Feb 26 Venezuela's international reserves fell to a 17-year low of $13.5 billion on Friday after the government paid in full its $1.5 billion Global 2016 bond , according to central bank data. The $1.543 billion decline in reserves matched the interest and principal paid on the 2016 bond.
"The government once again manifests it willingness and capacity to honor its financial commitments in a timely manner, demonstrating its solvency in international markets," the finance ministry said in a statement on its website confirming the payment.
The previous low for the South American country's international reserves was in March of 1999.
Investors had assumed President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government would pay the debt. But many still worry it may not have the funds to meet heavier payments due for bonds of state oil company PDVSA later in the year. Venezuela's total debt burden for 2016 is around $10 billion, of which more than $4 billion - mainly bonds of state oil company PDVSA - must be paid in October and November.
Plus the debt service for all the stuff the country needs to import, capital outflows, and to maintain the declining oil fields. All that at $30 a barrel, or less, for oil. Venezuela is almost as boned as California and Illinois.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/27/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Keep in mind they've probably got a lot more debt-off-the-books, and a lot of their production is pre-sold to China at prices that are lower than today's market prices... even when they were sold a couple years ago.
#2
Excellent point -- they aren't even getting $30 a barrel. And of course they have debt off the books -- they're socialists.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/27/2016 12:47 Comments ||
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#3
Happens when the Magic Money Tree(tm) dies. See - Ant and Grasshopper, Aesop circa 500 BC
[But we're so smart, urban, and modern. Those are just children tales. No, sunshine, they're observations of basic human behavior that haven't changed in two and a half millenniums.]
Gonna try to remember to have this for Friday.
[Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide] Today, Thursday, February 25 2016, the Baltic Dry Index climbed by 3 points, reaching 325 points.
Baltic Dry Index is compiled by the London-based Baltic Exchange and covers prices for transported cargo such as coal, grain and iron ore. The index is based on a daily survey of agents all over the world. Baltic Dry hit a temporary peak on May 20, 2008, when the index hit 11,793. The lowest level ever reached was on on Wednesday, 10 2016, when the index dropped to 290 points.
OPEC oil basket’s price stood at $29.19 per barrel on Feb. 25, or $0.89 more than on Feb. 24, the cartel told Trend Feb. 26. There was a positive dynamics in oil prices on Feb. 26 as well.
The price of April futures for North Sea Brent crude oil mix increased by 0.43 percent and stood at $35.44 per barrel on Feb. 26 morning. The price of April futures for WTI oil increased by 0.79 percent and reached $33.33 per barrel.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/27/2016 00:00 ||
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[TheDailyBeast] LONDON -- At the end of our torment, the girl two seats down leaned toward her friend and asked: 'Any idea what it was about?'
There was no answer.
The previous hour and 40 minutes were dominated by mutilation, castration, electrocution, two counts of rape, psychological torture, the cutting out of a tongue, and a fatal injection into somebody’s eyeball. It was hard to discern a narrative through the carnage. Coming soon to an "avant-garde" theater near you.
[Wash Times] Rick Tyler, the former Ted Cruz campaign spokesman who was fired this week for circulating a fake story about Marco Rubio, announced Friday that he has been hired as a contributor for MSNBC.
Mr. Tyler will make his first appearance Friday at 5 p.m. ET on "Meet the Press Daily," Mediaite reported.
"[I]’ll be on Meet the Press Daily with @chucktodd for the first time as an @MSNBC contributor. I hope you’ll watch," he tweeted Friday afternoon. His Twitter profile description now reads, "MSNBC Contributor."
Mr. Cruz firedMr. Tyler on Monday after he shared a false story about Mr. Rubio supposedly insulting the Bible.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/27/2016 13:20 Comments ||
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Gee, you don't thinkaybe he was a liberal all along, treading a delicate line between sabotaging the campaign while appearing just incompetent instead of obvious?
Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, who witnessed the launch, said the U.S. tests, conducted at least 15 times since January 2011, send a message to strategic rivals like Russia, China and North Korea that Washington has an effective nuclear arsenal.
"That's exactly why we do this," Work told reporters before the launch.
"We and the Russians and the Chinese routinely do test shots to prove that the operational missiles that we have are reliable. And that is a signal ... And, in case the message was ambiguous,
that we are prepared to use nuclear weapons in defense of our country if necessary."
Demonstrating the reliability of the nuclear force has taken on additional importance recently because the U.S. arsenal is near the end of its useful life and a spate of scandals in the nuclear force two years ago raised readiness questions.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
02/27/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] PESHAWAR: Two new cases of polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... virus have been confirmed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... province on Friday, raising this year’s national tally to five.
According to the Chief Minister's Polio Control Cell in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, polio virus was detected in a seven month old girl, Naureen Ajab Khan of Kohat district and 21 months old Jareer Waliullah, belonging to Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. With the two new cases reported today, the total number of polio cases reported this year in the province have reached three.
This year's first case was confirmed on February 6 in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... where a 34-month old Pakhtun child was positively diagnosed with the crippling virus.The second case was confirmed in KP's Nowshehra district in a 19- month old child, Abdullah Jehad Khan while the third case was reported from Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... on Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/27/2016 00:00 ||
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Chris Hughes, the owner of The New Republic, said on Friday that he had sold the magazine to Win McCormack, a publisher and editor based in New York and Portland, Ore., who founded the literary quarterly Tin House.
Mr. McCormack will appoint Hamilton Fish, the publisher of The Washington Spectator and a former publisher of The Nation, to be publisher and editorial director, The New Republic said.
Mr. Hughes, a Facebook founder whose tenure at the magazine was marked by turmoil, including the resignations of multiple employees protesting his decision to replace its top editor, signaled an intention to sell last month. Mr. McCormack’s and Mr. Fish’s backgrounds in journalism and progressive politics, he said, “make them uniquely qualified to lead such a historic institution. I look forward to watching their progress over the years to come.”
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Feb 26 Venezuela's international reserves fell to a 17-year low of $13.5 billion on Friday after the government paid in full its $1.5 billion Global 2016 bond , according to central bank data. The $1.543 billion decline in reserves matched the interest and principal paid on the 2016 bond.
