South Africa – paper tiger of African peacekeeping operations
Johannesberg, South Africa (IRIN) – There is an expectation – and has been for several years – that Africa’s economic powerhouse, South Africa, would become a leading player in the continent’s peacekeeping operations, but analysts say this is wishful thinking at best, and possibly misguided.
“The international community expects more from South Africa [in a peacekeeping role], but South Africa is not deploying the amounts of troops and equipment expected of them,” Jakkie Cilliers, executive director of Pretoria-based think-tank Institute for Security Studies (ISS), told IRIN. “It all goes back to an overstretched department [of defense], lack of funding, transformation – which bedevils discipline – and operational capacity.”
South Africa’s defense policy since the end of apartheid in 1994 has prevented the country from taking a bigger role in African peacekeeping operations. The tone was set by the ruling ANC government’s 1996 White Paper entitled Defense in Democracy, which made the primary role of the armed forces defense against external aggression.
The 1998 Defense Review led South Africa to conclude a multi-billion-dollar arms deal in 1999 in which it acquired a range of sophisticated weaponry – from Gripen fighters and Hawk training jets to submarines and corvettes – “inappropriate” for peacekeeping duties, Cilliers said.
The idea that South Africa faced any conventional armed threats to its territorial integrity was “mythical”, he] said, in either the short or medium term, and the country’s role as regional super-power should be to stabilize the region.
Former president Thabo Mbeki was against a more active peacekeeping role on the continent: He had an “aversion” towards peacekeeping, viewing it as intervention, and preferred dialogue, Cilliers said.
The real threats to South African security were organized crime, illegal exploitation of marine resources and uncontrolled migration flows, Cilliers said.
Wrong equipment
The cost of the 1999 arms deal, which according to some independent estimates had risen to R70 billion (US$8.5 billion) by 2011, had left the country with military hardware that was both “expensive to maintain and which will probably never be used… This is the long-term tragedy of the arms deal [in that it constrains South Africa's peacekeeping abilities],” Cilliers said.
Greg Mills, head of the Brenthurst Foundation, a South African think-thank established by diamond magnates Nicky and Jonathan Oppenheimer, said in a 2011 discussion paper entitled An Option of Difficulties? A 21st Century South African Defense Review, that South Africa had fallen between two stools in its military vision.
“At the heart of any force design is the necessity of deciding which league you want to play in – and then fund at that level. Put differently, there’s no point in buying a luxury SUV if you can’t afford to fill the tank or replace the tires.”
A 2010 Jane’s Defense Weekly report said: “Perhaps the most startling illustration of under-funding is that the air force will only have 550 flying hours for its fighter force this year and 250 hours in each of the next two, just when it planned to `work up’ on the new Gripen; lead-in fighter training on the Hawk has been cut from 4,000 hours to 2,000. The South African Air Force (SAAF) had planned the Gripen to be fully operational by 2012, but that is now clearly unattainable.”
2011 defense review
In 2011 South Africa, a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, embarked on a defense review (expected to be released for public comment later this year), but it appears that a policy shift towards creating a greater peacekeeping capacity is not on the cards.
Defense Ministry spokesman Siphiwe Dlamini told IRIN the primary function of the defense force was expected to remain preparedness against external aggression.
When the ANC came to power in 1994 it inherited a disparate defense force, made up of its own soldiers; other liberation movement operatives; career soldiers from the apartheid armed forces; and various elements of the Bantustan armies of the nominally independent homelands of Transkei, Venda, Ciskei and Bophuthatswana.
The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) which specializes in military-political affairs, said in its annual 2011 Military Balance report that South Africa had about 62,000 uniformed troops, 12,000 civilian support staff and a reserve force of 15,000.
At a media briefing in September 2011, Defense Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said 2,304 military personnel were on peace support operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan (Darfur), and the Central African Republic.
Burundi, a comparative minnow in terms of population and economy and recently a host to South African peacekeepers, currently deploys more troops to peacekeeping operations on the continent than South Africa, according to the IISS 2011 Military Balance report. (Burundi’s deployments in Somalia are peace enforcement rather than peacekeeping).
At a defense review workshop in Cape Town on 24 November 2011, Sisulu said the “emerging consensus” for African countries was to assume responsibility for managing regional conflicts, and “South Africa is expected to play a significant role in this.”
