Egypt bets big with historic 3.8 million metric tonne wheat tender

Ahmed Kouchouk, Egypt's Finance Minister looks on during a press conference in the east of Cairo, Egypt, August 6, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 07 August 2024
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Egypt bets big with historic 3.8 million metric tonne wheat tender

  • Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Egypt’s Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk said that not all repercussions of the global sell-off wave are negative, as commodity prices are now at an almost four-year low

CAIRO: Egypt’s state grains buyer, the General Authority for Supply Commodities, announced on Tuesday a massive tender for 3.8 million metric tons of wheat to cover imports between October 2024 and April 2025, its largest ever according to traders.
Egypt has been one of the world’s largest wheat importers, mainly to provide subsidised bread for tens of millions of its people. GASC alone imports some 5.5 million metric tons of wheat annually for bread subsidies.
GASC is seeking the wheat for shipment periods spanning 1-15 and/or 16-30 of each month starting in October until April, with the shipment date in February to be 16-28. Egypt is seeking the cargoes on a free-on-board basis and will purchase using 270-day letters of credit.
GASC is requesting that traders submit bids for at least three months’ shipments. The deadline for offers is Aug 12.
“This is a very strange tender,” said one trader.
“We usually submit bids for shipping a month or two in advance. It would be very difficult to submit a freight offer six or seven months in advance,” he added.
Traders told Reuters that the latest tender is an enormous change to GASC’s whole purchasing strategy and could be a win-all or lose-all situation for the North African country, which is working to keep its economy afloat with the support of the International Monetary Fund and friendly Gulf countries who have injected billions of dollars in loans and investments in 2024 alone.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Egypt’s Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk said that not all repercussions of the global sell-off wave are negative, as commodity prices are now at an almost four-year low.
Shortly after GASC’s announcement, European wheat futures rose on Tuesday.
“My colleagues (at the government) are seizing this opportunity to buy what we need amid the current situation in the global market,” Kouchouk said.
However, traders are skeptical about Egypt’s ability to fulfill its ambition.
“I doubt if they will be able to get the full volume,” said another trader. He said the 270-day payment is very off-putting.
However, a third trader said trading houses will want the business and will just add the banking costs of the 270-day payment delay to their price offers.
GASC said it aims to maintain a wheat reserve sufficient to meet nine months of demand.
As of July, wheat Egypt’s strategic reserves of wheat were estimated to be sufficient for 6.9 months. “It appears that Egypt wants to get big supplies in storage or at least in its books. This could be due both to Egypt’s financial problems or the threat of greater war in the Middle East,” a European trader told Reuters.
“They could shoot themselves in the foot by buying in advance but then having to regret if prices fall later.”

 


Lebanon files complaint against Israel at UN labor body over deadly pager explosions, minister says

Updated 53 min 43 sec ago
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Lebanon files complaint against Israel at UN labor body over deadly pager explosions, minister says

  • Lebanese Labor Minister Moustafa Bayram said he traveled to Geneva to formally file the complaint against Israel at the International Labor Organization
  • Bayram said the casualty count was even higher than first reported

GENEVA: A Lebanese government minister said Wednesday his country was filing a complaint against Israel at the UN’s labor organization over the string of deadly attacks involving exploding pagers, saying workers were among those killed and injured.
The explosions in mid-September were widely blamed on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement. The blasts killed at least 37 people, including two children, wounded more than 3,000 and deeply unsettled even Lebanese who have no Hezbollah affiliation.
Lebanese Labor Minister Moustafa Bayram said he traveled to Geneva to formally file the complaint against Israel at the International Labor Organization, a sprawling UN agency that brings together governments, businesses and workers.
Bayram said the casualty count was even higher than first reported, saying “more than 4,000 civilians fell — between martyrs and injured and maimed — in a few minutes by this attack.”
“This method of warfare and conflicts may open the way for many who are evading international humanitarian law to adopt this method of warfare,” the minister told reporters at the UN compound in Geneva.
“It’s a very dangerous precedent, if not condemned,” he said. “We are in a situation where ordinary objects — objects used in daily life — become dangerous and lethal.”
Speaking in Arabic, Bayram insisted that ILO conventions guarantee the safety and security of workers, who “were in their workplace and had their pagers or walkies-talkies exploding all of a sudden,” according to an interpreter.
“I do not know where the outcome (of the complaint) will go, but at least we raised our voices to say and warn against this dangerous approach that strikes at human relations and leads to more conflicts,” he added.
An ILO spokeswoman said she was not immediately aware of the complaint or what redress might be possible through it.


