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Continual price hikes and delays in final production have made the American Joint Strike Fighter an albatross around the neck of Danish Defence One of the jets that Danish Defence has been considering as a replacement for its F-16s just got more expensive – again. The US Defence Department has upped the price of American manufacturer Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter to 540 million kroner per plane, according to news agency AFP. But when original negotiations for purchasing the jets began in 1999, the going rate was around 275 million kroner per plane. The US military, which has been heavily...

Crude rises as U.S. inventories fall unexpectedly By Moming Zhou & Nick Godt, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures were slightly higher Wednesday, with gains capped as investors looked past a surprising decline in last week's U.S. crude inventories and focused instead on weak demand and lower refinery production levels. The decline in crude inventories was not driven by higher demand but by lower imports, Energy Information Administration data showed. Meanwhile, the decline in gasoline inventories was driven by lower production, with refineries reducing their utilization level to the lowest since September. Total petroleum consumption was still markedly lower...

Thanks to Europe, gold prices may go up in India IANS ALL THAT GLITTERS: India imports nearly 500 tonnes of gold every year. Panaji: The rising demand for gold in Europe may soon lead to a temporary shortage of the yellow metal in India, sparking a sudden rise in gold prices, a leading bullion importing agency official has said. "Today Europe is not able to supply gold to India, because European investors have started heavily investing in gold," Minerals and Metals Trading Corp (MMTC) chief general manager Asheesh Majumdar said. Majumdar, who heads MMTC's precious metals division, was in Goa...

A Global Need for Grain That Farms Can’t Fill By DAVID STREITFELD LAWTON, N.D. — Whatever Dennis Miller decides to plant this year on his 2,760-acre farm, the world needs. Wheat prices have doubled in the last six months. Corn is on a tear. Barley, sunflower seeds, canola and soybeans are all up sharply. “For once, there’s great reason to be optimistic,” Mr. Miller said. But the prices that have renewed Mr. Miller’s faith in farming are causing pain far and wide. A tailor in Lagos, Nigeria, named Abel Ojuku said recently that he had been forced to cut back...

Twenty-year high in rice prices sparks fears By Javier Blas in Vienna and Raphael Minder in Hong Kong Published: March 4 2008 00:19 | Last updated: March 4 2008 02:41 Rice prices have surged to a 20-year high in the latest sign of global food inflation, creating policy headaches in Asia, where more than 2.5bn people depend on cheap and abundant supplies of the grain. Thai rice prices, a global benchmark, surged last week above the level of $500 a tonne for the first time since at least 1989, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, prompting importing...

Pizza makers must weigh rising costs of wheat with competition 2 days ago DETROIT - First, it was cheese. And many pizza makers across America absorbed sharply rising prices of the staple ingredient as long as they could before passing along some of the expense. Now, they're dealing with the surging price of wheat used to make pizza crust. Players big, small and in between in the US$30 billion-plus industry are feeling the heat as they figure out how to deal with the double-barrel price spikes of the gooey and grainy commodities without sacrificing their quality, competitive edge or customer...

America's grain stocks running short By Robert Pore robert.pore@theindependent.com Print Story | e-mail Story | Visit Forums Global demand for grain and oilseeds is at record levels, causing the nation's grain stocks to reach critically low levels, according to Purdue University agricultural economist Chris Hurt. With a weak U.S. dollar and global demand so high, foreign buyers are outbidding domestic buyers for American grain, Hurt said. "Food consumers worldwide are going to have to pay more," Hurt said. "We ended 2007 with our monthly inflation rate on food nearly 5 percent higher. I think we'll see times in 2008 where...

By David Winning, PA City Staff Oil cartel Opec agreed today to scale back production in a bid to defend high prices and protect revenues. At a meeting in Cairo, Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi said the total reduction of one million barrels a day will be implemented from the beginning of January. Opec also agreed to meet again at the end of that month to review the impact of the cutback on prices, which have fallen sharply recently since hitting a new record in October. Mild weather in the United States has led to a stronger than expected build-up...