Rome, Italy (AHN) – Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti announced his new government has plans to get Italy out of its recession while calling on other nations to mount a “united response” to the eurozone debt crisis.

Monti made the statements at the prime minister’s traditional end-of-year press conference. He replaced Silvio Berlusconi last month.

On Thursday, the government raised $8.96 billion in an auction of government debt. However, it had to pay high interest rates to do that. The yield on 10-year bonds was 6.98 percent. That is an unsustainably high rate of interest for the government to pay borrow.

Although Italy is the third-largest economy in the eurozone, investors are wary because of a combination of high debt, increased borrowing costs and low growth.

Therefore, despite two recent successful bond auctions of its government debt, Monti said that he does not think the period of financial instability has ended. He stressed the fact that the problems of the financial markets in Italy are linked to the general financial problems in the rest of Europe.

However, he emphasized that the high interest rates investors demand of Italian government bond issues were not because of actual conditions there so much as because of the concerns about the overall economic conditions of the eurozone as a whole.

He called on all European leaders to mount a “united, joint and convincing response” to boost economic growth.

Monte announced that his government was preparing an economic plan to spark growth in the Italian economy. He said that his plan focuses on liberalizing the Italian jobs market while boosting competition. Monte said that he would give the full details of his program to other leaders at the European Union conference on Jan. 23.

Moreover, he said that although Italy had been headed toward a debt crisis as bad as the one in Greece that they had adopted measures that averted things getting that bad. Investors had been worried that Italy might need a bailout like Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

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Washington DC, United States (AHN) – Average fixed mortgage rates in the United States end 2011 near all-time record lows. The 30-year fixed home loan exits the year at 3.95 percent.

According to Freddie Mac, the rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage has stayed at or below 4 percent for nine consecutive weeks. It averaged above 5 percent just twice in 2011.

For the week ending Dec. 29, the 30-year fixed mortgage averaged 3.95 percent, up from 3.91 percent the prior week, and below 4.86 percent in the same period a year ago.

Rates on 15-year fixed mortgages averaged 3.24 percent, up from last week’s 3.21 percent, and below 4.20 percent a year ago.

Mortgage rates hit historic lows in 2011, but did little to help the ailing housing market, which is set to close out 2011 as the worst on record for new home sales.

Tight credit, stringent credit standards, and uncertainty about the economy kept many Americans from taking advantage of the never before seen, record low, mortgage rates.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Economists see the glass as a tad more full than empty, but just barely so, when questioned about the future of the U.S. economy as 2011 comes to an end.

A CNN Money survey of 20 top economists found that their fear of the economy slipping into a new recession has fallen in the last three months to 20 percent from 30 percent. Just two economists have a heightened sense of a risk of recession.

The economists also believe the final year-end 2011 economic readings will be among the most robust for the year.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation’s overall economic health, is forecast to have advanced at a 3.3 percent annual clip. That would be the best pace of growth since the spring of 2010, and almost twice the 1.8 percent rate in the third quarter.

The economists who participated in the survey also expect that employers added 140,000 new jobs in December, which would mark the third consecutive month of more hirings.

While they are a bit more hopeful, they are not overly expectant about the outlook for growth in 2012. For the full year, growth is anticipated to be a more prudent 2.4 percent, with just 2 percent growth occurring in the first three months of the new year.

The economists polled do not see an end to the unyielding slide in home values, and most don’t see higher housing prices until at least 2013.

Most agree that the European sovereign debt crisis, the U.S. government gridlock and the overall uncertainty in the economy will all pose risks in the coming year.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – The season for giving and receiving gifts is now Christmas Past. Now, it is the season for returning unwanted presents.

Dubbed “Mega Monday,” Dec. 26 is expected to be the third busiest shopping day of 2011, with scores of people heading to stores in droves in search of after-Christmas bargains and to return items.

Stores are forecast to ring up $469.1 billion over this holiday season, which extends from Nov.1 through New Year’s Eve. The final week before Christmas accounts for up to 20 percent of those sales, with the week after the holiday also being very brisk.

Some retailers underestimated the resilience of the American shopper, believing they weren’t ready to spend during the still-weak economy. However, the National Retail Federation reports that the two-month period has been busy, and it upgraded its overall sales growth forecast a full percentage point, to 3.8 percent.