However, Brenthurst Foundation’s Mills said the South African defense force was “battling” to make ends meet. The 2011-2012 defense budget was R34.6 billion, of which R22.5 billion was for personnel, R8.65 billion was operational costs and R3.5 billion capital costs.
Constraints… like drunkenness
Emmanuel Nibishaka in a paper for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation entitled South Africa’s Peacekeeping Role In Africa: Motives and Challenges of Peacekeeping published in February 2011, cited additional constraints. He identified high HIV/AIDS infection rates, aging soldiers, a top-heavy officer class, and a “serious skills shortage”.
Nibishaka said more than half the soldiers were medically unfit, with many seen as too old for active service. He added: “Due to a lack of funds the army can deploy only one operational brigade of 3,000… Military equipment is in an appalling state with only 20 out of 168 Olifants [tanks] and 16 out of 242 Rooikat armored cars being deployed due to budget constraints.”
Since 1994 the reputation of South African peacekeepers has been tarnished by “unruliness”, Nibishaka said, including drunkenness, public brawls, consorting with sex workers, sexual harassment and murder.
“For example, the South African military in Burundi from 2002 to 2008 recorded some 400 cases of misdemeanor and approximately 1,000 military trials were heard. In DRC, the record was equally dismal,” Nibishaka said in his paper.
The changing nature of conflict
Conventional conflicts, defined as confrontations between standing armies, are rare these days. “Warfare today has largely gone back to being a task of light infantry and modern cavalry, where numbers (and getting them there) are the important aspect, along with critical enablers of intelligence, surveillance and local knowledge,” says Mills.
Current and future instability, both internationally and in sub-Saharan Africa, was “likely to be so-called `small’ wars between ill-defined often non-state opponents, fighting for complex sets of causes ranging from greed to deeply entrenched grievances, fought at a low-intensity, employing mostly small arms. These are most likely to be fought not over territory but over ideas and symbols, among, rather [than] between peoples,” he said.
South Africa’s defense force should engage a younger, computer literate generation in order to grapple with the complexities of peacekeeping and peace-building; and use hi-tech, low cost, drones to monitor marine resources for “pollution; overfishing and piracy”, he said.
Quick reaction forces
The Africa Union is currently building capacity for the establishment of an African Standby Brigade, a quick reaction force of five brigades, each comprising about 6,500 soldiers. Each brigade is expected to be drawn from contributions from members states of Africa’s economic trading blocs, such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
In September 2009, Exercise Golfinho, a training exercise for the Southern Africa Standby Brigade (SADCBRIG), saw South Africa host 7,000 troops from 12 countries, and was deemed as a success, IISS said.
“After the exercise, SADCBRIG declared that it could deploy to any location in Africa or even beyond, though the group did add the important caveat that this was dependent on available strategic lift and sustainable logistical support – two factors that remain substantial impediments for all Standby Brigade operations,” the IISS 2011 Military Balance report said.
However, the Golfinho post-mortem virtually coincided with the new administration of ANC President Jacob Zuma announcing the cancelation of heavy-lift military transport aircraft, seen by military analysts as vital for reacting to mass atrocities.
Heavy lift aircraft
South Africa ordered eight Airbus military A400m transport aircraft in 2005 at a cost of about US$1 billion, but canceled the order, citing financial constraints and associated cost increases, and was reimbursed the $407 million down-payment on’ December 2011 by the European aircraft manufacturer. The transport aircraft was expected to enter service in 2013.
Helmoed-Romer Heitman, a military and defense analyst and senior correspondent for Jane’s Defense Weekly, told IRIN: “If you don’t have the airlift, you can’t do peacekeeping. You just can’t do it. I think they [South African government] have shot themselves in the foot.”
South Africa remains reliant on nine Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules transporters, of which four were currently operational, Heitman said.
go/cb
– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.
Court: Massachusetts must cover legal Immigrants
Boston, MA, United States (KaiserHealth) – Massachusetts’ highest court ruled Thursday that the state must offer the same level of subsidized insurance to legal immigrants as to citizens. The decision affects roughly 40,000 residents and could cost the state at least $150 million per year.
