Tax raid tarnishes India's gold industry
A raid by dozens of tax inspectors on one of India's biggest gold traders this week has tarnished the reputation of an industry worth more than $70bn a year and put at risk its access to funding, a bullion importers' group said.
"The jewellers' fraternity, be it small or big, is feeling disgraced that we've been made to look so negative," Mohit Kamboj, president of the Bombay Bullion Association, told a news conference in Mumbai on Friday.
Income tax officials this week swooped on about 50 offices of RiddiSiddhi Bullions, a leading gold importer.
The raid was part of a probe into financial transactions for suspected bogus imports and exports, said Swatantra Kumar Singh, director general of investigations at the tax department.
Prithviraj Kothari, managing director of RiddiSiddhi Bullions, could not be reached by telephone for comment.
He said in an emailed statement to news media that he would cooperate fully with the authorities and described their action as a "routine survey".
The probe coincided with a drive by the government to rein in imports of gold by a country that is already the world's largest buyer of bullion. Gold imports, which hit a monthly record of 162 tonnes in May, are largely to blame for a ballooning current account deficit.
Other jewellers and dealers were also raided in Mumbai's Zaveri Bazaar, a maze of narrow streets and dilapidated shops that is home to India's biggest bullion market, Singh told Reuters in a text message.
He said on June 12 that tax officials had seized about $1.4m from Kothari's head office in the centre of Zaveri Bazaar and other offices of the company across India.
India's appetite for gold is vast, with imports hitting a record 969 tonnes in 2011. The government moved this month to tame demand with a 50% hike in import duty to 8%.
India used to ban imports of gold and most of it was smuggled into the country until the 1990s, when controls were relaxed.
Kamboj said the sensation caused by this week's raids had damaged relations between jewellers and banks, which are a major source of funding for an industry largely made up of small, family-run shops that cannot afford to carry large stocks.
"If any jeweller goes to a bank then they are treated as if they are frauds or smugglers," the association president said.
UK power prices may fall
British power prices may fall after its electricity market links more closely with others in Europe later this year, increasing cross-border trading, one of the project leaders said on Friday.
From November onwards, Britain's electricity market will be directly linked to those of Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and the Nordic states via a mechanism that will distribute power automatically and more evenly between major delivery points as it is needed.
The so-called market coupling project aims to eventually integrate all of Europe's power markets to create one price for European energy consumers and to hedge against supply shocks.
Britain's power market has fewer connections to its neighbours and is less liquid than most others in western Europe, and its power prices have recently been higher.
For Britain, market coupling will bring a boost to the number of trades on its short-term market, said Bente Hagem, co-chair of the coupling project.
"Liquidity in the UK will increase for the day-ahead market through coupling. That will be positive for the price formation," she told journalists at a news conference.
Exposure to the wider market is likely to bring Britain's prices more in line with those on the continent.
The Dutch, German, French, Luxembourg and Belgian electricity markets were already coupled in November 2010, which has helped their prices converge.
Closer ties will also mean, however, that British consumers may be more prone to price changes in surrounding markets, for example those caused by extreme swings in German renewable energy production.
The European Union has set an end-2014 target for Europe's electricity markets to be fully integrated to distribute renewable energy flows and prevent energy supply crises.
The complexity of uniting trading and capacity allocation systems, however, has made meeting that deadline unlikely, said Jean-Francois Conil-Lacoste, the second co-chair of the project and head of European day-ahead power bourse EPEX Spot.
"We have a deadline of end-2014, which is very ambitious, and we can probably safely say that unfortunately we will not meet the deadline for all of Europe," he said at the same conference.
Markets in central-eastern Europe have taken the first steps to couple their regions, and south-eastern markets are also gearing up to eventually join the creation of a Europe-wide integrated market.
A surefire bet?
Puffing on slim metal tubes loaded with pale yellow liquid, two London businessmen say they have between their lips a cure for what the United Nations calls "one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced".
Electronic cigarettes are the future, they argue. Cheaper, cleaner and cooler than smoking, "vaping" - using a vaporiser to inhale nicotine infused with exotic flavours ranging from pina colada to bubblegum - will spell the end of tobacco.
"After I first tried this, I left half a cigarette in the ashtray and never went back," says Zoltan Kore, who co-runs the newly opened London e-cigarette shop "Smoke No Smoke".
"I'm not a smoker now, I'm a vaper," says business partner Gabor Kovacs. "The awful morning coughing fits have gone, and the waking up in the night struggling to breathe has gone, too."
Such stories - and hopes of persuading the rest of the world's billion smokers to stub out their tar and toxin-loaded cigarettes, cutting a catalogue of chronic disease risks as they do - are tantalising for public health experts.