Hezbollah chief says tens of thousands of ‘trained’ combatants ready to fight Israel

Updated 06 November 2024
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Hezbollah chief says tens of thousands of ‘trained’ combatants ready to fight Israel

  • “We have tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants” ready to fight, Naim Qassem said
  • He said the results of the US presidential election will have no impact on any possible ceasefire deal

BEIRUT: Hezbollah’s chief said Wednesday his group had tens of thousands of combatants ready to fight, adding that nowhere in Israel was off-limits to attacks.
“We have tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants” ready to fight, Naim Qassem said in a speech marking 40 days since his predecessor was killed.
He also said nowhere in Israel would be “off-limits” to the group’s attacks.
He said the results of the US presidential election will have no impact on any possible ceasefire deal.
“We don’t base our expectations for a halt of the aggression on political developments... Whether (Kamala) Harris wins or (Donald) Trump wins, it means nothing to us,” he said in a pre-recorded speech before Trump’s win was announced.
“What will stop this... war is the battlefield” he said, citing fighting in south Lebanon and Hezbollah attacks on Israel.
The speech was Qassem’s second since he was named Hezbollah secretary-general last week.
He replaced the group’s decades-long chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in a massive Israeli strike on the group’s south Beirut bastion.


Iran plays down importance of US election, voices readiness for confrontation

Updated 06 November 2024
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Iran plays down importance of US election, voices readiness for confrontation

  • Arab and Western officials tell Reuters Trump may reimpose “maximum pressure policy” through more sanctions on Iran
  • They fear Trump may also empower Israel to strike Iranian nuclear sites and conduct assassinations

DUBAI: Iranians’ livelihoods will not be affected by the US elections, government spokesperson Fatemeh MoHajjerani was reported as saying on Wednesday after Donald Trump claimed victory in the presidential vote.
Arab and Western officials have told Reuters Trump may reimpose his “maximum pressure policy” through heightened sanctions on Iran’s oil industry and empower Israel to strike its nuclear sites and conduct assassinations.
“The US elections are not really our business. Our policies are steady and don’t change based on individuals. We made the necessary predictions before and there will not be change in people’s livelihoods,” MoHajjerani said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
The Revolutionary Guards did not directly react to Trump’s claimed electoral victory but said Tehran and its allied armed groups in the region are ready for confrontation with Israel.
“The Zionists do not have the power to confront us and they must wait for our response... our depots have enough weapons for that,” the Guards’ deputy chief Ali Fadavi said on Wednesday, as Tehran is expected to respond to Israel’s Oct. 25 strikes on its territory which killed four soldiers.
He added Tehran does not rule out a potential US-Israel pre-emptive strike to prevent it from retaliating against Israel.
In his first term, Trump re-applied sanctions on Iran after he withdrew from a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and world powers that had curtailed Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for economic benefits.
The reinstatement of US sanctions in 2018 hit Iran’s oil exports, slashing government revenues and forcing it to take unpopular steps, such as increasing taxes and running big budget deficits, policies that have kept annual inflation close to 40 percent.
Iran’s national currency has weakened at the prospect of a Trump presidency, reaching an all-time low of 700,000 rials to the US dollar on the free market, according to Iranian currency tracking website Bonbast.com.


Iranian Revolutionary Court sentences four individuals to death over charges of spying for Israel

Updated 06 November 2024
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Iranian Revolutionary Court sentences four individuals to death over charges of spying for Israel

DUBAI: Four people were sentenced to death by a revolutionary court in northwestern Iran over charges of spying for Israel, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Wednesday.
Fars said three of the defendants — whose nationalities it did not give — were accused of helping Israel’s spy agency Mossad move equipment used in the 2020 assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
Fakhrizadeh was viewed by Western intelligence services as the mastermind of a covert Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons capability. The Islamic Republic has long denied any such ambition.
The Jewish Chronicle newspaper reported in February 2021, citing intelligence sources, that Fakhrizadeh was killed by a one-ton gun smuggled into Iran in pieces by Mossad agents, both Israeli and Iranian nationals.
Israel declined to comment at the time of his killing and on Wednesday an Israeli government spokesman said in response to the Fars report: “We never comment on such matters. There has been no change in our position.”
Fars said the fourth defendant sentenced to death was linked to another unspecified espionage case.


Rescue workers pull 30 bodies from apartments in Lebanon after Israeli strike

A resident of a building damaged in an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday night, returns to collect his family’s belongings in Barja.
Updated 28 min 27 sec ago
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Rescue workers pull 30 bodies from apartments in Lebanon after Israeli strike

  • Search efforts were ongoing Wednesday, and it was unclear how many survivors or bodies were still trapped under the rubble
  • The airstrike Tuesday night came without warning

BARJA: Lebanon’s Civil Defense service says they have pulled 30 bodies from the rubble of an apartment building that Israel struck the night before. Search efforts were ongoing Wednesday, and it was unclear how many survivors or bodies were still trapped under the rubble.
The airstrike Tuesday night came without warning. There was no statement from the Israeli military on the strike, and it was not immediately clear what the intended target was.
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a surprise announcement that sparked protests across the country. Gallant’s replacement is Foreign Minister Israel Katz, a longtime Netanyahu loyalist and veteran Cabinet minister.
While Netanyahu has called for continued military pressure on Hamas, Gallant said military force created the necessary conditions for at least a temporary diplomatic deal that could bring home hostages held by the militant group.
The Israel-Hamas war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others. Israel’s military response in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children.
Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in 2023, at least 3,000 people have been killed and some 13,500 wounded in Lebanon, the Health Ministry reported. A report by Lebanon’s crisis response unit said 361,300 Syrians and over 177,800 Lebanese crossed into Syria between Sept. 23 and Nov. 1.