Global sugar prices hit multi-year high
Who says sugar is tasty ? It is no more tasty, and it is rather sour. Yes, the sugar prices have zoomed by nearly 100% in the last 12 months, and this month, they have reached a multi-year high or rather multi-decade high.
The world’s largest producer and exporter of sugar is Brazil, and that country faced a drought in parts of the country in the beginning of 2009. The world’s largest consumer of sugar is India, and that country faced a huge shortfall in domestic production in the year 2009, due to massive failure of annual monsoon rains.
That forced India to become a net importer of sugar from the international markets, and needless to say it was importing in ship loads which was never seen for years together. That lead to the international sugar prices zoom to multi-year high this month.
Experts indicate that the sugar prices cannot sustain the high levels for more than two or three months, because new supplies would start from Brazil by April. Also the new season production in India and Brazil also could be higher than last year since the monsoon predictions are far better.
Major sugar consuming industries like chocolate makers are also expected to cut down on their inventory levels over the coming months, once better production indications are confirmed by the sugar production bodies in India and Brazil.
So sugar can turn sweeter for sugar consumers, and may turn sour for the producers in the year 2010. That is subject to the monsoon not failing in either of the two major producers of the world.
Iran does not want to send Low enriched Uranium out of Iran
Iran has been an arrogant country , as per the Western countries perception, right from the 1990s. That is the reason why the Western countries along with US were able to bring stricter UN sanctions against that country in the early 90s. That resulted in the world’s second largest gas reserve holder in being a poor country , simply because it does not have access to latest gas exploration and processing technologies.
Nevertheless, as a confirmation of the Western world assessment, the Iranian regime announced recently that they are a nuclear power and are now ready to produce nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
There are no takers for this, and now the US and the Western countries are asking Iran to give the low enriched Uranium stock it generates to one of the Western countries or Russia, for which Iran is not agreeing.
The Iranian government will be able to use the Uranium stocks to produce nuclear weapons which can be easily passed on to the Islamic terrorists in the Iraq / Palestine / Jordan / Afghanistan region. That could spell disaster to the US and Western forces present in these countries, which the Western world is now working hard to avoid.
Only time will tell as to who will win, or whether there could be no winners at all.