Some shoppers are just getting started, putting off buying big ticket items until after Christmas, looking for blockbuster year-end specials.

Stores are also preparing for the rush to exchange and return gifts. Many stores have changed their return policy, shortening the number of days customers can return an item and requiring a receipt for cash back.

For those that find they can’t return, there is an option. We promise not to tell if you save that unwanted present and re-gift it next year.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The 2011 curtain on the ongoing political drama in Washington came down on Friday as President Barack Obama signed a bill extending payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits for two months, and urged Congress “to keep working without drama” to extend them through 2012 when it returns in January.

Citing the extension as “some good news, just in the nick of time for the holidays,” President Obama said, “This continues to be a make-or-break moment for the middle class in this country, and we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves together — Democrats and Republicans — to make sure that the economy is growing, and to make sure that more jobs are created.”

President Obama addressed journalists in the Brady press briefing room as helicopter engines could be heard revving on the South Lawn for the president as he left immediately for his holiday break in Hawaii.

Earlier the final chapter of the drama in Washington started when Republicans in the House of Representatives labeled the two-month extension a gimmick, after the Senate including Republicans had voted the bill with a thumping majority of 85 votes.

The Republican-controlled House voted 229-193 with no Democratic support to reject the two-month bipartisan Senate measure and called for a yearlong extension of the tax cut.

The House Republicans were forced to back down on their demands for a longer extension under pressure from the public and within their party when the Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky implored House Speaker John Boehner to accept the deal that McConnell had stuck last week with Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

The tensions of the drama fizzled out early Friday as first the Senate and then the House of Representatives rapidly approved a compromise to extend the tax cut for two months.

“Thank you, guys. Aloha,” Obama said as he left the briefing room to depart for Hawaii where his wife, Michelle Obama, and their daughters Malia and Sasha have been since last weekend, while he remained in Washington struggling with Congress over extending the payroll-tax cut.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Despite the lackluster economy, the Christmas spirit lives. A new survey from AAA finds that Americans will travel in record numbers this holiday season.

Nearly 92 million Americans are expected to drive or fly 50 miles or more from home between Dec. 23 and Jan. 2. That represents a 1.4 percent increase over the same period last year and marks the second highest yearend travel forecast in a decade.

At the same time, airline travel is expected to drop 1 percent over the 21 days surrounding Christmas and New Year’s. The U.S. airline industry’s trade group, Airlines for America, predicts 43.3 million people will fly by air this holiday season, the smallest number since the organization started collecting holiday travel data seven years ago.

Amtrak, which doesn’t use predictions, is on pace to set an annual ridership record of 30.2 million passengers for 2011. During the Thanksgiving week, the rail service reported a 2.8 percent increase in ridership over 2010.

However you are traveling, the trip will cost more this year. AAA says the average for regular unleaded gas is $3.21 a gallon, 22 cents higher than the same time last year. Airline tickets are also higher across the board.

AAA offers the following tips for those traveling by road: avoid peak travel time; check road conditions; pack for delays or disruptions (snack, flashlight, blankets, car cell phone); and rest up before a long trip.

For air travel, AAA advises packing light; printing out boarding passes; checking for delays; don’t wrap gifts; get to the airport early; and don’t forget your ID.

And for all travelers by road, rail or air, relax–it”s the holiday.

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Juba, South Sudan (IRIN) – Land deals done in newly-independent South Sudan “threaten to undermine the land rights of rural communities, increase food insecurity, entrench poverty, and skew development patterns” in the resource-rich but poor nation, a new report says.

The US-based Oakland Institute (OI) says deals done prior to South Sudan’s independence this year for almost 9 percent of the new nation’s land will do little to help the nation build itself up from one of the least developed countries in the world.

“In order to meet its developmental challenges, the government of South Sudan has begun promoting large-scale private investments as a short cut to rapid economic development. However, recent data about the rate at which the government is leasing land to foreign and domestic companies” shows questionable benefit, the report says.

South Sudan became the world’s newest country on 9 July when it seceded from the north after decades of war.

