early this am-may have changed- I havent checked:
$ftse-4334 (-83)
$nikk 11318 (-100)
food commodities, metals,, security/defensive/military type stocks,, fuels flat while waiting on opec. looks like a buyers strike due to overnight terrorism
fears-dow gapping down and may push hard to 9700,, if trend were to continue, expect 9k+/- this week,,,naz 1800-1700,,
Watch your stocks based in the above mentioned sectors,, and value stocks,, telecom-pure-may be first of tech'ish to rebound down the road
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Hamas Spiritual Leader Yassin Killed in Israeli Raid
March 22 (Bloomberg) -- Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the Palestinian Islamic group Hamas who advocated Israel's destruction, was killed by Israeli forces early today in the Gaza Strip, the army said. The killing of the most senior Palestinian figure since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000 drew condemnations from European leaders. Yassin and as many as seven others were killed by rockets fired by helicopters at daybreak as he returned home in a car from a mosque, Israel Radio said. ``Yassin, responsible for numerous murderous terror attacks, resulting in the deaths of many civilians, both Israeli and foreign, was killed in the attack.' the army said in an e-mailed statement.
The killing comes after the March 11 Madrid bombings in which 202 people were killed and more than 1,500 were wounded by terrorists. The U.K., France, the European Union and Russia condemned the attack which makes a summit meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia remote. Since Qureia took up his job in October, two planned meetings have been scrapped. Egypt and Jordan, which have peace treaties with Israel, also condemned the killing, Agence France-Presse reported.
Hamas said the U.S. ``must take responsibility' for the attack, Associated Press reported. European stocks fell amid concern that terror attacks may increase after the killing.
Israeli Actions
Israel has stepped up actions against Palestinian groups since an attack last week on the port of Ashdod killed 10 people. Seven Palestinians were killed
in clashes with Israeli troops in Gaza yesterday. Sharon is seeking to withdraw Israeli troops and settlements from the Gaza Strip later this year.
Yasser Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority, condemned Yassin's killing as a ``barbaric crime' and called for increased resistance against Israel's
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.' ``President Arafat has decreed three days of national mourning in the Palestinian territories and among the
diaspora,' the authority said in an faxed statement. The killing is ``unlawful' and unacceptable,' U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said the killing was a setback for the Middle East Peace process, AFP reported. The attack is ``very bad news' for peace EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said, the agency added.
Palestinian Killed
A Palestinian of about 18 years old attacked and lightly wounded three Israelis in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan this morning after the Yassin assassination, Police spokesman Gil Kleiman said. The attacker, who used an axe or blunt object, was arrested and police are searching for the car that dropped him off, he said. An explosion was heard at the Erez border crossing between Israel and Gaza, the newspaper Ha'aretz said on its web site. The explosion, which was on the Palestinian side of the crossing, was probably a mortar attack, it said. A 13-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by Israeli troops during a demonstration in Gaza in support of Yassin, Agence France-Presse said, citing Palestinian medical officials said. Sharon personally gave the order to kill Yassin several days ago, and other Hamas leaders from the group's military and political wings are being targeted as well, Israel Radio said. The army said it imposed a curfew on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after the killing.
Revenge
Leaders of Hamas, the biggest of the Palestinian groups that have staged attacks on Israelis during three-and-a-half years of unrest, vowed revenge after the killing. ``The Zionist enemy should understand that Palestine will turn to a volcano and to hell in their faces,' Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas spokesman and assistant to Yassin, said to reporters shortly after the assassination. Israel is targeting Yassin and other Hamas leaders because the Ashdod attack marked an attempt at a ``mega-terror' attack and because Israel wants to weaken the organization before it withdraws from Gaza, said Eytan Gilboa, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. ``The Ashdod attack represented a step up on the ladder of escalation,' Gilboa said in a phone interview. ``It was meant to create a mega attack and so the response had to be appropriate.'
Hamas Weakened Hamas will be weakened by Yassin's absence because he was involved in strategy and planning and because he was a symbol of the Islamic resistance movement, Gilboa said. Yassin, aged about 67, partially blind and confined to a wheelchair, escaped an attempt to kill him last September when the Israeli air force dropped a 250-kilogram (550-pound) bomb on a building where he and other Hamas leaders were meeting. He was held in Israeli jails for eight years for ordering the execution of Palestinians helping Israel and was released in 1997 in exchange for the release of two Israeli agents being held at the time by Jordan. ``There is no person who takes part in terrorism who has immunity, even if he's a sheikh,' Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister, told Israel Radio. Avraham Poraz, Israel's interior minister, voted against the assassination during a meeting of Sharon's cabinet, saying the magnitude of the Palestinian response would be too high. ``I don't think we can eliminate Hamas and other organizations like them by killing religious leaders,' he said in an interview with Israel Radio.
