Next Update June 3

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (Bloomberg) Americans’ confidence in the economy climbed in May to the highest level in almost six years as rising real estate values and record stock prices boosted household wealth.
•  The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment rose to 83.7, the highest since July 2007.
• U.S. housing starts were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 853,000 last month. The level was 16.5% below the revised March estimate, but was 13.1% higher than the level in April 2012.
• U.S. Leading indicators rose 0.6% last month after falling a revised 0.2% in March

• Japans GDP rose by 0.9% in the three months to March, or 3.5 % YoY (Bloomberg) --

• The U.S. budget deficit will shrink by the end of fiscal 2013 to $642 billion, the smallest shortfall in five years,
• U.S. Household debt, as a proportion of income, declined from 130% in 2007 to 105 % at the end of 2012.

• In the same period, Eurozone household debt has risen from 100% to almost 110%.

• French GDP shrank 0.2% in the three months through March, following a revised 0.2% contraction in the previous quarter.

• Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes have backed up a bit of late, but at 1.9% they are still just over one -third the 5.4% earnings per share yield of the S&P 500.

• South Koreas Unemployment rate was 3.25 in April, down 0.3% point from a month earlier.

• YoY German CPI rose by 1.2% last month.
• The German economy, Europe’s largest, narrowly avoided recession expanding a measly 0.1% in Q1.

• France, the second-largest economy in the euro zone, is back in recession - contracting 0.2%.

• Greek unemployment hits new record high of 27% in February.

• Advanced Cell Technology (ACTC) confirmed that the vision of a patient enrolled in a clinical investigation of the company’s retinal pigment epithelial cells derived from human embryonic stem cells has improved from 20/400 to 20/40 following treatment.

Next Update May 19

Along the road of idiocy

QUICK OVERVIEW

• U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by 165,000 last month and the jobless rate fell to a four-year low of 7.5 %.

• American International Group (AIG) investors hoping for a dividend and a buyback this year may be in luck, though the dividend seems more likely. CEO Robert Benmosche repeats on the company's first-quarter conference call that the dividend is something that could happen after AIG completes the sale of its plane-lease unit in coming weeks

• India cut  the benchmark lending rate by 0.25 points to 7.25%
• India's government reserves may soon be deposited with commercial banks to boost lending.

• The European Central Bank cut its main refinancing rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 0.5 per cent.

• YoY Japans household spending rose 5.2 % in March, in price-adjusted real terms a nine year high, as "Abenomics" gains momentum.

• At the end of 2012, U.S. household wealth rose to $66.1 trillion, close to the pre-recession peak of $67.4 trillion.

• Europe will enforce the world's first continent-wide ban on widely used insecticides (neonicotinoid pesticides) linked to serious harm in bees.

• U.K. avoids triple-dip recession as economy expands by 0.3% in Q1

• U.S. Pending Home Sales Index rose 1.5% to 105.7.
• Existing U.S. Home Sales fell 0.6 % to a 4.92 million annual rate.
• U.S. Feb. S&P/Case-Shiller home prices rose 9.3%

• YoY U.S. April consumer confidence index rose to 68.1 from 61.9

• The U.S. Labor Department said that the number of people who applied for new unemployment benefits last week fell by 16,000 to 339,000.

• As recession continues to sap the Eurozone and wider EU, the Eurostat data agency reported an extra 62,000 people joining unemployment queues in just four weeks in the 17-nation Eurozone as the jobless rate climbed for the 23rd consecutive month -- hitting 12.1% in March.

• Germany will grow by a meager 0.5% this year, the government said

• A bunch of weak manufacturing data from America, Europe and Asia has cast serious doubts on the strength of the global economy

• ARM Holdings ( ARMH) reported Q1 better-than-expected revenue, up 26% YoY

• (YUM) Yum Brands Inc., owner of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC, reported its first-quarter profit fell 27% to $337 million, or 72 cents a share. (China’s avian/chicken flue problem)

• ATT  (T) said that earnings rose 3% for Q1.

