NEWS,16.07.2013

Snowden applies for Russia asylum

Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden applied on Tuesday for temporary asylum in Russia, a pro-Kremlin lawyer said, after President Vladimir Putin accused Washington of "trapping" him in the country.

Snowden, wanted by the United States for revealing sensational details of its vast spying operations, is now spending a fourth week in the transit lounge at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport without ever crossing the Russian border.

"The application has been filed with the Russian authorities" through the Federal Migration Service (FMS), said prominent lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, who has been in contact with Snowden.

"I have just left him," he told AFP after meeting the fugitive in the transit zone.

In his application, Snowden had written that he was concerned about his safety should he return to the United States, the lawyer said.

"He wrote that he fears for his life, safety, he fears that torture or death penalty could be applied against him," Kucherena said separately in televised remarks.

Receipt confirmed

"And under these circumstances, understanding his position and situation, the Federal Migration Service should of course grant his request."

The head of the Federal Migration Service, Konstantin Romodanovsky, confirmed it had received the application. Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov referred all questions to the FMS.

Kremlin-friendly lawyer Kucherena participated in Snowden's meeting with rights activists and pro-Kremlin lawmakers at Sheremetyevo last week and said Snowden had contacted him for consultations after the encounter.

Kucherena said he was helping Snowden negotiate the complexities of Russian legislation and the difference between the status of refugee, political asylum and temporary asylum.

"He is actively consulting with me," Kucherena said. "After the meeting we've been in frequent touch."

Russian authorities generally consider an application for temporary asylum for up to three months, with preliminary consideration taking up to five days.

'Trapped' by US pressure

After the application is accepted, an applicant receives a temporary document allowing him to live and travel locally.

Temporary asylum lasts for one year and would in theory give Snowden enough time to find a way to leave Russia, possibly for Latin America. It then can be extended every year for another 12 months.

Snowden flew into Russia from Hong Kong on 23 June and has since been marooned in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo. He was checked in for an Aeroflot flight to Cuba on 24 June but never boarded the plane.

On Monday, Putin said Snowden would leave Russia "as soon as he can" and accused Washington of "trapping" the American in Moscow, saying no country wanted to take in Snowden due to US pressure.

Breaking silence for the first time since he arrived, Snowden, who is essentially stateless after Washington revoked his passport, held the closed-door meeting at the airport on Friday.

At the meeting, he said he would file for asylum in Russia before he could work out a way to travel legally to Latin America, asking the activists to petition Putin on his behalf.

Kremlin green light

Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have indicated that they would be open to offering the 30-year-old a safe haven.

Putin said earlier this month Snowden could claim asylum in Russia only if he stopped his leaks and the activists who had met Snowden on Friday said he promised not to harm the United States.

Even though the Kremlin has repeatedly said it had nothing to do with Snowden, political observers have noted that his meeting with activists at the state-controlled airport would have been impossible without a green light from the Kremlin.

The head of Amnesty International in Russia, Sergei Nikitin, who took part in the airport meeting, said Snowden would likely receive asylum.

"The way everything was organised so quickly, the whole logistics make it obvious for us that there's an interest of the authorities," he told AFP. "So the decision will probably be positive."

Nikitin had said he believed plain-clothed representatives of Russian special services had taken part in Friday's meeting.

Washington has reacted sharply to the possibility that Moscow might offer Snowden a safe haven and accused it of providing him with a "propaganda platform".

 