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Taiwan Protesters Demand Vote Recount; Ruling May Take 6 Months
March 22 (Bloomberg) -- Thousands of Taiwanese protesters demanding a recount in Saturday's presidential election blocked a main boulevard in Taipei for a second day as the head of the High Court said it may take six months to make a ruling. A decision on whether to recount votes or annul the election will be made by a three-judge panel, which needs time to review the evidence, Chang Chin-hsiung said on television. Chang said he couldn't give a timetable for a recount and that annulling the election would take between one to six months. The court ordered the sealing of about 13,000 ballot boxes after President Chen Shui-bian, 53, defeated National Party chief Lien Chan, 67, by a quarter of a percentage point. The opposition also demanded a probe into speculation that Chen faked an assassination attempt on Friday to win sympathy votes and stop 200,000 police and servicemen from voting. ``Taiwan has to resolve the issue soon because the economy and markets will be affected as discontent lingers,' said Wing Y. Wu, China representative of Fitch International Credit Rating Co. Taipei protesters, who numbered 30,000 yesterday, dwindled in numbers overnight and erected tents against the rain on the street in front of the presidential office. The size of the crowed swelled to several thousand today. The Nationalists plan an islandwide protest for Saturday, spokesman Daniel Pang said.
Markets Slump
The benchmark TWSE stock index tumbled 6.7 percent to 6359.68, led by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., and may fall further tomorrow because the exchange limits daily declines in shares to no more than 7 percent. It was the biggest drop since January 1996, ahead of the island's first direct presidential election after four decades of martial law. ``Unless the crowd at the presidential office disperses, the market will have strong selling pressure for the whole week,' said Tracy Chen, who oversees $73 million of assets at Prudential Securities Investment Trust Co. in Taipei. Finance Minister Lin Chuan said government officials will meet later today to decide whether to activate the National Stabilization Fund, which would put NT$100 billion ($3 billion) at their disposal to buy stocks. ``If I had stocks, I would sell them,' said protester Lew Wei-liang, 49, an English teacher. ``You don't know how long this will last. This might be another civil revolution.'
Shooting
Chen defeated Lien by 30,000 of 13 million votes cast, taking 50.1 percent of the vote to Lien's 49.9 percent. About a third of a million ballots were invalidated. The Nationalists would have to prove that a miscount changed the results of the election in order to win a recount, according to Erik Chen, a lawyer with Winkler Partners a Taipei-based law firm. Chen sustained a flesh wound to his abdomen and Vice President Annette Lu, 59, was grazed in the knee during the campaign shooting. Lu later denied the shooting was a stunt. ``The shooting was the major factor that caused the election result,' said Albert King, chief investment officer of Prophet Capital Inc. ``My information prior to the shooting showed that Lien would win by a 5 to 10 percent margin.'
The Taiwan dollar fell 0.3 percent in morning trading, its biggest drop since October, and the yield on the 10-year bond slumped to 2.17 percent from 2.33 percent. This news ``takes away some of the confidence in the institutions of Taiwan with the increasing suspicion there may be some kind of tampering going on with election results,' said Michael Kurtz, a Hong Kong-based strategist for Bear Stearns Cos. Police in the southern city of Tainan, where the shooting occurred Friday, asked the public to provide leads in the case. They released a sketchy drawing of a possible suspect. No arrests have been made, and no motive disclosed. The government rejected a call by Lien for an independent investigation.
``We want a recount and an investigation of the gunshot,' Lien told Bloomberg News in an interview at last night's rally in Taipei, where his supporters faced off with riot police across barricades twined with razor wire.
China's Response
Yesterday's protest in Taipei was the biggest since November 2002, when 100,000 farmers marched on the capital to protest a financial-industry cleanup.
The election protests have prompted China to put its army on alert, the South China Morning Post said, citing unidentified people. China may invoke a newly revised constitutional provision that allows it to declare a state of emergency in Taiwan, which it considers a renegade province.``Taiwan is in a very grave situation now,' said Li Yihai, a Taiwan analyst at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. ``I think the Chinese government will take measures in face of such a situation.' Chen is considered a traitor by China for his pro- independence stance.
Business Ties
Taiwan's defense ministry said it had not detected any unusual troop movement in China's Fujian province, 150 kilometers (93 miles) across the Taiwan Strait, Agence France-Presse reported, citing ministry spokesman Huang Suey-sheng. The island's military had been monitoring Chinese troop movement in the run-up to Saturday's presidential election. ``There is a danger money may flow out of Taiwan to China as local businessmen become disheartened by what's happening,' Fitch's Wing said. Many business people from Taiwan had voted for 67-year-old opposition leader Lien Chan because they considered him to be better for their interests, said Ye Huide, chairman of Long Fong Group, the biggest Taiwan food company in the mainland. ``All Taiwan businessmen investing in the mainland are in a bad mood now,' Ye said. ``Chen's victory would deal a hard blow to us Taiwan businessmen. But what's more important, the Taiwan economy as a whole would be hurt.'
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