GLOBAL MARKET HIGHLIGHTS
IMF Tries to Spur Argentinas Economy 06-27-03 (Yahoo) - The International Monetary Fund said Thursday that it was possible to reach agreement with Argentina by the end of August for a major new loan program to help South America's second-largest economy emerge from its worst economic crisis. 
Consumer Spending Rises 0.1 Pct. in May 06-27-03 (Yahoo) - Consumers kept close watch on their purse strings and nudged up their spending in May by 0.1 percent for the second month in a row. Incomes rose modestly
Consumer Sentiment Dips in June - Report 06-27-03 (Yahoo) U.S. consumers were slightly less optimistic about the economy in June, according to a University of Michigan report seen by market sources on Friday, as the job market stayed stagnant and a stocks rally faded. 
Consumer income, spending up 06-27-03 (cnn.com) - Personal income and spending rose in May, the government said Friday, providing encouraging news about the engine that drives the world's largest economy. 
US economy set to speed up late 2003, analysts say 06-27-03 (Yahoo) The US economy grew at an even slower pace than earlier thought in the first quarter of 2003, the government said, but analysts foresaw a high-speed rebound right ahead. 
World Bank Says Ecuador Loans Hinge On Reform Efforts 06-27-03 (Yahoo) The World Bank has approved loans totaling $1.15 billion for Ecuador over the next four years - but that amount could change depending on how the Andean country complies with reform commitments, an official with the multilateral lender said Wednesday. 
Fed Cut Means Mixed Results 06-27-03 (Washington Post) A few years ago, when the Federal Reserve started cutting interest rates to spur the economy, Onis Cox, a retiree in Edmond, Okla., began rethinking how the financial world works. "I knew the more cash you had in the bank, the more savings you had, the better off you're supposed to be," said Cox, 70, who retired from Lockheed Martin Corp. in 1993. "But when the interest rates started falling we were hardly getting any return on our savings, and so we had to adjust our standard of living." 

 LATIN AMERICA
Argentinas President Announces Measures To Boost Housing Market 06-27-03 (Yahoo) Argentine President Nestor Kirchner announced measures to boost the country's struggling housing market, promising moves to make it easier for people to take out mortgages and a public works plan to build - or complete the building of - some 19,500 houses. 
Argentina: Total Worth Of Defaulted Paper $102.7 Billion -Paper 06-27-03 (Yahoo) Argentina is in default on debt worth a total $ 102.7 billion, the country's Finance Secretary Guillermo Nielsen said in an interview published Sunday in local daily Clarin. 
No Quick Fix for Argentina Utilities 06-27-03 (Yahoo) - On the day Guillermo Moreno was sworn in as Argentina's communications secretary, he boldly dismissed one of the thorniest issues facing foreign investors -- utility rate hikes

Ecuador Prepares To Restructure State-Run Oil Company 06-27-03 (Yahoo) Ecuador's government is laying the groundwork for the development of a plan to overhaul operations at state-run oil company Petroecuador. 
Investors await Brazils inflation target decision 06-26-03 (Financial Times) The Brazilian government was expected on Tuesday to announce its inflation target for the next two years in a move that will determine monetary policy and the prospects for economic recovery. The National Monetary Council, comprising representatives from the finance and planning ministries as well as the central bank, was expected to review next year's target, which stands at 3.75 per cent with a 2.5 percentage point margin of tolerance. But the financial market is expecting consumer prices to increase by 11.6 per cent this year and by 7.4 per cent next year, according to weekly survey released by the central bank on Monday. 

 RUSSIA
Britain, Russia sign agreement on undersea gas pipeline 06-27-03 (Yahoo) Britain and Russia tied their energy futures firmly together with the unveiling of a major agreement to build a pipeline under the Baltic Sea to bring Russian gas supplies to Britain. 
Russia urges UK to back gas pipeline 06-26-03 (Financial Times) Russia is pressing Britain to back a proposed multibillion dollar pipeline that would connect the former Soviet Union's huge gas reserves to the UK market. Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, is hoping that Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, will make a strongly supportive statement in favour of the project on Thursday, alongside an official communiqué from his state visit to Britain, which begins today. The visit is also to be marked by the formalisation of another big energy deal - the $14bn (£8.4bn) joint venture between British Petroleum and Russia's TNK. Mikhail Fridman, chairman of the new entity, TNK-BP, told news agencies in Moscow that the deal would be completed at an energy conference in London. The future status of Slavneft, an oil company into which TNK had bought, would be resolved only later. 

 AFRICA
Africa Becomes Battleground in Global Biotech War 06-26-03 (Yahoo) Here the ability of a field of maize to resist pests and drought is a matter of life and death. Yet, while millions of its people faced food shortages last year, Zambia's government told aid agencies to take back thousands of tonnes of GM maize, preferring to wait for unmodified aid than feed GM food to its hungry people. The continent's leaders have become pawns in a wider mesh of conflicting trade and economic interests, bombarded by a confusing array of information blurring into propaganda. 

 OIL PRICES
Iraq Oil Output Set to Exceed 1M Barrels 06-27-03 (Yahoo) Iraq oil exports in July are expected to exceed 1 million barrels a day despite increasing sabotage to the country's oil infrastructure, the senior U.S. government oil adviser in Iraq told Dow Jones Newswires Thursday. 
Pipeline Attacks Put Iraq Oil Exports in Doubt 06-27-03 (Yahoo) - Iraq (news - web sites) was hit by a new oil pipeline explosion on Thursday, underlining concerns that a breakdown in security is undermining Baghdad's efforts to restore crude exports. 
Natural gas prices predicted to stay high for several years 06-27-03 (globeandmail.com) Prices for natural gas will persist at historically high levels through the middle of the decade, boosting Canada's trade surplus but ravaging the manufacturing sector in the United States, observers say. 
Fuel Price Hike: Workers Go on Strike Monday 06-26-03 (allafrica.com) In protest against the recent increase in the prices of petroleum products by the federal government, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), after an emergency meeting of its National Executive Council (NEC) has ordered Nigerian workers to begin an indefinite strike from Monday. The NLC president, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, who gave the directive at a world press conference yesterday, said the announced increase were unacceptable and should be reversed forthwith.