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Bonn: SPD heads for crunch coalition vote! Angela Merkel, her political future vague?
Some 600 delegates from various state organizations of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) gathered in the western German city of Bonn on Sunday to decide whether their party should begin formal talks with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU).
If the SPD congress votes in favor of entering talks with Merkel’s conservatives and negotiations are successful, it could mean that Germany has a working government in place by Easter, ending what will have then been its longest period without one.
But many within the SPD are opposed to the idea of a renewed coalition under Merkel 's leadership, fearing that the already faltering party could be weakened further by such a move.
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Davos, WEF: The forum's organizers sent in vain invitations to Russian President Vladimir Putin and PM Dmitry Medvedev
Both they have not participated in the forum over the last few years. However, the forum is regularly attended by heads of state and government. In 2009, the Russian delegation in Davos was led by Putin, who was at the time the prime minister and by Medvedev in 2013.
The Russian government deliberately distances itself from the Davos forum, as recently “it has been unduly used only as a platform for the criticism of Russia's foreign and domestic policy by foreign participants from Western countries.”
US/EU policies of economic sanctions against Russia however has proved to be ineffective, causing quite serious damage to the European economy and still failing to force Russia to change its political course!
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London: UK FM Boris Johnson up till now in vain has renewed his calls for Donald Trump to visit the UK.
In a shock move the US President Trump cancelled his visit to the UK recently, officially blaming the Obama administration for brokering a bad deal on the sale of the American embassy building, but also on other matters.
However Donald Trump is set to meet UK PM Theresa May' at this week’s Davos summit WEF.
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Davos: World Economic Forum (WEF) This Week In Full Force; US President Donald Trump Will Deliver His “America First” Message
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Oman: Saudi, Russia: shore up crude prices further
Saudi’s Energy Minister Khaled al-Faleh on Sunday called for extending strong cooperation between OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers beyond 2018
Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister Khaled al-Faleh on Sunday called for extending cooperation between OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers beyond 2018 after a deal to shore up crude prices.
"We should not limit our efforts to 2018. We need to be talking about a longer framework for our cooperation," Faleh said before a meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC countries.
This is the first time Saudi Arabia explicitly calls for extending a 2016 deal between oil producers to cut back production to combat a global oil glut.
OPEC and non-OPEC countries signed a landmark agreement in November 2016 to cut output by 1.8 million barrels per day to fight huge oversupply and lift sagging crude prices.
That deal was initially for six months, but the 14-member cartel and 10 independent producers have since succesfully extended it.
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Gazprom to build the second line of the offshore segment of gas pipeline to Turkish coast, the Russian gas holding said.
The first line is meant for gas supplies to the Turkish market. The second one will be used to supply gas to Southeastern Europe.
"Implementation of the Turkish Stream project is in full swing. It is implemented concurrently on three sites in accordance with the plan: onshore in Russia and Turkey and in the Black Sea.
For now, the gas pipeline will be definitely put into operation in time, before 2019 year-end," Chief Executive Officer of Gazprom Alexei Miller said.
The Turkish Stream project envisages the construction of a gas pipeline across the Black Sea to Turkey’s European part and further on to the border with Greece. The seabed section is to be 910 kilometers long and the land section will run 180 km into Turkey. Early last year Gazprom kicked off the construction of a seabed section of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline from the Russian Black Sea coast.
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Oil price rises up to $70 a barrel pushed by strong cooperation of OPEC members, but in effect Russia indirectly punishing EU members due sanction policies with steady rising petrol prices!
Oil price experiences technical resistance just before $70. Analysts expect prices will rise further.
Friday’s NY close Brent crude futuers traded $68,74 a barrel (-0.53%). US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $62.45 a barrel (-0.75%).
Extension of the OPEC oil deal positively influenced price dynamics in the oil market, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said. Energy ministers of Saudi and Russia discussed prospects of cooperation with other countries aimed at the oil markets’ situation rebalancing during talks in Oman on Sunday.
OPEC member-states and non-OPEC oil producing countries reached the agreement on reduction of oil production in late 2016. The agreement obliges the parties to cut production by a total of 1.8 million barrels per day in comparison with the level of October 2016.
Under the agreement, Saudi Arabia and Russia have the biggest cutbacks, which are 486,000 barrels per day and 300,000 barrels per day respectively.
The deal was initially valid in the first half of 2017 but since then it was extended twice: first - until the end of March 2018, and then - until the end of 2018.