OI’s research follows on from a report by aid agency Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA). In March NPA said over five million hectares of land had already been signed away for investment for biofuels, ecotourism, agriculture and forestry in the four years leading up to a January 2011 referendum on independence.

“The government’s support for land investments is predicated on the myth that large-scale development projects are the quickest way to improve food security and stimulate the economy in South Sudan,” OI reports.

But evidence from documented deals “suggests that these projects are far more likely to undermine food security by dispossessing people from land and natural resources that are indispensable to their daily livelihoods”, it says, as deals have been struck with individuals with little or no community benefit or consultation.

The government has said it will review all the deals done by foreign companies and try to close the many legal loopholes that have allowed foreign companies to “grab” large tracts of land without the knowledge of government and communities.

Organizations such as OI and NPA have urged a moratorium on new land deals until the right framework is in place to avoid exploitation.

Flawed 2009 Land Act?

Jeremiah Swaka, undersecretary at the Ministry of Justice, says the government is aware that a 2009 Land Act – passed in a hurry without a policy to clarify land tenure and usage – has allowed foreign companies to buy up the country’s fertile and largely uncultivated land.

“It was like putting the cart before the horse,” he said, stating that many people did not understand the Act and it left all stakeholders confused about their roles.

Like many other sectors in South Sudan such as oil and construction, Swaka says land deals are another case of “hit and run” by foreigners wanting to exploit the country’s wealth and cannot be called “investment”.

NPA is working to empower civil society organizations in all 10 of South Sudan’s states this year to try and prevent more land being sold from under communities’ feet.

“There’s so much focus on getting investment to South Sudan, and we’re a little concerned if the people negotiating the terms really know the value of the land they are selling”, said Nina Pedersen, manager of NPA’s Civil Society Development Project.

In many cases, aid agencies say deals were done between companies and a single local signatory without local consultations or the input of local, state and central government.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has been working with the government and carrying out consultations in all 10 states to draft a land policy which was submitted to the government in February. But the country has 98 pieces of legislation to pass as it takes baby steps towards building a nation from scratch.

Until there is a clear policy which should amend the Act, USAID Economist David Gosney thinks South Sudan would have to “get lucky” in attracting the right kind of investor.

Gosney said the two classes of investors currently coming to South Sudan were those looking for quick returns or buying speculatively in a murky market.

“The only real demarcated lands you have are in Juba and maybe two other towns”, he said, noting that vague concepts of land ownership were open to different interpretations.

Swaka said the government’s role as “trustee” has disenfranchised it from the entire system, making it very hard to intervene in deals which dispossess and displace communities.

In addition to transparency over who has the right to lease, sell or buy land and up to what limit, USAID is also hoping the new policy will create greater equity to ensure land rights for all.

Gosney said it aims at “balancing South Sudan’s cultural history with returnees, gender issues, who owns land when somebody dies”, and especially for women, who traditionally have no rights to land and inheritance.

Land and conflict

Robert Lado, who heads South Sudan’s Land Commission, a body tasked with advising the government and drawing up the new policy, is pushing for land administrations at county and sub-county level that are run by community members, including women and tribal elders.

“Everything rests on land because we depend on oil exploration, our resources beneath the ground, subterranean resources, and we have arable land in South Sudan” which supports its 80 percent pastoralist people, Lado said.

He said avoiding disputes over land was key to ensuring peace, but issued a warning to foreign companies which have entered into dubious deals: “Their projects will never be realized as people will rise up.”

In a country with high levels of inter-ethnic violence and cattle raiding often sparked by disputes over grazing land and resources such as water, other aid agencies are concerned at the potential for violence.

USAID fears that if large tracts of land are suddenly taken over, communities already contesting the use of undefined land could turn on each other and the state.

Lado said locals had threatened to kill a chief who signed a deal with US-based company Nile Trading and Development (NTD) in Lainya County, Central Equatoria State.

Biofuels

NTD’s 2008 deal to lease up to a million hectares of land to produce biofuels has been described as “South Sudan’s largest land grab”.

“Evidence suggests that the companies are using the agro-forestry venture as a means of advancing their oil, gas, and mining interests in South Sudan”, OI’s December report said of NTD’s 49-year lease signed with an allegedly fictitious cooperative in a densely populated area.