• Costco (COST) raised the quarterly dividend 12.7% to $0.31 from $0.275 per share

• Chevron (CVX) increased its quarterly dividend for the 26th year in a row, to $1 a share, up 11% from 90 cents, for a 3.4% yield.

• Akamai (AKAM) earned $0.51 a share on revenue of $386 million. That was better than the consensus estimates for $0.46

• Qualcomm (QCOM) said its second quarter earnings would be lower than analyst forecasts, as the company faces stiffer competition from smaller rivals, especially in Asia.

• UPS profit rose 7 % in the quarter.

• China Wireless Technologies said it will pass Samsung Electronics and Lenovo Group to become China's leading cell phone company.  

• Taiwan reported the first case of bird flu outside mainland China.

• Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan bought gold just before it plummeted.

• Brazil's unemployment rate rose to 5.7% in March

Next Update May 5

More  on Rogoff & Reinhart  from Harvard - Harvard I tell ya

..They have  done a great deal of damage to the world!

And thank you Mr. Herndon!

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The Group of 20 (G20) major economies on Friday pledged further actions to shore up growth while watching for monetary easing effects.

• Reports that Cyprus could sell a significant volume of gold may have triggered the sharp drop in prices, but we believe the fall represents a changing sentiment towards the metal," said Fitch

• Dutch unemployment increased to 8.1% in March from 7.7% in February. This is the highest number of unemployed people since the CBS started measuring unemployment in the 1980s.

• The IMF predicts the Spanish economy would shrink 1.6% in 2013, and the country's unemployment rate would peak at 27% this year before dropping to 26.5% in 2014 when its economy is predicted to grow 0.7%

• German car sales fell 17% in March.
• The indicator of economic sentiment for Germany fell by 12.2 points and stood at a level of 36.3 points.

• U.S. housing starts were at an annual rate of 1.04 million - 7.0% above the revised February estimate of 968,000, and up 46.7% YoY. This represented the highest level since June 2008.

• Fitch has downgraded the United Kingdom's Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings to 'AA+' from 'AAA'. The Outlook is Stable.

• Focusing on immediate economic concerns over future environmental ones, the European Parliament rejected a proposal to cut the number of pollution permits.

• Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) has raised its quarterly dividend 7%, marking the 57th consecutive year that the world's largest consumer-products company has boosted its payout.

• (Guardian) Frank Rijsberman, head of the world's 15 international CGIAR crop research centers, which study food insecurity, said: "Food production will have to rise 60% by 2050 just to keep pace with expected global population increase and changing demand.

• From the great State of Texas  Republican congressman Joe Barton comes this quote "I would point out that if you are a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the great flood was an example of climate change," Barton told a congressional hearing "That certainly wasn't because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy."

• (Pritchard) Portugal's leading elder statesman has called on the country to copy Argentina and default (Telegraph)

• The Dutch government is to postpone some austerity measures, in a significant break away from EU policy that risks angering Germany.

• (FT) Haruhiko Kuroda has announced his arrival as governor of the Bank of Japan by introducing a “new phase of monetary easing”, doubling Japan’s monetary base through aggressive purchases of long-term government bonds and risk assets.

• (Science Daily) A genetic analysis of the avian flu virus responsible for at least nine human deaths in China portrays a virus evolving to adapt to human cells, raising concern about its potential to spark a new global flu pandemic…the new strain could be treated with another clinically relevant antiviral drug, oseltamivir

• (NZH) A 17-year-old girl has exposed Islamic sex tourism in India where Muslim men from the Middle East and Africa are buying one-month wives for sex.

Why America Forgot A Horrific Terrorist Attack On Wall Street In 1920 I set out to write that book because I came across a mention of the 1920 bombing, which killed 38 people and injured hundreds more people, many of them quite seriously. I was shocked that I had never heard of this. What's going on that allowed this big event to be lost to history?

Cyprus bail-out vote stirs fresh jitters as slump fears grow in Europe Europe’s policy elites are increasingly on the back foot after furious controversy this week over a Harvard paper widely cited as the intellectual justification for austerity. (See below)

The Excel Depression  ... what really matters isn’t what they meant to say, it’s how their work was read: Austerity enthusiasts trumpeted that supposed 90 percent tipping point as a proven fact and a reason to slash government spending even in the face of mass unemployment.