In 2009, state legislators in Massachusetts were facing a large budget gap and rising health care costs. After reviewing a number of choices, they opted to trim state subsidized health coverage for legal immigrants who have not been naturalized as citizens. Since the federal government doesn’t share the cost of care for this group, lawmakers reasoned, the state was justified in scaling back its commitment. Health Law Advocates sued, arguing that legal immigrants are entitled to the same health care benefits as citizens are. On Thursday, in a unanimous decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed.
“It is a wonderful day in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Justice has prevailed,” says Amy Whitcomb Slemmer, the executive director at Health Care for All.
Legal immigrants are also celebrating. The insurance plan the state created just for them limited where they could get care, had higher co-pays and fewer benefits. Hector Brito and his wife Cesario Reynoso ended up almost $3,000 in debt for lab tests and appointments that weren’t covered.
“This is a relief for me and everybody now,” says Brito. “They know” continues Brito, referring to other legal immigrants, “that in the future they don’t have that kind of problems. They will be covered.”
Well, maybe. Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration estimates the minimum cost of adding 40,000 people to the state’s subsidized insurance plan at $150 million a year. State tax revenues aren’t meeting expectations because of the economic downturn, so finding the money will be difficult.
The state has a several choices: It can look at new taxes or fees to fund coverage for legal immigrants. It can cut other programs. Or it can make subsidized insurance less generous for everyone. Jay Gonzalez, the state’s secretary for administration and finance, says he hopes that won’t happen, but it’s an option he can’t rule out.
“The place we’re at right now,” says Gonzalez, pausing, “is needing to weigh all those options, assess them and come to some decisions.”
Gonzalez is putting the final touches on the fiscal year 2013 budget that Patrick will file in a few weeks. It will have to include coverage for legal immigrants.
One large lingering question is: Will this decision that legal immigrants are entitled to the same health benefits as full citizens affect other government assistance programs that treat legal immigrants and citizens differently?
Gonzalez says “our lawyers are looking at this decision and what the potential impacts might be if it were applied to other places, but the direct impact is on providing health insurance. That’s the immediate challenge we have now, the one we have to face.”
It will be several months at least before these immigrants are enrolled in Commonwealth Care. The decision does not apply to illegal immigrants who are not eligible for state subsidized insurance. If the Affordable Care Act is still in place in 2014, there will be some federal assistance for coverage for legal immigrants.
– Provided by Kaiser Health News.
White House launches youth jobs program
Diane Alter – AHN News Reporter
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The Obama administration announced an initiative on Thursday to help create as many as 250,000 summer jobs and internships for low income youth in 2012.
The “Summer Jobs +” program is a private-federal government partnership. It has already received commitments from several companies and federal agencies to hire 180,000 youth for the summer.
The program comes after Obama’s failed attempt to get a summer jobs program in his American Jobs Act that never attained congressional approval.
In a statement announcing the program, Obama said, “America’s young people face record unemployment, and we need to do everything we can to make sure they’ve got the opportunity to earn the skills and work ethic that comes with a job.”
With an national unemployment rate hovering around 9 percent, for teens the numbers are starkly higher. Nearly 49 percent of youth between the ages of 16-24 were without a job in July 2010, the month in which youth employment usually peaks. Just 34.6 percent of African-American youth, and 42.9 percent of Hispanic youth had a job during the summer of 2010.
A few of the private companies that have signed up to hire youth through the program are AT&T, Bank of America and Starbucks.
Stocks slip Wednesday after Tuesday’s strong rally
Diane Alter – AHN News Reporter
New York, NY, United States (AHN) – U.S. stocks slipped Wednesday, giving back some of Tuesday’s strong gains.
Just after the opening bell on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 12 points, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was down three points and the NASDAQ dropped eight points.
Robust worldwide economic data on Tuesday lifted the Dow 180 points in the first trading day of 2012. The impressive rally is the third-biggest point gain in the first trading day of a year on record.
By Wednesday, investors and traders once again turned their eyes toward Europe. Banks there were sitting on roughly $591 billion in overnight deposits at the European Central Bank on Wednesday, slightly higher then the record set the prior week.
While this appears to be positive, lenders are receiving a very low return of 0.25 percent in interest when they leave their deposits at the ECB overnight, much less than they would earn if they lent it in interbank markets or other forms of lending.
The high deposits on reserve are an indication that banks in Europe are reluctant to lend to each other and worried about the state of the economy in the region and the stability of its customers.