Kid-free couples fuel high-end boom

While their parents may have scrimped and saved to raise small armies of children on a single paycheck, growing numbers of high-earning Mexican couples are putting the department store before the baby carriage.
Couples with dual incomes but no kids, or "Dinks," are on the rise in Mexico, nearly doubling since 2005. They are buoying a growing high-end goods market, splashing out on everything from expensive lingerie to home decor.
Though just over a million in number, the couples are a gold mine for leading brands, and their spending habits are shoring up consumer demand as Mexico's economy cools.
Sandra Rodarte, 27, an events producer who shops for Apple products and loves fine whiskies, drops at least 10 000 pesos ($780) a month on non-essentials like annual trips to the United States.
She and her live-in boyfriend have no plans to raise a family, she explains while lunching at the exclusive marble-clad shopping mall, Antara, in downtown Mexico City.
"It's more fun, freer ... as a person and as a couple," said Rodarte, who is conscious that being a Dink means going against the grain in a culture that values marriage and motherhood. "Of course there are stigmas. Here in Mexico, women are supposed to leave their homes in white to get married as virgins."
Little data exists on how much Mexican Dinks spend, but a 2008 study by consulting firm De la Riva Group found that each couple shells out about 165 000 pesos ($12 900) per annum, largely on movies, restaurants and bars - or some 220 billion pesos ($17.17bn) in total.
That infusion is helping to boost Mexico's luxury goods market, which is projected to expand 12% this year, on par with growth over the last four years, according to Bain & Company, a consulting firm.
By contrast, total retail sales grew 3.7% last year.
For luxury leather goods maker Coach, Dinks are a growing market, company president Ian Bickley said in an email.
The firm, which set up shop in Mexico a decade ago, now boasts 26 locations, its biggest presence in Latin America, and plans to open a new store in the city of Queretaro this year.
And with good reason.
Spending in Mexico on designer apparel, luxury accessories and fine wines hit $3.88bn in 2012, up from $2.16bn in 2004, according to Euromonitor, a sales tracking firm.
"We see a definite uptick in interest from brands that just a couple of years ago we never imagined ... would be calling us and saying, 'We're interested in Latin America and what can you tell us about Mexico?'" said Franco Calderon, president of Latin American Retail Connection, which helps consumer goods stores set up shop in the region.
His firm is working on plans with luxury lingerie brand Agent Provocateur to debut in Mexico through top-end department store chain Palacio de Hierro.
Falling birth rates, rising spending
Dinks, a concept born in the 1980s, are still a small subset of Mexicans, making up a projected 3.4% of households at the end of 2012. That compares with 4.5% in regional peer Brazil, 14% in the United States and 17.6% in the United Kingdom.
But analysts see the number continuing to grow, thanks to powerful social changes.
Mexican women, who once were far likelier to be looking after children than becoming lawyers, accountants or doctors, are now almost as well educated as men.
In 1960, only 0.5% of women had a university degree. By 2010 the number had leapt to almost 16 percent - just a fraction behind their male peers.
Meanwhile, birth rates in Mexico have plunged to an estimated 2.2 babies per woman this year from 5.7 babies in 1976, according to the national statistics agency.
Unlike in Europe, where the birth rate is a low 1.6, Mexican Dinks typically postpone child bearing rather than avoid it altogether. Seven out of 10 Mexican Dinks in the De la Riva Group survey said they want to have children eventually.
One of them is Tatiana Romero, a 27-year-old licensing compliance expert at software firm The Foundry. She and her boyfriend spend about 10 000 to 11 000 pesos ($780 to $860) a month on non-essentials, including 2 000 pesos ($160) for a nice meal.
Romero, who bought a Mexico City home with her partner this month, said she hopes to have kids by age 33, but for now, she is happy to enjoy "the acquisitive power, the ability to treat ourselves" that comes with two incomes and no children.
A fan of clothing brands from H&M and Zara to Tommy Hilfiger and Hugo Boss, Romero says having a family "is something I grew up with. You dream about getting married and having kids."
The combination of delayed parenthood and dual income has encouraged more expensive tastes.
"You're talking about relatively young couples that have strong purchasing power because they work and have enough discretionary income that they can undoubtedly dedicate to decorating their homes," said Carlos Miranda, vice president of Grupo Axo, which this year brought home decor brand Crate & Barrel to Mexico from the United States.
Axo, which also operates cosmetics company Sephora and clothing label Emporio Armani, has already opened two Crate & Barrel stores in Mexico City, with plans for a third in the city of Puebla.
Hey big spender
To be sure, some see potential headwinds over Dinks' creditworthiness and financial optimism.
"They're spending more than they can afford," said Bain & Co Partner Claudia D'Arpizio, who describes the group as "Henrys," "High Earners, Not Rich Yet."
The De la Riva study suggested that saving is not a big priority for Dinks. As a group, however, they earn more on average than all other types of households, according to a 2010 survey by the Mexican statistics office.
What is clear is that spending by the no-kids set is resilient.
Sales at department stores Palacio de Hierro and Liverpool rose about 10% in the first quarter from the year earlier, almost double revenue growth at supermarket chains Wal-Mart de Mexico and Soriana over the same period.
"Clearly the soft patch has had a bigger impact on Mexico's upcoming middle class and not necessarily on the wealthier segments of the economy, which continue to consume," said Will Landers, an equity portfolio manager at BlackRock.