OI worked with the local community to obtain South Sudan President Salva Kiir’s promise to overturn the deal. Executive Director Anuradha Mittal called this “a rare example of a community viewed by investors as near-squatters and essentially dispensable who are getting their voices heard by the highest officials in government”.

Road-building

While everyone agrees that agriculture is the key to weaning the new nation off a 98 percent dependency on oil and turning it from an import-reliant subsistence market to an export one, it needs proper investment at a national level.

“If food is going to be produced for export, then there is no way it is going to help the local community…. On the other hand, if fertile land is taken away by foreign companies, it will impact food security negatively,” said NPA’s project manager for land and resources, Jamus Joseph.

Joseph wants investors to sign leases for up to 99 years to help build roads to feed a nation where one in three is food insecure.

In a September report , aid agency Oxfam said large-scale land investment in Africa was “putting development in reverse”. It said drought, high commodity prices and biofuel mandates aimed at combating climate change had fuelled a new scramble for land in Africa.

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– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Deir-Alla, Jordan Abdullah Omar / The Media – In the lush orchards of Abu Emad in this Jordan Valley town, lemons and oranges glisten in the sun as the day of picking draws near. The valley’s year-round mild climate, fertile soils and relatively ample water supply have made it a winter garden of cucumbers, tomatoes and other produce destined for Europe, where they are unavailable from local growers during the winter.

But this season may be different as Arab League sanctions against Syria go into effect. That is because Jordan Valley farmers like Abu Emad send their best produce through Syria to Europe, where prices are better than anything they could expect at home. The farmers, already coping with debts and water shortages, have few alternatives to Syria.

“If I’m not allowed to export products through Syria, it will be a catastrophe for me and all the communities in the region,” said the scrawny 56-year-old farmer. Unemployment in Jordan is already high and poverty is on the rise. This farm employs dozens of workers from impoverished Deir Alla and neighboring towns. “If a war starts, many people will be hurt, not only in Syria, but also in Jordan.”

Unlike Syria’s two other Arab League neighbors, Iraq and Lebanon, Jordan supported the sanctions and King Abdullah has hinted that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad should step down after more than 5,000 people have died in a crackdown against the government. But the economy of Jordan, an important ally of the U.S., can ill-afford another blow.

Repeated attacks on the pipeline from Egypt have stanched the flow of natural gas that was once Jordan’s primary source of energy. While Abdullah faces no threat to his rule, the country has been shaken by protests calling for reform and an end to corruption. Jordan is already saddled by a record $2 billion budget deficit this fiscal year and high unemployment.

Syria and its Mediterranean ports serve as a lifeline for the kingdom, an almost entirely landlocked country. Close to 30 percent of Jordan’s exports of fruits and vegetables, about $126 million in 2010, went through Syria to Europe as well as the closer markets of Lebanon and Turkey. The ministry has said that about 3,000 Jordanian trucks will have to stop working because of the sanctions.

Syria finally agreed on Monday to let Arab League observers into the country to monitor a deal it agreed to last month to pull troops from rebellious cities, free political prisoners and start talks with the opposition. Nevertheless, the head of the League said there is no immediate plan to lift sanctions that were imposed when Damascus at first refused outside monitors.

Meantime, Jordanian traders are complaining they are being targeted by the Syrian regime, with trucks facing delays at the border and attacks by loyalists as the vehicles head north to Turkey.

The sanctions include a travel ban against scores of senior Syrian officials, a freeze on government assets in Arab countries, a ban on transactions with Syria’s central bank as well as an end to all commercial exchanges with the Syrian government. The sanctions include a ban on dealing with the central bank of Syria as well as major companies that export to the region.

If they can’t find new markets for their fruits and vegetables, the Jordan Valley’s farmers risk seeing everything fall off their branches and rot. The oil-rich Gulf states represent an option, but fierce competition from other countries such as India and strict rules on imports will make it hard to find customers countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi or Qatar, he says.

Experts say other trade partners will have to be considered, including next-door Israel. But with the government already suffering, public opinion over the economy and political reform, expanding trade with the Jewish state would be a risky move. The two countries have a peace treaty but Jordanian popular opinion is hostile to Israel.

