Titles:

• Europe on Brink of ‘Major Financial Collapse': Guggenheim CIO 
•  Italy approves draft law to ban burqa 
• Worst in 60 years: Protracted drought hits Horn of Africa 
• Saudi Arabia plans world's tallest tower
• IMF Stuns Analysts With Upbeat Iran Report
• 36pc of Pakistanis undernourished

 

 News Details:

 

Europe on Brink of ‘Major Financial Collapse': Guggenheim CIO
Europe is a "train wreck" and on the "brink of a major financial crisis," Scott Minerd, CIO of the fixed-income firm Guggenheim Partners, told CNBC Tuesday. The way Europe is operating right now, it's what I called recently ‘cognitive dissonance,'" Minerd said, or "basically doing the same thing thinking they're going to get a different outcome.They keep throwing more and more liquidity at it thinking it's going to get better and it's not," he added. Europe fails to recognize that it has a "structural problem, not a liquidity problem." People will "flee the euro" unless they find a way to bifurcate the euro in some way where strong countries are in the euro only and the weak countries are out, Minerd explained, adding, "To be honest with you, I don't see the mechanism to do that."

 

Italy approves draft law to ban burqa
An Italian parliamentary commission has approved a draft law banning women from wearing veils that cover their faces in public. The draft, which was passed by the constitutional affairs commission on Tuesday, would prohibit women from going in public wearing a burqa, niqab or any other garment that covers the face. It would expand a decades-old law that for security reasons prohibits people from wearing face-covering items such as masks in public places. Women who violate the ban would face fines, while third parties who forced women to cover their faces in public would be fined and face up to 12 months in jail. Italy is the latest European country to act against the burqa. France and Belgium have banned the wearing of burqa-style Islamic dress in public, as has a city in Spain. The Belgian law cited security concerns. The Italian law was sponsored by Souad Sbai, a Moroccan-born member of Silvio Berlusconi's conservative Freedom People party who said she wanted to help Islamic women integrate more into Italian society."Five years ago no one wore the burqa [in Italy]. Today there is always more. We have to help women get out of this segregation ... to get out of this submission," Sbai said in a telephone interview. "I want to speak for those who don't have a voice, who don't have the strength to yell and say: 'I am not doing well."

 

Worst in 60 years: Protracted drought hits Horn of Africa 
According to the World Food Program, the southern and central areas of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia have been the hardest hit, with a total of 12.4 million people affected. On Wednesday, the United Nations declared three additional regions in Somalia as famine zones. The Horn of Africa is experiencing one of its worst droughts in 60 years In Somalia, the UN declared three new regions as famine zones on Wednesday, increasing the number of such zones to five where the highest rates of malnutrition and mortality are taking place. UN data also shows that across Somalia, nearly half of the country's population of 7.5 million are severely affected by the crisis. Among them, 3.2 million are in need of immediate, life-saving assistance.

 

Saudi Arabia plans world's tallest tower
Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's investment vehicle, Kingdom Holding, has announced that an associate company will partner with the country's Bin Laden Group to build a tower near Jeddah that would replace Dubai's 828m Burj Khalifa as the world's tallest building. The associate company, Jeddah Economic Co, signed the SR4.6bn ($1.23bn) contract with the Bin Laden Group, a construction company, that will also own a 16.63 per cent stake in the company. Kingdom Co will hold 33.35 per cent. The 1km-tall building will include a Four Seasons hotel and apartments, luxury condominiums and offices. The tower is the first phase of the 5.3m square metre Kingdom City development to be built north of the Red Sea city of Jeddah, according to a statement on the Saudi bourse, Tadawul. Construction is due to start shortly and is expected to take just over five years. The design was inspired by a desert plant. The SR100bn Kingdom City development was unveiled shortly after the global financial crisis in 2008. Analysts then raised doubts over Kingdom Holding's ability to generate funding or investors' interest amid a global real estate crisis.  Prince Alwaleed, a nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, controls 95 per cent of Kingdom Holding. With a net worth of nearly $20bn, he is the richest Arab businessman. His investments include substantial stakes in News Corp, Citigroup and Apple, as well as several luxury hotels.

 

IMF Stuns Analysts With Upbeat Iran Report
The International Monetary Fund gave a rosy portrayal of Iran's economy in a report issued Wednesday, saying it grew by 3.2 % in 2011, contradicting its earlier assessment and surprising Iran analysts who contend that the economy is shrinking. The new IMF report is based mainly on official Iranian data, independent economists said-rather than on a second set of economic statistics in Iran that is made by independent economists. The IMF's April regional report on the Middle East and Central Asia, which was based on the independent analyses, predicted a 0% growth rate for Iran. The country's central bank, a government entity, hasn't issued an economic growth report since 2008, prompting criticism from Iranian lawmakers recently that the bank was hiding the data under the order of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran had blasted the April report, calling it "politicized" and saying the IMF was acting under Western influence. After the criticism, the IMF sent a group of experts to Iran to review its report and "correct" it, Iran's deputy economy minister Mohamad Reza Farzin said in June after part of the new report was released. The IMF wasn't available for comment. The fund didn't say how much of the new report was based on official statistics and how much it had obtained independently.

 

36pc of Pakistanis undernourished
Leading aid and development charity Oxfam said 36 per cent of Pakistanis were undernourished, listing Pakistan among the 21 nations of the world which were found to be undernourished according to an interactive map published on Wednesday.  Pakistan was adjudged to be more undernourished than Tanzania (35 per cent), Niger (28 per cent) and Yemen (32 per cent) where nearly every third person was feared to be malnourished. The map showed how poor communities across the world were being adversely affected by high and volatile food prices. Oxfam says that food prices in Pakistan have hovered near an all-time peak since late 2010, sending tens of millions of people deeper into poverty and a famine-like situation. After decades of steady progress in the fight against hunger, the number of people without means to eat is again rising in Pakistan and could soon be at a dangerous level, it says.In Pakistan, nearly two-thirds of the population spend between 50 and 70 per cent of the income on food, making them vulnerable to rising prices, according to Oxfam.It is imperative for the government to develop a policy framework that not only checks the unjust food price hike but also reinvigorates the economy at the local level.