In commodities, gold was down $1.30 to $1,620.30 a troy ounce after posting big gains Tuesday. Silver gave back about 25 cents and was last trading at $29.45. Oil was little changed at $102.74 a barrel.
In corporate news, Chrysler reported a 37 percent increase in sales for the month of December, and a 26 percent increase for full year sales. In early morning trading, shares were trading down 28 cents to $28.06 a share.
Apple announced Wednesday that its iPhone 4S will go on sale in China and 21 other countries on Jan. 13. Shares of Apple were trading at $410.08, down about one point.
Iran speaks loudly, carries small stick
The Media Line Staff
Tehran, Iran David Rosenberg / The Med – It went off in a powerful blast from a shipboard launcher to the cheers of sailors and soared across the skies over the Gulf of Oman, leaving a white trail on its way to a target somewhere over the horizon.
Billed as a new surface-to-air missile and tested during 10 days of naval exercises that ended on Monday, Iranian officials say the Mehrab is designed to evade radar. But showing off the projectile was designed to attract attention by convincing the world that the Islamic Republic is capable of closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz and choke global oil supplies.
“I said at the beginning of these war games that we have no intention of closing the Strait of Hormuz during the maneuvers, but doing that would be as easy as pie for us,” Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari told state-owned PressTV after the launch. “Iran’s naval forces do have the ability to close the Strait.”
But behind the display of military prowess is an army equipped with out-of-date equipment acquired when the Shah was still in power, supplemented with inferior hardware bought from China and North Korea or like the Mehrab, developed and manufactured at home. Analysts maintain that Iran’s armed forces are more bluster than blast.
“There is not a lot of concern about direct military threat from Iran. There is that notion that the U.S. can withstand any operation undertaken by Iran. The threats of closing Hormuz are not really serious,” Christian Koch, director of the International Studies Research Program at the Gulf Research Center, told The Media Line. “At the moment what the Iranians are trying to do is to increase the sense of insecurity.”
Iranian officials have threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz if sanctions are imposed on its central bank or on oil exports. Such a scenario came closer to reality over the weekend when U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law tough new sanctions targeting Iran’s Central Bank and financial sector.
The Hormuz is vulnerable. The only sea passage into and out of the Gulf, which is home to the world’s biggest petroleum reserves, the strait is a relatively narrow channel just 54 kilometers (34 miles) across at its narrowest point. Iran controls one of its two coasts. Tankers traveling through it account for about one-third of the world’s ship-borne oil traffic.
In fact, Iran did have some success in the 1980s disrupting oil supplies enough during its war with Iraq to raise insurance premiums, which is why Iran’s naval exercises sent shivers across the world. Crude oil for February delivery reached an eight-month high Tuesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange to nearly $103 a barrel.
But, said Christian Le Miere, research fellow for naval forces and maritime security at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), the U.S. and its allies could cope with the challenge. “Iran could not maintain an effective blockade for any long period of time. That requires sea power well beyond its capacity,” he told The Media Line.
The most challenging weapon in Iran’s arsenal would be mines targeting tankers passing through the Strait.
On Tuesday, Iran’s army chief Ataollah Salehi kept tensions boiling, saying that the country would take action if a U.S. aircraft carrier returned to the Gulf. The carrier had reportedly left the area due to Iran’s exercises including the missile launch.
Just what does Iran’s arsenal consist of? Outsiders can only make rough estimates, but Anthony Cordesman, of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, concluded after analyzing data from a variety of sources that the Islamic Republic is a “comparatively weak conventional military power.”
Iran is barred from buying military hardware from the West and has a relatively small defense budget. Cordesman estimated Tehran spends between $12 billion to $14 billion on defense less than the tiny United Arab Emirates across the Gulf and no more than a third of what its chief rival in the region, Saudi Arabia, allocates for arms.
On paper, Iran has 312 combat aircraft. But, citing an IISS estimate, Cordesman said as many as 60 percent of the aircraft have little or no mission capability at any given time because the Cold War-era F-14s, F-5Bs and the like that make up its fleet are old and poorly maintained.