Next Update April 21

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The deaths of two men in Shanghai from a strain of bird flu have raised the specter of a new epidemic.

• The head of Cyprus' influential Orthodox Church has dealt a hammer blow to the island's economic leaders by becoming the first major figure to call for their resignations.

• Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister has said about North Korea: “The situation could simply get out of control, it is slipping toward the spiral of a vicious cycle,”.

• U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly rose in March. Sentiment edged up to a four- month high of 78.6 in March from 77.6 in the previous month.
• U.S. Existing home sales rose 0.8% to an annual rate of 4.98 million in February. The sales rate was the highest since November 2009
• U.S. economy rose 0.4% in Q4

• Japan's consumer prices fell 0.3% in February
• Japan's unemployment rate rose to 4. 3% in February from 4.2% the previous month
• Japan's retail sales accelerated their drop in February, falling 2.3% YoY after a 1.1% fall the previous month

• Portugal's public debt reaches 123.6 % of GDP

• Spain's economy to contract by 1.5 % in 2013

• Climate change denying Chris Stewart (R-Utah) to head subcommittee on Climate Change.

• (Telegraph) Japan has extracted natural "ice" gas from methane hydrates beneath the sea off its coasts in a technological coup, opening up a super-resource that could meet the country's gas needs for the next century and radically change the world's energy outlook.

• Russia and South Africa plan OPEC-style cartel for platinum and palladium.http://www.investmenttools.com/futures/metals/welcome_to_the_page_about_palladium.htm

• U.S. Insider selling has risen to 6.3 sells for every buy - eight year high.

• (Spiegel) As the euro crisis wears on, the tough austerity measures implemented in ailing member states are resulting in serious health issues, a study revealed. Mental illness, suicide rates and epidemics are on the rise, while access to care has dwindled.

• (Spiegel) Twelve years ago, Portugal eliminated criminal penalties for drug users. Since then, those caught with small amounts of marijuana, cocaine or heroin go unindicted and possession is a misdemeanor on par with illegal parking. Experts are pleased with the results.

• More than half of the rivers and streams in the United States are in poor biological health, unable to support healthy populations of aquatic insects and other creatures, according to a nationwide survey.

• The US Food and Drug Administration approved a first-of-its-kind diabetes drug from Johnson & Johnson that uses a new method to lower blood sugar flushing it out in patients' urine.

Next Update March 31

Daylight robbery in Cyprus will come to haunt EMU One's first reflex is to gasp at the stupidity of the EU policy elites, but truth is that most EU officials handling the Cyprus crisis know perfectly well that their masters have just set the slow fuse on a powder keg – and they can only pray that it is slow.

Now check this out!          NOK

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (The Verge) Cody Wilson, who heads 3D printed firearms group Defense Distributed, has apparently received a federal firearms license officially allowing him to manufacture or sell the group's guns.

• Europe braced for renewed turmoil with outrage in Cyprus over an unprecedented levy on bank deposits. Depositors in Cypriot banks will be hit with a one-off tax on their savings, marking the first bailout for any eurozone country in which depositors will directly lose money. Holders of bank accounts with more than 100,000 euros will be taxed at 9.9 percent, and an additional 6.75 percent levy will be imposed on deposits below that level, raising an expected 5.8 billion euros for the Mediterranean island. And in the process risking a bank run!

• U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly fell to a 15-month low in March. The preliminary reading of the consumer sentiment,edged down to 71. 8 in March from 77.6 MoM.
• U.S. nonfarm payroll grew by 236,000 in February, and unemployment rate edged down 0.2% to 7.7%

• (Bloomberg) Chinese anger over pollution becomes main cause of social unrest.

• Swiss voters have backed an initiative to give shareholders of Swiss listed companies a binding say on executive pay

• QCOM raised its quarterly dividend by 40% to 35 cents a share

• 46% of Americans believe in creationism.