Sanctions will not only hit Jordanian farmers, but factories that use Syria as a route to import basic manufacturing products such as textiles and spare parts.

It will also hurt Jordanian families, which get the majority of their fruits and vegetables from Syria as well as wheat, cotton and other basic needs at an affordable price. Jordan imported some $187 million of Syria produce last year, according to Jordan’s Agriculture Ministry. Additionally, as pressure on Damascus intensifies and more refugees start to make their way to the kingdom, officials in Amman are concerned that will compound the economy’s woes by adding more mouths to feed.

All told, two-way trade between Syria and Jordan amounts to $400 million, a significant figure for a country of 7 million people and an economy worth about $27 billion. Traders say imports from Lebanon would also become all too expensive if they are to be shipped through the Mediterranean and into the Red Sea Gulf of Aqaba.

Jordan officials have sounded the alarm about the damage sanctions will impose if the kingdom’s special problems are taken into consideration. Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh has urged the other Arab countries to consider exempting the kingdom from the trade ban on Syria.

Jordan is believed to have received tens of millions of dollars from the Saudi and Qatari governments to help it accommodate an expected surge in the number of refugees. Experts say the kingdom could be given more cash from wealthier Arab League members to offset losses from cutting ties with Syria.

But Khalid Abdel Rahman, a farmer from the Jordan Valley town of Karama, expressed doubt about the aid money being spent effectively or going to deserving pockets.

“There is no transparency in these issues. If we receive aid, the government would give small amounts to certain people and leave others face the hardship by themselves,” he said.

Meanwhile, Amman has started seeking alternative routes for its exports. Talks have already held with Iraqi authorities to send trucks laden with exotic fruits and vegetables through northern Iraq and into Turkey, before reaching the European market. But the route is almost double the Syrian route and it runs through politically unstable areas, which will raise costs.

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United States (KaiserHealth) – States will be given wide latitude to decide what “essential benefits” insurers must offer in policies offered on new health exchanges come 2014, the Obama administration said Friday in a move that pushes off final federal rules on those benefits until sometime next year.

Instead of one national standard, states will be able to design benchmark plans based on one of four choices: The benefits offered in one of the three largest federal employee plans (by enrollment), one of the three largest plans offered to their state employees, one of the three largest small-business plans in the state or the plan offered by the largest HMO in the state.

Those benefits, which must be offered by insurers in most policies sold to individuals and small businesses, are one of the key flash points in the federal health law. Patient advocates have called for a broad national standard covering a wide range of treatments, while business groups say affordability must be a top consideration, even if it means a more limited package.

Because state employee plans and policies sold in the states can vary widely, the move means there will likely not be one national standard benefit package, but rather “benchmark” plans in each state. That gives states the flexibility they had called for, but also means coverage will vary.

Rather than issue a proposed regulation, the administration chose to advise the states through a “pre-rule bulletin,” which does not have the force of law. But neither can it be quashed by Congress, as could a rule. By putting out the choices as a form of guidance, the administration also does not have to provide definitive economic estimates of the proposal or determine its regulatory impact on small businesses.

“Now, no one can say they put out a rule that costs umpteen billion dollars, but they floated something to give states an idea of what to expect’,” said Robert Laszewski, a former insurance executive and head of the consulting firm Health Policy and Strategy Associates in Alexandria, VA.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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United Arab Emirates David Rosenberg (The Medi – For the fourth time, bids by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar to upgrade the status of their local stock exchanges and bring in badly needed foreign capital have failed. But MSCI Inc. the Swiss company that awards the classifications, said it would give them another chance.

MSCI said on Thursday it would continue to “review” the countries’ three stock markets for a promotion from frontier to emerging market status and revisit the matter again next June. But the decision was a disappointment at least in the UAE, where many had expected to finally win the coveted designation after MSCI last June gave the two countries an extra six months to make the necessary changes.

Dubai’s benchmark DFM General Index and Abu Dhabi’s ADX General Index, which had both been given a lift in anticipation of the MSCI decision, fell about 1.25 percent on Thursday. The Qatar Exchange Index held its decline to just 0.2 percent, reflecting lower expectations among investors there that MSCI would grant it emerging market status.