Iran’s navy, which in the Gulf is controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), poses a more serious but not insurmountable problem, Cordesman said. While it lacks modern combat surface vessels, Iran has three Russian Kilo-class submarines, which may be able to lay smart mines and fire long-range homing torpedoes, as well as a fleet of small submarines and anti-ship cruise missiles
“The navy and IRGC cannot close the Gulf for an extended period, but they could severely restrict shipping through the Gulf for five to 10 days,” Cordesman concluded in a paper included in the U.S. Institute of Peace’s book “The Iran Primer.” He estimated that with the support of Iran’s neighbors the U.S. could destroy Iranian military power within weeks.
The qualitative gap between Iran and its Gulf neighbors is due to widen as Saudi Arabia accepts delivery of state-of-the-art aircraft from the U.S. Last week, the Obama administration announced a $29.4 billion deal with Saudi Arabia to sell and upgrade advanced fighter jets. Riyadh will get 84 new F-15SAs starting in 2015 while 70 F-15s already in the fleet will be improved.
A week before, the White House cleared the sales of between $2 billion and $3 billion worth of Lockheed Martin’s Thaad missile interceptors to another Gulf power, the United Arab Emirates.
Koch, of the Gulf Research Center, says the most serious threat posed by Iran is asymmetrical warfare that employs irregulars or proxies to engage in sabotage. Iran doesn’t need to close Hormuz to wreak havoc; it could target oil fields, power plants and other critical but vulnerable installations on the Arab side of the Gulf.
“That is a much more dangerous scenario,” Koch said. “The Iranians have shown themselves to be an intelligent power in that sense.”
Bears stalk Mideast markets
The Media Line Staff
Doha, Qatar David Rosenberg (The Medi – The year 2011 wasn’t only tough for Middle Eastern despots. With the exception of Qatar, the Arab World’s stock markets all ended the year with sharp drops both in share prices and trading volume as unrest took the wind out of much of the regional economy and sent political shivers everywhere.
All told, investors waved goodbye to more than $111 billion in stock market value over 2011, a drop of about 11 percent, according to figures from the Arab Monetary Fund. They took their biggest hit in Egypt, where the combined value of the country’s stocks shed $33 billion last year, a 39 percent decline and the biggest anywhere in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
But it wasn’t just the numbers that were bad. Egypt’s stock market was shuttered for 55 days amid the turbulence of President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster. Bahrain’s financial center was cordoned off by police during unrest early in the year and the stock exchange briefly closed until martial law was imposed with the help of Saudi troops. The bourses of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar were denied coveted emerging market status twice in the space of six months.
“The Arab Spring that started last winter, of course, had an impact. That said, there also has been the impact of global bear market. So, in that respect, it wasn’t all about the Arab Spring,” Daniel Brody, chief investment officer of London-based Silk Invest, told The Media Line.
He said the situation is not likely to change without an influx of foreign investment, which is an unlikely prospect for now even if some MENA markets are displaying good fundamentals. “Investors have other concerns right now like Europe. They don’t want to take on what they see as a risk asset,” he said.
Indeed, 2011 was not a good year for stock market investors almost anywhere in the world, figures from MSCI, a company that benchmarks global share market performance, show. Its ACWI index, which tracks 9,000 stocks in 45 markets, shed 10.2 percent. But MSCI’s Arabian Market index, which groups 14 MENA markets except Saudi Arabia, did worse, falling 22 percent last year and wiping out the two previous years of gains.
Even MENA economies that posted strong growth and avoided Arab Spring unrest failed to resist the bearish sentiment. Qatar’s economy enjoyed a tide of cash from growing natural gas exports and $88 billion in government spending, yet the Qatar Exchange’s benchmark QE index registered a mere 1.5 percent gain. Saudi Arabia’s economy benefitted from higher oil prices and massive government spending, but its Tadawul All-Share Index fell 7 percent.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) also saw a recovery from its real estate-induced slump during 2011, but MSCI’s UAE index shed close to 20 percent.
“To be very honest, there was a disconnect between what was happening in UAE economy and markets,” Fadi Al-Said, a senior fund manager at ING Investment Management in Dubai, told The Media Line. “We saw a major rebound in trade and tourism, but the market didn’t reflect this. In some ways, that is because it is inefficient, but also because it is heavily exposed to the real estate and banking sectors.”
Adding to the pain of falling share prices was a fourth straight year of declining trading volumes. The Arab Monetary Fund estimated that shares traded on the 14 MENA exchanges its covers dropped to $328.5 billion in 2011 from a peak of $1 trillion in 2007 — decline analysts attribute mainly to an exodus of foreign investors after the global financial crisis set in in 2008.