• (Bloomberg) More than 4,700 workers at the Hanford reservation in Washington State where six tanks are leaking radioactive waste are facing furloughs or layoffs under $171 million in U.S. budget cuts, the Energy Department said.

• Wealth Inequality in America (WSJ)

• New research suggests that average global temperatures were higher in the last decade than over most of the previous 11,300 years

Next Upadate Mar. 17

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The information deprived austerity lemmings from the U.S. Rep./Tea keep marching on - looking for cliffs to go over.

• The Thomson-Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index rose to 77.6 from a preliminary reading of 76.3. The index is at its highest level since November.

• Inflation in the 17-nation Eurozone fell to 2% in January this year, down from the 2.7% rate for the same month last year.
• Eurozone jobless rate rose by 0.1 points to 11.9% in January
• Spain's unemployment rate reached 26.2% in January

• Macau's February gambling revenue rose 12% YoY
• The Las Vegas Sands Corporation (NYSE:LVS) has disclosed that it probably broke a federal law that forbids businesses to bribe foreign government officials in a filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday.

• The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index climbed 1.1 points to 54.2%, coming in ahead of the 52.5% forecast

• UK's government bond rating cut to Aa1 from Aaa by Moody's

• Lanworth is pegging the Argentine soy crop at 49.6m tonnes, 2.10m tonnes below its estimate two weeks ago.
• USDA’s meaningless new crop prediction: Corn 13/14 ending stocks projected at 2.177 billion bushel, Beans 250 million bushels, wheat 639 million bushels.

• The American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 2.9% in January after jumping 2.4% in December. Tonnage has surged at least 2.4% every month since November, gaining a total of 9.1% over that period. 

  

• Spiegel: I've been in prison for 20 years, but you will never win this war when there is so much money to me made. Never."

Next Update Feb. 3

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The preliminary reading of the consumer sentiment, which records the figure for the first half of a month, edged up to 76.3 in February from 73.8 in the previous month. It's the highest level since November 2012, boosted by rising stock prices, increased property values and a reviving jobs market

• Heinz (HNZ) rose 20% to $72.45, a nickel below the per-share buyout bid made by Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA BRKB) and 3G Capital.

• The euro zone’s economy shrank by 0.6% in the fourth quarter from the previous three months.

• The German economy contracted by 0.6% QoQ, its worst performance since the global financial crisis in 2009.

• France contracted by 0.3 % QoQ also worse than expectations.

• Japan's recession continued in Q4, with data showing a 0.1% contraction QoQ

• Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) (Jim Inhofe student?) dismissed the idea that the U.S. government could do anything to combat climate, the day after he gave the Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union.

• USDA projects China corn imports to rise to 770 mln bu per year over the next 10 yrs
• USDA projects China soybean imports to rise to 3.78 bln bu per year over the next 10 years

• Overall foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities reached 5.55 trillion U.S. dollars in December, up from a revised 5.53 trillion in November 2012. It was the 12th consecutive monthly increase.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (WSJ)The Justice Department is expected to sue Standard & Poor's Ratings Services alleging the firm ignored its own standards to rate mortgage bonds that imploded in the financial crisis and cost investors billions.

• China data for January showed exports rose 25% and imports climbed 28.8% YoY, giving the country a trade surplus of $29.2 billion. All three figures beat market expectations.
• A chief of Chinese sovereign wealth fund said that it is a "very good time" to invest in the Eurozone, which he believes is recovering from the crisis.
• China's investor confidence index rose 24.36% MoM to stand at 62.8 in January.

• U.S. personal income rose a solid 2.6% in December, after a 1.0% gain in November.

• Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau reports January gross gaming revenue +7.3% YoY to 26.9 bln patacas ($3.36 bln), vs. +20% YoY in January 2012.

• Bloomberg: Crop estimates for the Pampas, Argentina’s main soybean region, should be trimmed on a lack of rain, Eduardo Sierra said in an e-mail statement to Bloomberg, The area is facing what may be the hottest start to a year in more than half a century, he said.