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UK author Antony Beevor has described Ukrainian ban on his award-winning book Stalingrad as “utterly outrageous”.
“I am demanding an immediate apology from President Poroshenko himself and a reversal of the decision to impound the book by the ‘expert council’.”
The bestselling history, winner of the 1999 Samuel Johnson prize, tells of the battle for the Russian city during the second world war. A Russian translation was one of 25 titles included on a banned list issued by Ukrainian authorities last week, alongside books by authors including Boris Akunin and Boris Sokolov.
In 2016, Ukraine passed a law that banned books imported from Russia if they contained “anti-Ukrainian” content, with an “expert council” assessing titles for such content.
Ukrainian ban was imposed because of a passage that details how 90 Jewish children were shot by Ukrainian militia “to save the feelings of the Sonderkommando”, the work units made up of the Nazis’ death camp prisoners.
But Beevor said the source was not an internal Soviet document, but a book by the anti-Nazi German officer Helmuth Groscurth. The book is noted as a source in Stalingrad, and the quotes attributed to Groscurth are sourced to it. Beevor also pointed to a harrowing but corroborating description of the incident in the the 1988 collection of firsthand recollections The Good Old Days: The Holocaust As Seen By Its Perpetrators and Bystanders.
“It’s utterly outrageous. They have no reason for doing it. It’s quite clear both in the Russian edition and English edition what the source was and where it came from – this rather brave and religious officer [Groscurth] who protested strongly, despite threats he would be reported to Himmler about this massacre of the children. There’s no way the Soviets would even have known about it,” said Beevor.
Beevor has written to the British embassy in Kiev about the ban, which he intends to protest. In the letter, Beevor says Oliyinyk’s “statement implying that I repeated anti-Ukrainian propaganda from Russian sources is totally untrue” and explains how he sourced the incident from the account in Groscurth’s Tagebücher eines Abwehroffiziers, published in Stuttgart in 1970.
“Groscurth was so shocked by what he had discovered that he wrote to his wife: ‘We cannot and should not be allowed to win this war’,” writes Beevor. “I am demanding an immediate apology from President Poroshenko himself and a reversal of the decision to impound the book by the ‘expert council’.”
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World is becoming unstable! US President Trump was sworn in on January 20, 2017, but one year later, inter-relations between Russia and the US are icy and it goes day by day from already very bad to worse!
Washington is expected to impose fresh penalties on Russia for alleged interference in the 2016 US election
Russian political decision-makers have overestimated Donald Trump’s ability and determination to mend bilateral relations!
Media reports suggest concern is growing in Russia about a detailed report that the US government will submit to Congress at the end of January about oligarchs with close ties to President Vladimir Putin
Donald Trump’s rise to power in the US has created a sort of euphoria for the Russian political elite, which thought that most problems in Russian-US relations are about to be solved.
This euphoria has started to erode very quickly after Trump took office, but it took political decision makers quite a while to sober up and take a more pragmatic look at the United States and Donald Trump."
However, US president’s powers are limited as compared to those of the Russian president".
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Nederlandse Vereniging van Banken: Gedragscode Kleinzakelijke Financiering versterkt positie onderneme
Nederlandse Vereniging van Banken: Gedragscode Kleinzakelijke Financiering versterkt positie ondernemer
Ondernemers in het midden- en kleinbedrijf willen er bij een banklening op kunnen rekenen dat de bank een betrouwbare en voorspelbare partner is. Met name kleinere mkb’ers hebben behoefte aan duidelijkheid van de bank in alle fasen van de financiering: bij de oriëntatie, de aanvraag en tijdens de looptijd van de lening. Banken hebben daarom de Gedragscode Kleinzakelijke Financiering opgesteld.
Deze gedragscode geeft kleinere mkb’ers een sterkere positie als zij een lening afsluiten bij de bank. Met de code zorgen banken voor een duidelijke en evenwichtige presentatie van alle aspecten van zo’n lening tijdens de hele ‘customer journey’. Hierbij valt te denken aan heldere informatievoorziening over wat er gebeurt bij tussentijdse veranderingen, eventuele renteherziening en mogelijkheden om vervroegd af te lossen. Ook geven banken goede uitleg over een eventuele afwijzing van een aanvraag voor krediet. Wanneer banken toegevoegde waarde zien voor de klant, kunnen zij doorverwijzen naar alternatieve financiers. Zo gaan geen goede ondernemersplannen verloren.
