The US senator John Kerry today made a rare visit to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, but stressed this did not reflect a change of policy towards the territory's rulers listed by Washington as a terror group.
The visit "does not indicate any shift whatsoever with respect to Hamas," Mr Kerry, who heads the Senate's powerful foreign relations committee, said before crossing from Israel into the Palestinian enclave aboard a UN vehicle.
"What it indicates is our effort to listen and to learn," the 2004 presidential candidate told journalists in Sderot, an Israeli city just outside Gaza that has been the main target of Palestinian rocket attacks in recent years.
The influential senator was scheduled to hold talks with UN officials in Gaza.
The Democratic US representatives Brian Baird and Keith Ellison were also in Gaza.
The pair visited Izzbet Abed Rabbo, a community in northern Gaza which was hit hard during the war.
They also planned to visit a factory and a hospital damaged by the bombardments, Palestinian officials said.
The congressmen were not scheduled to meet any Hamas officials during their visits, the first such trips since the group seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.
The United States, the European Union and Israel list Hamas as a terror group.
"There is nothing in a visit that changes anything" said Mr Kerry, who was scheduled to travel on to Syria on Saturday as part of his tour of the region.
"What has to change is behaviour. What has to change obviously is Hamas's consistent resort to instruments of terror," he said after he and the Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni were shown rockets fired by Gaza militants that are exhibited at the Sderot police station.
"We feel very deeply that no one should have to live under this threat," he said.
"The politics of the Obama administration and this Democratic Congress remain the same with respect to Hamas," said Mr Kerry.
The congressmen's visits came against the backdrop of continued violence in and around the besieged territory despite Egypt's efforts to broker a lasting ceasefire following the Israeli military offensive that killed more than 1,300 Palestinians.
Palestinian militants today fired rockets and mortars at southern Israel, the Israeli army said just hours after troops reportedly were involved in a firefight when they briefly entered Gaza.
Two rockets and two mortar shells were fired from the Gaza Strip causing no damage or casualties, a military spokesman said.
The Israeli military responded with an air raid on smuggling tunnels on Gaza's border with Egypt. Witnesses said there were no casualties.
*AFP
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Retirement funds heavily invested in equities at a risky time
Pension funds in growing economies in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East have a sharply higher percentage of assets parked in stocks, just at a time when trade tensions threaten to derail markets.
Retirement money managers in 14 geographies now allocate 40 per cent of their assets to equities, an 8 percentage-point climb over the past five years, according to a Mercer survey released last week that canvassed government, corporate and mandatory pension funds with almost $5 trillion in assets under management. That compares with about 25 per cent for pension funds in Europe.
The escalating trade spat between the US and China has heightened fears that stocks are ripe for a downturn. With tensions mounting and outcomes driven more by politics than economics, the S&P 500 Index will be on course for a “full-scale bear market” without Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts, Citigroup’s global macro strategy team said earlier this week.
The increased allocation to equities by growth-market pension funds has come at the expense of fixed-income investments, which declined 11 percentage points over the five years, according to the survey.
Hong Kong funds have the highest exposure to equities at 66 per cent, although that’s been relatively stable over the period. Japan’s equity allocation jumped 13 percentage points while South Korea’s increased 8 percentage points.
The money managers are also directing a higher portion of their funds to assets outside of their home countries. On average, foreign stocks now account for 49 per cent of respondents’ equity investments, 4 percentage points higher than five years ago, while foreign fixed-income exposure climbed 7 percentage points to 23 per cent. Funds in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan are among those seeking greater diversification in stocks and fixed income.
• Bloomberg
Ziina users can donate to relief efforts in Beirut
Ziina users will be able to use the app to help relief efforts in Beirut, which has been left reeling after an August blast caused an estimated $15 billion in damage and left thousands homeless. Ziina has partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to raise money for the Lebanese capital, co-founder Faisal Toukan says. “As of October 1, the UNHCR has the first certified badge on Ziina and is automatically part of user's top friends' list during this campaign. Users can now donate any amount to the Beirut relief with two clicks. The money raised will go towards rebuilding houses for the families that were impacted by the explosion.”