• (NYT) America’s vast population of free-roaming domestic cats manages to kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles.

• According to CFED’s Assets and Opportunities Scorecard, 43.9% of American households are “liquid asset poor” meaning they “lack enough savings to cover basic expenses for just three months if they suffer a loss of income.” Over a quarter of the”liquid asset poor” make between $55,465-$90,000 a year.

• The S&P/Case-Shiller index of home values rose 5.5% from November 2011. This is 29% below its peak in July 2006.

• Japan's unemployment rate rose to 4.2% in December from 4.1% the previous month. Japan's industrial output rose 2.5% in December.

Next update Feb. 10

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (FT) The salmon fish farming industry is now testing the use of protein from biological yeast and Norwegian spruce trees, in an effort to go to 0% fishmeal in the feed.

• A document obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE indicates the German government is preparing to procure armed drones for foreign combat. Opposition politicians are outraged by the development and note that the use of weapons-equipped unmanned aircraft is legally dubious and possibly unethical.

• Global Smartphone shipments grew 43% YoY to reach a record 700 million units in 2012. QoQ, Nokia's net sale of smart devices rose by 26%.

• (BBC) Mussolini had been wrong to pass anti-Jewish laws but had otherwise been a good leader, said Mr Berlusconi.

• According to global consultancy Ernst and Young, worldwide investments done in line with Islamic law, known as Shari'ah, will reach 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars globally in 2013.

• British economy contracts 0.3% in Q4 of 2012.

• Spanish economy contracts by 1.3%in 2012 -- unemployment reached 26.02% in December. Meanwhile, youth unemployment in Spain stood at 55.13%. Thanks A (Austerity) Merkel.

• A think tank predicted that China's GDP would grow in 2013 at a rate of 8.4%, up by 0.6% from that of 2012.

• (Telegraph) Apple shuttled $11bn (£7bn) into offshore tax havens in the fourth quarter of 2012, an analysis of its corporate filings has revealed. The iPad maker has slashed its tax bill by paying less than 2% on its overseas profits, as it moves money through offshoots in low-tax countries such as the British Virgin Islands. Apple's completely legal tax avoidance strategies bring the total the company has sheltered from the US tax authorities to $94bn, according to a Sunday Times analysis. Corporation tax on Apple's overseas operations amount to just 1.9pc of profits, compared with a tax rate of up to 24pc in the UK and 35pc in the US.

• (NYT) “Who knows?” it said. “Maybe you’ll find a Bushmaster AR-15 under your tree some frosty Christmas morning!”

QUICK OVERVIEW

• Germany showed a paltry growth of just 0.7%.
• German consumer prices rose by 2.1% in December

• Eurozone inflation rose by 2.2% in December

• (Bloomberg) Housing starts in the U.S. climbed 12.1 percent last month to a 954,000 annual rate, exceeding all forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists

• (Spiegel) Young Europeans in countries hit hardest by the Continent's economic crisis are finding it difficult to move out of their parents' home. Data shows that over 50% of those aged 25 to 34 in some countries have yet to move out.

• Pakistan Tumbles into Chaos again. A self-proclaimed revolutionary is attracting mass protests, while the highest court has ordered the prime minister's arrest and the military waits in the wings.

• The Koch brothers are urging Republican/Tea to show restraint during US debt ceiling negotiations, representing quite a shift in position by the extreme right Americans for Prosperity.

• World Bank estimates global economic growth rate at 2.4% in 2013.

• Spanish inflation rate rose by 2.9 % in 2012

• Global containership capacity grew 6% to 16.3 TEU million in 2012

Mario Draghi has saved the rich, now he must save the poor By then millions of people will have fallen into an "enormous poverty trap," to borrow the words of EU jobs chief Laszlo Andor. It is why Gustav Horn -- head of Germany’s IMK Institute and one of the country’s five `Wise Men’ -- called for an end to the contractionary torture last week. "It’s a vicious circle. Excess austerity is not reducing debt, it is causing debt to rise," he said.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The Obama administration killed the idea of minting platinum coins in the denomination of 1 trillion U.S. dollars to generate revenue and avoid the looming battle with Republicans on raising the federal government's debt ceiling

• Arlan Suderman‏: Global corn stocks down to 48.8-day supply and trending lower - tightest in 39 years.
• U.S. Domestic corn stocks at a 19.5-day supply - 2nd tightest of the past 50 years

• The Japanese cabinet approved a stimulus package worth 20 trillion yen (about 224 billion U.S. dollars), aiming to shore up Japan's current stagnant economy by beating chronic deflation and tackling the strong yen.

