Every few weeks, a handful of the world's biggest merchants play a high-stakes game, and a well-connected newcomer from Asia, Wilmar International, just sat down at the table. The stakes are in sugar often worth hundreds of millions of dollars; the occasion is the expiry of futures contracts.
Sky-high oil and gas prices risk tipping the U.S. economy back into recession. But Washington isn't powerless when it comes to oil prices: Here are five things that the federal and state governments can do that would quickly reduce pain at the pump.
Sugar prices hit three-decade highs of almost 36 cent a pound Wednesday due to the anticipated effects of the monstrous category 5 cyclone that just hit Australia, the world's third-largest sugar producer, which was already suffering from the effects of recent storms and floods.