“Many people [in the UAE] were disappointed and surprised by the MSCI decision, based on comments they made in June … In Qatar, it was less of a surprise,” Paul Cooper, the Dubai-based managing director at Sarasin-Alpen & Partners, told The Media Line.

The Qatar Exchange, Dubai Financial Market (DFM), and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, the two countries’ three stock exchanges, which have been hoping an upgrade would bring in badly needed capital from global investors and raise their profiles as they seek to become regional financial centers.

But they have little chance of attracting it until they get emerging market status bestowed on them by MSCI. Emerging market countries are expected to pace global economic growth as Europe and the U.S. struggle. A poll of global fund managers by the Association of Investment Companies released on Wednesday found that 27 percent predicted they will “perform well” next year, more than any other group of markets.

By contrast, their frontier market status relegates the UAE and Qatar to the ranks of countries like Bangladesh and Botswana.

The UAE and Qatar have worked hard to establish themselves as financial centers as part of a wider strategy of creating whole new industries in tourism, aviation, media and technology. Despite that, the markets have been in a funk since the global financial crisis washed in three years ago and put an end to the real estate-fuel boom in Dubai, the UAE’s leading economy. Qatar is prospering on the back of vast natural gas exports, but its securities market has not shared in the boom.

Turnover on the DFM is about a tenth of what it was 2008, while the index is down close to 80 percent from the peak it reached that year. Qatar’s index is up this year, but trading rarely exceeds 10 million shares a day, making it difficult for large institutional investors of the kind the exchange wants to attract to move into and out of stocks. Volume is about 40 percent less than it was two years ago.

“If you join the index you join the emerging market benchmarks. If not, fund managers have to make an active decision to buy in. So, [the emerging market designation] increases the liquidity of the market,” Sarasin-Alpen’s Cooper said. “You need the market to be liquid for companies to be traded on a regular basis and that only happens when international investors get involved.”

MSCI said it needed more time to assess a mechanism introduced by the three exchanges earlier this year called delivery versus payment (DVP) that makes it easier to complete the purchase of securities. The system hasn’t been in place long enough to fully evaluate it and MSCI said there are problems that need to be addressed.

“The feedback we received from investors on the introduction of the new DVP model was very positive. The system works well and without major issues. However, we still have concerns highlighted by investors that their assets may not be fully safeguarded,” Remy Briand, global head of index research at MSCI, told a news conference on Thursday.

He pointed to the risk of failed trades where a forced sale of assets, without the owner’s consent, remains a possibility. Planned regulations that will introduce securities borrowing and lending and short selling present a way of solving the problem, he added.

But, the Swiss company warned, those regulations have to be in place long enough for investors to judge their effectiveness before the next announcement on market reclassifications in June 2012.

MSCI signaled that Qatar faces a more serious obstacle to getting emerging market status because of its “stringent” limitations on foreign holdings in locally traded stocks and warned that an upgrade was conditional on raising the ceiling.

Although the UAE is not under any pressure from MSCI to raise the ceiling on foreign holding, the Economy Ministry said earlier this month that a proposed change in the Companies Law would make it easier for foreigners to hold more than the current ceiling of 49 percent by authorizing the cabinet to exempt companies and industries.

But Qatar, which enforces a tougher 25 percent ceiling on foreigners, is not planning any change soon, Qatar Exchange Chairman Hussein Al-Abdullah said earlier this month.

Last year, MSCI weighed promoting the two Gulf countries, but decided to wait until the settlement system was upgraded. In the meantime FTSE Group, another market benchmark organization, offered some hope when it decided in September to categorize the UAE as a “secondary emerging” market.

The Qatar Financial Centre was set up by the government in 2005 and it is working to develop its asset-management industry. In the UAE, the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) operates as a financial free zone while in Abu Dhabi, Securities Exchange is building a headquarters with more than 21,000 square meters of office space and a trading floor of 1,000 square meters.

But the UAE and Qatar rely on local investors as customers. A recent research note from Al Ramz Securities showed that only 4.4 percent of DFM stocks and 2.3 percent of Abu Dhabi stocks are held by foreign investors.

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