Greeks strike against public sector cuts

Trains ground to a halt and hospitals worked with emergency staff as Greek workers went on strike on Tuesday in protest at government plans to fire thousands of public sector employees.
Athens must reform and shrink its civil service to receive more bailout funds from foreign lenders but the latest plan of job cuts has sparked uproar among Greeks struggling with an unemployment rate of nearly 27%.
More than a week of marches by municipal workers are expected to culminate in a rally before parliament in the capital, with garbage collectors, bus drivers, bank employees and journalists among the groups joining the walkout.
"We are continuing our fight to put an end to policies that annihilate workers and drive the economy to an even greater recession," said the private sector union GSEE, which called the strike with public sector union ADEDY.
"We will stand up to those who, with wrong and dead-end choices, have driven the Greek people to poverty and despair."
Flights to and from Athens will be disrupted as civil aviation unions stage a four-hour work stoppage in solidarity.
City transport was also affected with bus and trolley bus drives holding work stoppages in the morning and in the evening. Trains stopped running and tax offices and municipal services remain shut.
Representing about 2.5 million workers, the two unions have brought workers to the streets repeatedly since Greece slid into a debt crisis in late 2009.
The latest strike comes before a parliamentary vote on Wednesday on reforms Athens agreed with its European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders as a condition for €6.8bn ($8.9bn) in aid.
Among the measures included in the bill are job cuts for teachers, municipal police and local government posts.
Demolition of rights
On Thursday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble will visit Athens, which is also expected to draw protests from Greeks who blame European paymaster Germany for austerity policies that have shrunk pay levels and boosted unemployment.
Greece's lenders, which have bailed it out twice with €240bn in aid, have grown impatient with the slow progress it has made in streamlining a 600,000-strong public sector widely seen as corrupt and inefficient.
But with unemployment at an all-time high and at twice the euro zone average, many Greeks are furious at plans to put 12 500 workers into a "mobility pool" by September, giving them eight months to find work in another department or get fired.
Some 25 000 workers will be placed in the scheme by the end of the year.
The plan has turned into the latest headache for Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's fragile coalition government, which nearly collapsed last month after he abruptly shut the state broadcaster ERT and fired its 2 600 staff.
ADEDY accused Samaras of using the "coup-like" closure of ERT to pave the way for mass firings in the public sector.
"The policy of mass layoffs, the dismantling of public institutions responsible and the demolition of any notion of labor rights inaugurate a new undemocratic governance of the country," the union said.

Dutch look again at tax treaties

The Dutch government is reviewing double taxation treaties with developing countries to determine if they are unfair and should be renegotiated, State Secretary of Finance Minister Frans Weekers said.
The decision to examine the treaties, some of which date back to the 1950s, came after several studies found that emerging economies are losing revenue due to low tax rates set in the deals.
It also comes amid a growing international effort to halt tax dodging by multinationals.
The Netherlands has more than 90 double taxation agreements. Several thousand international corporations, including 80 of the world's largest, use the Netherlands to re-route profits from dividends, royalties and interest, often paying no withholding tax in the country of origin.
From the Netherlands, capital can be transferred to tax havens, often reducing tax rates to below 10%. The use of holding companies known as "brass-plaque" companies has led to annual capital flows of €8 trillion ($10.44 trillion), or more than 10 times annual Dutch GDP.
"These investments via the Netherlands are a problem because they involve unintended use of Dutch tax treaties and investment treaties," said tax researcher Francis Weyzig of Utrecht Univercity.
The government commissioned the outside study into its dual taxation agreements (DTA) with Bangladesh, Ghana, Uganda, Zambia and the Philippines, a spokesman for the Ministry for Development said.
It was launched shortly after Mongolia cancelled its treaty with the Netherlands, accusing the Dutch of facilitating fiscal avoidance.
"We are looking at whether these treaties are possibly damaging for these countries," Weekers told Reuters. "We are looking (to see) if they can be misused and if there is a level playing field."
Weekers said the study would determine if rich countries have won better terms than developing ones.
A June study by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations found that use of the Dutch tax system by multinational corporations causes €771m ($1.01bn) in annual lost tax revenue in 28 developing countries.
There are at least 12 000 "brass-plaque" firms known as special purpose institutions in the Netherlands. In 2010, €278bn in dividends, royalties and interest were channelled through them.
The companies create roughly 13 000 jobs and generate €3-3.4bn in annual income for the Dutch economy through taxes, wages and services, less than half a percent of annual GDP, a government-backed study by Amsterdam University's Centre for Economic Research (SEO), found.