Showing posts with label rally. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rally. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Markets rally on Bin Laden death

2 May 2011 Last updated at 07:33 GMT Man walks past Tokyo stock market board. Stock markets have been volatile in past weeks The US dollar has rebounded and stock markets gained in Asia and Europe after US President Barack Obama said Osama Bin Laden had been killed.

Oil prices slid more than 1%, while "safe havens" such as gold and silver also lost value.

Analysts said Bin Laden's death could reduce security risks and would help lift consumer sentiment in the US.

But they warned that it would do little to ease the longer-term risks hanging over the US and global economies.

"There is some feel-good value and the market will like that," said Chip Hanlon of Delta Global Advisors.

But he added: "It doesn't change much about the energy situation and doesn't change much about the ongoing battle with radical Islamists."

Stock index futures indicated that Wall Street's main S&P 500 index would rise by 0.7% when it opened later on Monday.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index gained 1.6%, closing above the 10,000 level for the first time since mid-March, when the country was struck by a deadly earthquake and tsunami.

In Europe, London's FTSE 100 was closed for a public holiday, but other bourses, including those in France and Germany, opened higher.

Several stock markets in Asia, including in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, were also closed for a public holiday on Monday and will react to the news of Bin Laden's death on Tuesday.

Cheaper crude

Brent crude oil was trading $1.45 lower at $124.44, while US light shed $1.50 to $112.43.

Oil prices have been pushed to near record levels in recent weeks by the fighting in Libya, and political instability in the Middle East.

At the same time, producer countries such as Saudi Arabia have increased their output in an effort to ease fears of a supply squeeze.

Silver was the day's biggest declining commodity. At one point, it was trading some 13% lower.

Gold also dropped as investors bet that economic growth in the US was improving, albeit slowly, and that gains in the two metals were overdone.

Analysts said the rise in stocks markets reflected a willingness by investors to put money into riskier assets, in the belief that Bin Laden's death had removed some of the uncertainties hanging over world events.

"There is always a reaction in commodities to news of this nature," said David Lennox of Fat Prophets.

"The markets will always react quickly, and in this case it is someone who has been held out as the father of all terrorism.

But any easing we might see in oil or gold markets, in my view, will be short-lived. The longer-term impact will not be substantial."

Greater threat?

But some analysts said Bin Laden's death might actually incite more violence around the world.

"The immediate thing is how it will affect US assets: its embassies, personnel and physical installations," said Arjuna Mahendran, chief strategist at HSBC Private Bank.

"Does it raise the threat level? That's the key thing. I think it does."

The US State Department has cautioned its embassies and citizens against the possibility of reprisals from al-Qaeda, the organisation that Bin Laden started and led.

The department has also issued a worldwide travel alert warning of greater potential for anti-American violence.


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Sunday, May 1, 2011

Biker dies after rally accident

29 April 2011 Last updated at 11:51 A 62-year-old Borders man has died in hospital in Edinburgh after an accident at a vintage motorbike rally in Fife.

Graham Bell, of Dryinghouse Lane, Kelso, was hurt in the crash with another biker at the event at Cardenden near Lochgelly on Sunday.

He died in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary five days after the accident.

The other biker involved, a 61-year-old from Earlston in the Borders, was taken to Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline with minor injuries.

A report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal.


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Monday, April 11, 2011

Rally for murdered NI policeman

10 April 2011 Last updated at 03:50 GMT Constable Ronan Kerr Constable Ronan Kerr was killed when a car bomb exploded outside his home in Omagh A rally will be held in Omagh on Sunday afternoon to mark the death of Northern Ireland police officer Ronan Kerr.

Hundreds of people are expected to walk through the County Tyrone town in what is being called a march for peace.

The Catholic constable, 25, died when a booby-trap car bomb exploded outside his home in Omagh last Saturday.

Police have said another bomb - found in a van near Newry on Thursday night - may have been intended for a high-profile town centre attack.

That would have been reminiscent of the devastating blast which wrecked the centre of Omagh in 1998, killing 29 people including a woman who was pregnant with twins.

Widely condemned

Organisers of Sunday's rally say they intend to send a message to those who want take to Northern Ireland back to the violent past.

Recent bombings and attempted attacks have been widely condemned in Northern Ireland.

But the Newry discovery has reinforced police claims that the condemnations have had no effect on the dissidents responsible.

And police believe officers such as Constable Kerr are still being targeted.

PSNI Ch Supt Alasdair Robinson said the Newry device was "sophisticated and substantial", and could have caused huge devastation and loss of life.

Police activity

The 500lb bomb was stored inside a wheelie bin in a van under the main Belfast to Dublin road.

Police believe the van containing the bomb was abandoned in the underpass because of increased police activity following the murder of Constable Kerr.

Army bomb experts carried out several controlled explosions on the vehicle on Friday night.

The van was stolen in Maynooth in the Irish Republic in January but police have refused to be drawn on which organisation was responsible.

The alert began shortly before 2300 BST on Thursday and the road did not reopen until Saturday.


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Sunday, February 13, 2011

Crowd defies Algeria's rally ban

12 February 2011 Last updated at 13:36 GMT Thousands defied a government ban to hold a pro-democracy rally in Algiers

Thousands of people are holding a pro-democracy rally in Algeria's capital Algiers, defying a government ban.

Scuffles broke out between the protesters and riot police and a number of people were reportedly arrested.

Algeria - like Egypt, Tunisia and other countries in the region - has recently witnessed demonstrations for greater freedoms and better living standards.

Public demonstrations are banned in Algeria because of a state of emergency still in place since 1992.

Heavy police presence

The protesters gathered at Algiers' 1 May Square on Saturday morning.

They chanted "Bouteflika out!" - in reference to the country's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Some demonstrators waved copies of a newspaper front page with the headline about the ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Friday, Reuters reports.

About 30,000 police are reportedly deployed in and around capital, and extra police with water cannons are on stand-by.

At least 15 police vans, jeeps and buses were lined up at the square and about the same number on a nearby side-street outside the city's Mustapha hospital.

Small military-style armoured vehicles were also parked at junctions around the city.

There is also said to be a crowd of supporters of President Bouteflika on the streets.

On Friday, the authorities stopped people from gathering to celebrate the fall of Mr Mubarak.

The authorities want to avert any popular uprising similar to those in Tunisia and Egypt, as some Algerians say it is time to seize the moment, the BBC's Chloe Arnold in Algiers says.

However, others here say there is less of an appetite for political upheaval than in other countries in the region, our correspondent adds.

Algeria has a bloody recent history: it is emerging from two decades of violence with as many as 250,000 people losing their lives in a conflict between security forces and Islamist militants.

Earlier this month, President Bouteflika said the country's state of emergency would be lifted in the "very near future".

Mr Bouteflika made the announcement at a meeting with government ministers in the capital Algiers, according to the country's state-run media.

He said protests would be allowed everywhere in the country except in the capital.

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