That decline has hit the share-brokering business hard. In the UAE, investment banks like Rasmala and Shuaa Capital gave up their retail brokerage services last year to concentrate on institutional clients. On Monday, they were joined by Taib Securities, the brokerage arm of Bahrain’s Taib Bank, after running up losses the past three years.
Many foreign investment banks also cut back last year. Germany’s Deutsche Bank reportedly moved its head of local equity capital markets back from Dubai to London; Japan’s Nomura shut its Dubai equity research unit; and Britain’s HSBC closed its UAE retail equity brokerage business.
This year isn’t shaping up to be much better. The turmoil of the Arab Spring shows no sign of abating and the outlook for the economies of the Middle East and North Africa looks poor. Although there are a few bright spots in the Gulf, the International Monetary Fund expects economic growth for the region to fall to 3.6 percent from 4 percent in 2011.
Al-Said, nevertheless, expressed the view that the Gulf has the foundations for a market recovery, especially now that a prolonged slump has pushed down valuations to attractive levels. With oil prices again on the upswing, the region’s governments will be in an even stronger position than in 2011 to stimulate economic activity.
“This is one of the few regions which still has ammunition for [state] spending. I’m talking about surpluses that can be spent, about expansionary fiscal policy … You are talking about a region that isn’t in an austerity mode,” he said.
Even Egypt, whose economy is conventionally regarded as deeply troubled by continued political turmoil and plunging foreign reserves, has a potential for a rebound, said Broby. In spite of the turmoil, the economy continues to grow and Egyptian stocks are oversold, he said, warning, however, that investors will hold off on buying.
“People will be looking for Egypt to pass its new constitution before you start seeing the market reflecting the fundamentals,” Broby said.
Meanwhile, markets are making efforts to lure back investors. On Monday, the Qatar Financial Markets Authority announced it had adopted new rules on listing securities and initial public offerings aimed at encouraging small and medium-sized companies to list. It began trading government bonds in the market at the end of 2011, which should help boost liquidity.
The UAE hopes to adjust rules that will enable it to win emerging market status next June, an upgrade that would make it more attractive to big institutional investors abroad.
But the most important development of all, say analysts, is a plan by Saudi Arabia to open up its stock market to foreigner investors. Reuters reported last week that authorities are close to unveiling the long-awaited plan and may announce the rules by Jan. 15 with implementation slated for by the end of the first quarter.
With the region’s biggest trading volumes and market capitalization backed by a growing economy, Saudi Arabia could be the magnet to attracting new capital to the region.
Number of bank failures fell in 2011
Diane Alter – AHN News Reporter
New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Savers had little to celebrate in 2011 as interest rates on deposits remained next to nothing. But, there was something to cheer about. The number of bank failures is trending downwards.
Ninety-two banks failed in 2011, down from 157 in 2010 and 140 in 2009. While the statistics are encouraging and a sign that economic normalcy is returning, which will eventually lead to higher deposit rates, it must be noted that 844 institutions remain in regulators’ problem bank list, an indicator that bank failures will remain a stark concern for many months to come.
Most of the the banks that went under in 2011 were small, little-known community banks. Two were internet banks: Lydian Bank, parent of Virtual Bank, and Nexity Bank. Both closures had little impact on customers as deposits were assumed by larger, stable banks.
Of particular note in 2011 was that the number of large banks that failed was significantly lower than 2010. The largest bank failure was Superior Bank in Birmingham, AL, that had $3 billion in assets.
Georgia was the state with the most bank failures with 23. Florida followed with 13, a reversal from 2010 when Florida occupied the top spot with 29 failed banks and Georgia took the second slot with 21.
Bank failures were non-existent in 2005 and 2006. In 2007, just three institutions went under, and 25 failed in 2008 as the recession got underway.
Experts hope that 2012 will see just a small number of bank failures despite the lengthy list of troubled banks.
Dow ended final trading day of 2011 down, closed up for the year
Diane Alter – AHN News Reporter
New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Last year was turbulent, trying and tumultuous for global stocks and commodities, And for many investors and traders, 2011 couldn’t end soon enough.
In the final trading day of 2011, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 69 points, but managed to eck out a 5.5 percent gain for the year.