And since "vaping" doesn't entail kicking the addiction either to the stimulant nicotine or to the behavioural habits of smoking some say it can help smokers quit much more effectively than nicotine gum or patches.
Cool alternative or dangerous gateway?
All the top tobacco companies are now placing bets on e-smokes, which some analysts predict may outsell conventional cigarettes in 10 years, raising the counter-intuitive prospect that Big Tobacco could actually help people quit smoking.
Celebrities like Bruno Mars and Courtney Love are also endorsing them, a further inducement to makers of iconic cigarette brands like Marlboro and Camel to invest.
Yet e-cigarettes are far from universally accepted as a public health tool; regulators are agonising over whether to restrict them as "gateway" products to nicotine addiction and tobacco smoking, or embrace them as treatments for would-be quitters.
A big issue is the lack of long-term scientific evidence to support the safety and effectiveness of e-cigarettes, prompting critics like the British Medical Association (BMA) to warn of the dangers of their unregulated use.
"These devices may also undermine efforts to prevent or stop smoking by making cigarette use seem normal in public and at work," argues the BMA, which has called for vaping to be banned in public places in Britain, just as smoking is.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) is equally wary, saying that until e-cigarettes have been endorsed as safe and effective by national regulators, "consumers should be strongly advised not to use any of these products".
Supporters of e-cigarettes scoff at suggestions they are a hazard or could be a slippery slope for previously addiction-free young people to get hooked on nicotine.
There is, they argue, no evidence of any harm from nicotine consumption and it would be crazy to impose tougher restrictions on e-smokes than on toxic "death sticks" that are freely available to buy on almost every street corner worldwide.
As Adrian Everett, chief executive of Britain's leading e-cigarette company E-Lites, put it in a comment to Reuters: "Comparing electronic cigarettes to tobacco is like comparing playing football to juggling live hand grenades."
Big killer
While the debate rumbles, smoking is killing half of all those who do it. Tobacco has an annual death toll of 6 million people, and that could exceed 8 million by 2030 unless something urgent is done to stop people smoking, according to the WHO.
As well as causing lung cancer and other chronic respiratory diseases, smoking is also a major contributor to cardiovascular diseases, the world's number one killer.
"This could be the most effective method of smoking reduction that we have ever had," says Konstantinos Farsalinos of the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Centre in Greece, who has conducted several studies exploring the risks of vaping.
His work, some of which has had some funding from makers of e-cigarettes, has found no adverse effects on heart function, nor any notable cancer risks to cells in the lungs.
Other research, however, suggests "vaping" may reduce lung capacity, and the German Cancer Research Centre said last month it was concerned e-cigarette liquids contained ingredients that can irritate the airways, while poor quality products could contain carcinogens.
Against this background, a growing number of regulators see a need to control standards in a largely unregulated sector.
Britain became the latest to take the plunge this week by opting to regulate e-cigarettes as non-prescription medicines, after finding widely varying nicotine levels and contaminants in some existing products. This means manufacturers will need a licence from 2016, though they will still be sold in general stores.
A few countries have banned them outright - such as Brazil, Norway and Singapore - while others are opting for varying degrees of regulation, in some cases including limits on advertising and curbs on their use in public places.
France said last month it would impose the same restrictions on e-cigarettes as on conventional ones.
The European Union is proposing to limit the amount of nicotine they can hold before regulation kicks in, while the US Food and Drug Administration has so far adopted a light touch, saying it plans to regulate e-cigarettes as it does tobacco.
Greater regulation, in one form or another, may sink smaller players that cannot afford to navigate through various licensing systems. But the rest will benefit from a halo of legitimacy.
In particular, that could play into the deep pockets of Big Tobacco - a prospect that makes some campaigners uneasy.
"Tobacco companies seem to be playing both sides of the game by selling cigarettes that cause thousands of deaths a year but also selling products designed to reduce the harm," says Martin Dockrell of British campaign group Action on Smoking and Health.
"There are some real risks here that need to be managed."
No-brainer for Big Tobacco
Big tobacco companies are jumping on the
e-cigarette bandwagon with a range of strategies to tap into a market that some
analysts believe could eclipse traditional cigarettes in 10 years.
They are competing with hundreds of smaller companies in the global e-smoking market, which Euromonitor estimates was worth more than $2bn in 2012.
Here is a snapshot of recent Big Tobacco initiatives:They are competing with hundreds of smaller companies in the global e-smoking market, which Euromonitor estimates was worth more than $2bn in 2012.
Altria: the owner of Marlboro cigarettes maker Philip Morris said on June 11 its Nu Mark subsidiary would launch e-cigarettes under the brand name MarkTen in Indiana in August. It is the last of the large US tobacco firms to enter the space.