• S. Korean central bank cuts 2013 growth outlook to 2.8 %

• China's consumer price index (CPI) rose 2.5% YoY in December.
• China's producer price index (PPI), which measures inflation at wholesale level, fell 1.9 % YoY in December.

• ECB holds key interest rate at 0.75%

• Indonesia keeps key rate unchanged at 5.75%

• Almost 200,000 New Zealanders are considering leaving the country to find work abroad, according to the results of a survey

• Spanish unemployment rate reaches 26.6% in November

• Greece's unemployment rate climbed to a record 26.8% in October.

• (FT) Chinese exports and imports rebounded strongly in December, pointing to solid economic growth both in China and abroad. Exports rose 14.1 per cent YoY, the fastest in seven months and well above November’s 2.9 per cent pace. Imports increased 6 % in December from a year earlier after flatlining in November. Both outstripped most forecasts.

• (Bloomberg) Steve and Amber Mostyn, wealthy Texas trial attorneys, said today that they are giving $1 million to help start the gun-control advocacy group formed by former Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly.

• Companies in the S&P 500 are sitting on a record cash pile of $1 trillion according to data from S&P Dow Jones indices.

Paying for It A man walks into a bar. He orders several rounds, downs them, and staggers out. The man has got plastered, the bar owner has got the man’s money, and the public will get stuck with the tab for the cops who have to fish the man out of the gutter.

The Fiscal Cliff Deal and the Damage Done
The economy-as-family metaphor is familiar, emotionally intuitive—and incorrect. It’s a fallacy of composition: What’s true for the part is not necessarily true for the whole. While a single family can get its finances back on track by spending less than it earns, it’s impossible for everyone to do that simultaneously. When the plumber skips a haircut, the barber can’t afford to have his drains cleaned.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• Friday's U.S. jobless rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics remained unchanged from its revised level the previous month, adding 155,000 jobs, roughly equal to the average 153,000 jobs added monthly over the first 11 months of the year. "At December's growth rate the labor market will not fill in (the) gap until the end of 2021," said Heidi Shierholz, economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

• The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities increased 4.3% from October 2011, the biggest 12-month advance since May 2010.

• U.S. GDP expanded at a 3.1 % annual rate, the Commerce Department said. It was the fastest growth since late 2011.

• Sales of existing houses increased 5.9 % to a 5.04 million annual rate, the most since November 2009, the National Association of Realtors reported.

• The Pew Charitable Trusts reckons that nearly a third of Americans who, as teenagers in the 1970s, belonged to the middle class have slipped below it as adults.

• The Fed is planning to continue suppressing interest rates so long as the unemployment rate remained above 6.5%. In addition, they will not relent in its focus on unemployment unless the medium-term outlook for inflation rises above 2.5%.

• U.S. foreclosure starts fell 13% MoM and were down 28% YoY

• Eurozone finance ministers agreed to cede power to a common bank supervisor in Frankfurt -- its first big step towards banking union.

• The U.S. unemployment rate fell from 7.9 to 7.7 %. The figures suggest that the US economy has a little more momentum than previously thought.

• NOAA scientists now believe that 2012 is “virtually certain to become the warmest year on record for the nation,”

•  (Spiegel) The guns have been silent in Iraq for years, but in Basra and Fallujah the number of birth defects and cancer cases is on the rise. Locals believe that American uranium-tipped munitions are to blame.

• All members of the U.N. Security Council, with the lone exception of the United States, have publicly condemned Israel's recent settlement expansion activities and called for them to end.