Kleinere mkb’ers (met een omzet tot vijf miljoen euro) hebben een andere positie dan grotere bedrijven of consumenten. Zij missen vaak de kennis en ervaring van grotere bedrijven maar hebben niet de sterk gereguleerde bescherming die consumenten doorgaans genieten. De nieuwe code doet recht aan hun bijzondere positie. De normen die gelden bij financiering worden hiermee expliciet gemaakt zodat de ondernemer de bank hierop kan aanspreken.
Aan de code is ruim een jaar gewerkt. Banken zijn hiervoor intensief in gesprek gegaan met een groot aantal stakeholders, waaronder ministeries, toezichthouders, ondernemersorganisaties en andere belangenbehartigers. Er hebben twee dialoogsessies plaatsgevonden waarop ondernemers en anderen feedback konden geven tijdens het opstellen van de code. Bij deze sessies bleek dat er bij kleinere ondernemers behoefte is aan meer duidelijkheid over en houvast bij financiering.
De code bevat minimumnormen bij het verstrekken van financiering waar alle leden van de Nederlandse Vereniging van Banken die leningen verstrekken aan dit segment zich aan zullen houden. De code treedt op 1 juli a.s. in werking en geldt voor financieringen (geldleningen en kredietfaciliteiten) die vanaf dat moment worden aangevraagd. De code wordt in 2021 geëvalueerd.
Geschillenloket
Alle banken hebben klachtenprocedures die er op gericht zijn om een klacht naar tevredenheid af te handelen. Informatie hierover is te vinden op de websites van de banken. De Gedragscode zet uiteen wat de klant mag verwachten van de bank wanneer een klacht wordt ingediend en bevat onder andere informatie over de termijnen van afhandeling van een klacht.
Mocht de afhandeling niet naar tevredenheid zijn, dan bestaat per 1 juli voor klanten die een financiering hebben afgesloten onder de Gedragscode de mogelijkheid een geschil voor te leggen aan een onafhankelijke, laagdrempelige instantie voor geschillenbeslechting (Kifid). Meer informatie hierover volgt in de aanloop naar 1 juli.
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British retail sales decreased much more than expected in December. Consumers already hit by Brexit effect continued to watch spending.
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London: UK shop sales slid by much more than expected in December, capping off the weakest year for retail since 2013 as consumers squeezed by the Brexit effect on prices continued to watch spending.
December retail sales dropoped 1.5% versus November 2017.
Euro (-0.06%) vs. Pound Sterling at £0.8800
Daily High: £0.8845 <> Daily Low: £0.8791
Friday’s data pushed Pound Sterling down (-0.34%) vs. US-Dollar at $1.3844.
UK government bond prices hit a session high.
Lowest annual growth rate since 2013; In the latest three months the quantity retail sales increased by only 0.4%
The UK's retail sales volumes dropped 1.5% from November, the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, well below forecasts. That marked the biggest month-on-month fall since June 2016, the month Britons voted to leave the European Union, as well as the weakest December performance for seven years.
Britain's economy slowed in 2017 as higher inflation - caused by the post-referendum fall in Pound - hurt the spending power of consumers, although forecasts of a bigger hit to growth were confounded.
The Bank of England, which is considering when to follow up on November's first rate hike in a decade, expects the squeeze will ease in 2018 as inflation cools and wage growth ticks higher.
Recent surveys of consumers suggest they do not share the central bank's optimism.
"The longer-term picture is one of slowing growth, with increased prices squeezing people's spending," UK ONS statistician Rhian Murphy said about the data.
Many shoppers brought forward their Christmas spending into November to take advantage of Black Friday sales promotions, the UK ONS said.
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Investors are bracing for Sunday’s outcome! Euro (-0.22%) at $1.2206 in NY closing trade! Bonn: delegates are set to vote on Sunday about Yes or No Merkel;
Euro forecast to drop if the SPD bows out.
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The US Government has officially shutdown last night
The White House labeled Democrats “obstructionist losers” and said talks on immigration won’t start again until the government reopens.
The US Senate tried fruitlessly to negotiate a deal to keep the government open, prompting a shutdown on the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
On a 50-49 vote that closed shortly after midnight, the Senate rejected a patchwork funding measure that would stave off a shutdown for four more weeks.
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ICAO: Continued passenger traffic growth and robust air cargo demand in 2017
Montréal, 17 January 2018 – A new record 4.1 billion passengers were carried by the aviation industry on scheduled services in 2017, according to the preliminary figures released today by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).