Indonesian shares to be stagnant next week: dealers

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesian shares are likely to be little changed next week despite slashes in fuel and electricity prices, dealers said Friday.

"The market will be stagnant but volatile," analyst Suherman Santikno from Batavia Prosperindo told AFP.

"The market is driven by consumption. Good local news like fuel and electricity price cuts locally will promote consumption. But the market still look at Wall Street as a benchmark and global economic news have not been so rosy," he said.

Indonesia cut the price of subsidised fuel from Thursday to boost the buying power of Indonesians. The price of premium petrol was slashed from 5,000 rupiah (45 cents) a litre to 4,500, and diesel was reduced from 4,800 rupiah a litre to 4,500.

"The support level for next week is 1,300 and the resistance level is 1,400," Santikno said.

Dealers said the price cuts would reduce inflation and interest rates, and will benefit the banking and property sectors.

Indonesian shares ended 1.5 percent higher Friday following gains across most Asian markets.

The rupiah ended at 11,225 to the dollar compared with 11,210 the day before.

Hamas offers conditional ceasefire

Hamas and several allied Palestinian factions have announced a conditional, one-week ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, giving Israel seven days to pull out of the territory.

The move, following a meeting of the factions in Damascus, comes a day after Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire, ending its 22-day offensive in Gaza which has left at least 1,203 Palestinians dead.

"We in the Palestinian resistance movements announce a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and demand that enemy forces withdraw in a week and open all the border crossings to permit the entry of humanitarian aid and basic goods," Mousa Abu Marzuk, deputy leader of Hamas's political bureau, said in Damascus on Sunday.

Besides Hamas, Palestinian factions at the Damascus meeting included Islamic Jihad, Al Nidal, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and al Saeqa.

Israeli response

The Israel military said on Sunday that troops withdrawals had begun from key positions in and around Gaza City.

However, Israel earlier said that it will not consider a timetable for withdrawing all of its forces from the Gaza Strip until Hamas and other groups halt their fire.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Sunday, Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokesperson, said: "I am sorry, Hamas will not give Israel a deadline to pull out its troops.

"We will pull out the troops if and when we will decide that a permanent safe and secure situation has arrived in our country - which has not [yet]. Since from the morning we were targeted by 16 rockets from Hamas.

"We have to assess the situation every day and then see whether we are heading towards a stable secure situation or [if] we have to continue the operation.

"The operation is not over. This is only a holding of fire."

'Objectives achieved'

Palestinian factions have continued to fire rockets into southern Israel since the beginning of the offensive, killing three Israelis, out of a total of 13 Israelis that have died since the begining of the war.
They have also been fighting Israel's ground forces which enterd the Gaza Strip in the second week of the offensive.

An end to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into Israel was the stated aim of the Israeli offensive.

Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire on Saturday, with Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, stating that the country had achieved its objectives.

"We have reached all the goals of the war, and beyond," he said. "[But] if our enemies decide to strike and want to carry on, then the Israeli army will regard itself as free to respond with force."

Olmert also said the war boosted Israel's deterrence and that Hamas's actions would decide when the military would withdraw.

"This operation strengthened the deterrence of the state of Israel in the face of all those who threaten us," he said.

"If Hamas completely stops its attacks, we will judge at what moment we will leave the Gaza Strip."

'Symbolic victory'

However, Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza City, said some in the Gaza Strip are claiming a victory for Hamas and other Palestinian factions.

"On an operational level on the last day of the war and even after the war Palestinian factions are still capable of firing rockets, no doubt about that.
"In fact, more than a dozen or so have been fired today according to the factions here on the ground.

"On a symbolic level, at the end of the day the Palestinian people remain here on the ground, having paid a very heavy price though.

"Their position was one of steadfast defiance. The fact that they can stay and essentially ... claim that they have been able to stave off this aggression, in terms of the leadership and the command and control structure of Hamas and the government here, is certainly a sign for many here that they have been victorious."

'Extremely fragile'

At least 16 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel on Sunday morning after it declared its ceasefire.

Israel responded with air attacks, according to Israeli sources.

Barnaby Phillips, Al Jazeera's correspondent, reporting from near the Gaza-Israel border, said that the situation is extremely fragile.

"This ceasefire ... could go horribly wrong at any moment. There are thousands of troops in Gaza. We did see some withdraw we think this morning, we are not sure of numbers but they are in close proximity to Hamas fighters," he said.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Hillary Clinton recognizes Indonesia`s economic role

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in her statement when testifying as secretary of state nominee at the US Senate`s Foreign Relations Committee in Washington DC, last Tuesday (jan. 13), recognized Indonesia`s role in dealing with the global economic crisis.

"We know that emerging markets like China, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia are feeling the effects of the current crisis. We all stand to benefit in both the short and long term if they are part of the solution, and become partners in maintaining global economic stability," she said.

"For too long, we have merely talked about the need to engage emerging powers in global economic governance; the time to take action is upon us. The recent G-20 meeting was a first step, but developing patterns of sustained engagement will take hard work and careful negotiation," she added.

Indonesia`s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono attended the G-20 Summit on the global economic crisis which was held in Washington DC, last November 2008.

In her statement Hally Clinton also recalled President-elect Obama`s mother, Ann Dunham, who had worked in Indonesia from late 1960s until early 1990s. Clinton called Ann Dunham as a pioneer in micro finance in Indonesia.