The closely tracked Standard & Poor’s 500 Index closed virtually flat, ending 2011 down 0.43 percent, while the tech heavy NASDAQ said good-bye to 2011 off 1.80 percent.
Commodities fared much better. Oil gained 8.15 percent in 2011, and gold was the sole double digit finisher bidding the year adieu with a stellar 10.23 percent gain.
The top three performers in the Dow were McDonalds, IBM and Pfizer. Laggards included Bank of American, Alcoa and Hewlett-Packard.
Leading gainers in the S&P were Cabot Oil & Gas, El Paso and Intuitive Surgical. Drags on the index were First Solar, Monster Worldwide, and Alpha Natural Resources.
Intuitive Surgical led the NASDAQ-100, followed by Alexion Pharmaceutics and Hansen Natural. The biggest loser in the index was Blackberry maker Research in Motion with First Solar and Netflix close behind.
Natural gas finished out the year at 2.989 per mil BTUs, its lowest level since 2009.
Gold, which closed 2011 up 10.23 percent, took a beating in December, falling as much as 10.5 percent in the final month of the year. The yellow metal peaked in August with a 33 percent rise.
While high unemployment, a nationwide ailing housing market and government gridlocks all weighed heavily on U.S. stocks, the European sovereign debt crisis was the biggest factor in equities gains and losses during 2011.
Markets were closed Jan. 2 in observance of New Year’s. Exchanges will start 2012 on Jan. 3 with normal trading hours, but volume and volatility is expected to be anything but normal.
Rangers net three straight goals, edge Flyers in Winter Classic
AHN Sports Staff
Philadelphia, PA, United States (AHN Sports) – Mike Rupp scored a pair of goals, just his second and third of the season, and Brad Richards tallied his 14th as the New York Rangers overcame a 2-0 deficit to topple the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 in Monday’s Winter Classic at Citizens Bank Park.
Henrik Lunqvist stiffened between the pipes for the Rangers, getting key pad saves down the stretch and standing up to Danny Briere on a late penalty shot.
Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh was whistled for covering the puck while it was in the goal crease in the closing minute, creating Briere’s opportunity.
Philadelphia had all the momentum going its way as Brayden Schenn netted his first of the season and Claude Giroux drove a shot past Lundqvist for a 2-0 lead in the second period.
It was Giroux’s 18th of the campaign.
The Rangers knifed into the lead with Rupp’s first goal in the second stanza. He tied it in the third before Richards pounced on a rebound for the winner just 5;21 into the third.
The team’s had a scoreless first stanza.
Pistons down previously perfect Pacers; pick up first win of season
John Raffel – AHN Sports Correspondent
Auburn Hills, MI, United States (AHN Sports) – Jonas Jerebko scored 20 points and had 12 rebounds while Greg Monroe added 19 points and 11 boards to lead the Detroit Pistons over the Indiana Pacers Saturday at The Palace of Auburn Hills 96-88.
It’s the first win of the season for the Pistons, 1-3, and the first loss for the Pacers, 3-1.
Tayshaun Prince’s running bank hook shot gave Detroit a 69-56 lead with 4:39 left in the third quarter. He added a 3-pointer moments later for a 76-58 lead.
The Pistons continued to build their lead before George Hill’s jump shot later in the period for the Pacers cut the Detroit lead to 82-63.
The Pistons retained their double digit lead throughout the fourth quarter before the Pacers cut into it. Prince’s triple at the 3-minute mark padded the lead to 92-82.
Tyler Hansbrough’s bank shot with 1:07 to play cut the Detroit lead to 94-88. But Monroe’s tip shot moments later sealed the win.
Hansbrough and George Hill had 16 points apiece for the Pacers.
Jerebko had 16 points and seven rebounds in the first half to lead the Pistons to a 52-44 advantage at intermission.
Ben Gordon scored last in the first quarter to give the Pistons a 19-18 lead. It was 21-18 after the first quarter.
Rodney Stuckey scored early in the second to boost Detroit to a 26-18 advantage.
Monroe’s 3-point play gave Detroit a 42-30 lead with five minutes left in the second. And Prince added a semi-hook shot moments later. Danny Granger’s long 3-pointer late in the second quarter for the Pacers made it 52-44.
Gordon and Stuckey had nine points apiece for Detroit in the first half.
