News in brief

Purchases of Brazil's soybeans up in China

China is stepping up its soybean buying in Brazil as growers in Argentina continue to hoard and the Asian nation avoids American oilseed after an escalation in trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Private and state-owned companies bought 25 to 30 cargoes of soy from Brazil this week through Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the deals are private. That's equivalent to about 1.65 million to 2.2 million tons and is helping push up the premiums buyers need to pay for soy at Brazilian ports.

Brazilian orders come after China, the top importer, stopped purchasing American soy as the spat with the U.S. deepens and farmers in Argentina are withholding beans as a hedge against currency depreciation because of election uncertainty.

Chinese buyers are scooping up Brazilian supplies as they still haven't bought enough to cover their needs through October, the people said. While Brazil has so far been able to meet China's demands, inventories are now dwindling and China is at risk of not being able to fulfill its needs.

Brazilian soybean inventories are now projected to fall to about 2.9 million tons at the end of the season, the lowest in 20 years, according to the country's soy-processor group, Abiove.

-- Bloomberg News

Marshall Islanders slam name of beer

HAGATNA, Guam -- A Texas-based company is facing criticism for naming a beer after the location of nuclear tests that resulted in the contamination of a Pacific island chain, a report said.

Manhattan Project Beer Company is under scrutiny by Marshall Islanders who were exposed to high levels of radiation by U.S. government research from 1946 to 1958, The Pacific Daily News reported Thursday.

The government and residents of the Republic of the Marshall Islands have objected to the company's beer named Bikini Atoll, an area of the island chain that remains uninhabitable.

The name is insensitive to people still dealing with the effects of radiation decades later, islanders said.

The company has several beers with nuclear-themed names including Half-life, Plutonium-239, Particles Collide, and 10 Nanoseconds.

-- The Associated Press

State index surges as 12 stocks climb

The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed at 412.73 Friday, up 5.20.

Twelve index stocks rose as the major indexes sought to recover from a tumultuous week.

ArcBest rose 4.34%, followed by Murphy Oil Corp. at 3.83%. Simmons First rose 3.65%.

The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.

Business on 08/17/2019

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