"As a personal aside, I want to mention that President-elect Obama`s mother, Ann Dunham, was a pioneer in micro finance in Indonesia. In my own work on micro finance around the world - from Bangladesh to Chile to Vietnam to South Africa and many other countries - I`ve seen firsthand how small loans given to poor women to start small businesses can raise standards of living and transform local economies," she said.

"President-elect Obama`s mother had planned to attend a micro finance forum at the Beijing women`s conference in 1995 that I participated in. Unfortunately, she was very ill and couldn`t travel and sadly passed away a few months later. But I think it`s fair to say that her work in international development, the care and concern she showed for women and for poor people around the world, mattered greatly to her son, and certainly has informed his views and his vision. We will be honored to carry on Ann Dunham`s work in the months and years ahead," she said.

The Senate is expected to confirm Hillary Clinton as the new US Secretary of State after the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20, 2009.

children have to "pay war Gaza"

Children are bearing the brunt of Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has said.

More than 300 children have been killed and hundreds more wounded in Israel's aerial and ground assault, Ann Veneman, Unicef's executive director, said in a statement released on Wedneday.

She said: "Each day more children are being hurt, their small bodies wounded, their young lives shattered. This is tragic. This is unacceptable.

"They are bearing the brunt of a conflict which is not theirs.

"As fighting reaches the heart of heavily populated urban areas, the impact of lethal weapons will carry an even heavier toll on children."

Lost childhood

Veneman said the war and bloodshed in Gaza would cause long-term psychological damage to children.
"The crisis in Gaza is singular in that children and their families have nowhere to escape, no refuge. The very thought of being trapped in a closed area is disturbing for adults in peace times," she said.

"What then goes through the mind of a child who is trapped in such relentless violence?"

Israel has said that it is trying to minimise civilian casualties as it targets Hamas fighters and their infrastructure, but Palestinian children are being subjected to harrowing experiences.

"I saw the soldier standing next to the shop. I looked for my mum and then he shot me. One bullet him my hand and the other went through my back and out through my stomach," Samar, a young girl, told Al Jazeera while recovering from her wounds at a Gaza hospital.

Amal, another young girl, wailed: "We have nothing to do with this, we don't fire rockets, we don't know what this war is about."

More than 40,000 pregnant women and their unborn children were also believed to be at risk because Gaza's overwhelmed hospitals were unable to take them in.

Traumatised

Dr Walid Sarhan, a Jordanian psychiatrist, said that if nothing is done to help traumatised children Gaza would begin to see advanced cases of psychiatric problems.
"The main one would be post-traumatic stress disorder, which is expected to rise 60 or 70 per cent among children," he said.

"Also they will have behavioural and emotional problems. They will have difficulties returning to school, going on to achieve in school, and this will not be in small numbers."

Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, said that thousands of children in southern Israel were also suffering because of Palestinian rocket fire.

"Two weeks before this crisis started I went down south with my prime minister, Mr Olmert ... and he was given letters from fourth graders I believe, children who are nine and 10-years-old, who their entire lives have been on the incoming end of these Hamas rockets," he told Al Jazeera.

"You have a whole generation of Israeli children who unfortunately suffering similar trauma."
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Indonesian is planning an sukuk or Islamic bond, worth $1 billion

HONG KONG (Reuters) - The start of the year has seen a flurry of deals in Asia's debt and equity markets, and bankers expect similar bursts of activity throughout 2009 as sellers price their offerings attractively to tap pockets of demand.

In less than two weeks, big investors led by Bank of America (BAC.N) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) managed to sell $5.7 billion worth of shares in two Chinese banks at discounts ranging from 7 to 12 percent to their last traded prices.

More such sales are expected as strapped investors look to raise cash but much will depend on volatile stock markets.

On the debt side, Export-Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM) this week sold a $2 billion bond that drew $4.4 billion in orders. That followed a $1.5 billion sovereign bond issue by the Philippines that was priced to sell and drew even greater demand.

With plenty of supply coming to market, buyers have the upper hand on pricing. As this week's selldown in stocks shows, demand can be fleeting.

"There are significant refinancing requirements in 2009 and this will generate plenty of transaction flow. Investors are willing to invest but as we have seen on some of the recent block trades, discounts are still wide," said Ken Poon, head of capital markets origination for Citigroup in Asia-Pacific.

"Whenever there is stability in the market you will see activity, but issuers will need to be flexible to take advantage of windows of opportunity," said Poon, whose firm's deals this year include the KEXIM bond as well as a $1 billion commercial paper sale by a unit of India's Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC.BO).

Another lender, state-owned Korea Development Bank, is looking to raise at least $1 billion in a bond issue as early as next week. Indonesia, meanwhile, is planning an Islamic bond, or sukuk, worth $1 billion in February, sources have told Reuters.

BUYERS' MARKET

Thanks to the big block trades in bank shares, equity volumes in Asia so far this year are eight times those in the United States, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The pickup in debt sales is global and driven by highly-rated issuers.

"Investors are hungry, but at a price. There's quite a bit of cash on the sidelines," said Khiem Do, head of the Asia multi-asset group at Baring Asset Management.

"How long can you hold on to Treasury yields that are offering 1 or 2 percent, especially when corporate bond yields and equity yields are very attractive to relative to cash and government bonds?" he added.

KEXIM paid 6.25 percentage points over the midswaps rate, a key pricing indicator on debt deals. Only eight months ago, the state lender paid 1.38 percentage points over the same rate for a 750 million euro-denominated five-year issue.

Even so, a debt syndicate banker at a large bank said market conditions have improved substantially since the end of 2008.