has decided to not object to the Fund’s investments in platforms like Airbnb, which offer rentals in Jewish settlements.
The Norwegian parliament has set ethical guidelines for the companies in the portfolios of the largest wealth fund in the world.
Svein Brandtzaeg, the Council's head in an interview on May 22 said that the Council was looking at how Israeli banks provide guarantees to protect Israeli settlers money if a company building their homes in the West Bank were to fail.
He said that other practices were also being examined, "but so far this is what we have seen". "This is what has been well documented." He refused to give a time estimate for the review.
Brandtzaeg didn't name the banks, but at the end 2024 the fund will own shares worth about 5 billion crowns (500 million dollars) in five of the largest Israeli lenders. This is an increase of 62% over the past 12 months.
Hapoalim Bank Leumi Israel Discount Bank Mizrahi Tefahot Bank First International Bank of Israel and Bank Leumi did not respond to requests for comments.
They have been listed in the list of companies that are linked to settlements within the occupied Palestinian Territories, compiled by the U.N. mission that assesses the implications on Palestinian rights.
Investors have become increasingly concerned in recent years about a 19-month Israeli offensive that has resulted in the deaths of more than 50,000 Palestinians, and the destruction of the Gaza Strip as a response to an attack launched by Hamas militants which killed over 1,200 Israelis.
In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, 2.7 millions Palestinians live alongside 700 000 Israeli settlers.
Some Israeli companies serve both Israelis as well as Palestinians.
Last year, the top court of the United Nations ruled that Israeli settlements on land seized in 1967 are illegal. Israel called this ruling "fundamentally incorrect", citing historical or biblical ties with the land.
Accommodation Rentals in West Bank Settlements
The Council on Ethics will begin a new assessment of investments related to the West Bank & Gaza in mid-2024.
The report examined 65 companies and recommended that only the petrol station chain Paz, as well as the telecoms company Bezeq be divested. This resulted in shares being sold.
The Council also examined some multinationals' activities in the West Bank to determine if they met its guidelines.
Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia were among the platforms that made the U.N.'s list, and accounted for approximately $3 billion of Fund investments.
In a joint interview, Eli Ane Lund said that the Council would not recommend the creation of watchlists or divesting from these.
She said that "the company's activities must have some sort of influence on (ethical violations)." "It is not enough to just have a connection. It must have some sort of influence on the (ethical) violation.
The Council makes recommendations to the central banks, who are not required to follow these but usually do.
The decision to sell investments is made public after the sale is completed, in order to avoid alarming the markets.
Pro-Palestinian activists say that the Council's recommendation for divestments is too high. They also claim that the Norwegian Government should instruct the fund in order to divest from Israel, just like it did with Russia three days after the invasion of Ukraine by Moscow.
Most lawmakers, however, support the Council approach and will formally endorse on Wednesday a decision by a parliamentary committee to not order a boycott. Reporting by Gwladys Fauch in Oslo, Stefania Spezati in London, and Steven Scheer from Jerusalem; editing by Kevin Liffey
(source: Reuters)