Reynolds American: the maker of Camel cigarettes said on June 6 it would expand the testing of its Vuse e-cigarettes to retail outlets in Colorado, beginning in July.
Imperial Tobacco: the maker of Gauloises cigarettes said on April 30 it had set up a venture called Fontem to develop e-cigarettes.
Lorillard: the maker of Newport menthol cigarettes paid around $135m in April 2012 to acquire Blu Ecigs, a leading e-cigarette company.
British American Tobacco: the maker of Kent cigarettes set up Nicoventures in 2011 as a standalone company to develop smokeless nicotine products. It already has a product, which it is working on with Consort Medical, under regulatory review in Britain.
Outlook better for global food markets
The overall outlook for supplies of basic food commodities to global markets has improved since poor wheat harvest and tight conditions a year ago,the UN's food agency said on Thursday.
The cereal supply-and-demand balance in the 2013-2014 season was expected to be "comfortable", the agency said, but it warned about the pace of imports of rice by China.
The agency said that it expected food commodity markets to be more balanced in 2013 to 2014, with rising prices on fish and meat forecast to offset lower prices for some commodities such as sugar.
The Rome-based Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) said in its biannual Food Outlook report that the "global food import bill is forecast to reach $1.09trn in 2013 - 13% below the record of 2011 but close to the 2012 estimate".
World sugar production was estimated to reach a new record in 2012-2013, "one that will be more than sufficient to cover projected global consumption," it said.
"After a relatively tight situation in 2012-2013, characterised by reduced grain supplies and high prices, good production prospects and a likely replenishment in world stocks could pave the way for calmer markets and some easing of prices in the new season," it said.
The news was also positive for wheat, with record world production this year boosting supplies. Lower import demand was also likely to stabilise the market and keep prices down.
"The bulk of the recovery is forecast to be concentrated in some of the major producing countries that harvested poor crops in 2012, in particular in Europe and the Black Sea region," it said.
In terms of rice, the FAO said international prices had generally been stable in the first five months of 2013, but that market attention was now "focusing on future decisions regarding releases from public stocks in Thailand and on India's availabilities for export."
The agency said the pace of China's rice imports was also "becoming critical".
International prices for meat, dairy and fish were expected to rise, the report said.
"World meat production is anticipated to grow by only 1.4% in 2013, to 308.2 million tonnes. Meat prices remain at historically high levels which, as of May, have not shown signs of decreasing in spite of reduced feed costs," it said.
Meat prices have remained at historically high levels since the early part of 2011. Export prices on average this year rose marginally for poultry and pork, remained stable for beef, and fell for lamb.
Prices of dairy products "have risen in the face of limited export supplies", and while milk production continues to increase, especially in Asia, growth in the main exporting countries is expected to be limited.
In terms of fish, tight supply and higher feed costs for several key traded species such as salmon and shrimp are pushing international seafood prices higher.
However, "overall supply is still growing thanks to aquaculture, with strong local and regional demand sustaining production growth in the developing countries," the FAO said.
Greek PM's offer on broadcaster rejected
Partners in the Greek coalition government on
Saturday rejected Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's offer to partially reopen
the state broadcaster, saying it had to be entirely reinstated.
Samaras triggered a nationwide uproar when he and Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras signed a legislative act shutting down ERT's television and radio stations last Tuesday in the latest austerity cutback.
But then Samaras offered to partially reinstate ERT.
"We do not agree with this proposal and we demand the immediate cancellation of the legislative act," Andreas Papadopoulos, spokesperson for the small leftist democratic Dimar party, told AFP.
Dimar is one of the three members of the ruling coalition, along with Samaras's conservatives and Pasok's socialists. The act was signed without the agreement of Dimar and Pasok.
Samaras heads the fragile coalition in a careful balancing act to enact unpopular austerity reforms in return for bailout loans from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
Decision defended
Pasok, a pillar of the coalition, also demands ERT's reopening while recognising, like Dimar, "the need for restructuring" of the 60-year-old broadcaster.
Samaras called on Friday evening on his government partners to set up a body charged with resuming "immediately" the broadcast of information programmes before creating a new radio-television broadcaster, envisioned in a draft law presented on Wednesday by the government spokeperson.
Samaras's proposal "is not a response to what Pasok had said", a party official said.
"As soon as ERT reopens, we will agree to setting up a commission to elaborate a restructuring plan on the basis of European audiovisual bodies, which will be proposed over the next two to three months with the aim of reorganising ERT," Papadopoulos said.
In a column published Saturday in the liberal daily Kathimerini, Samaras defended his decision to shut down ERT, which he said showed his government's "political will and determination" to fight waste and lead his country out of crisis.
Samaras's administration is under heavy pressure from Greece's EU-IMF creditors to dismiss thousands of state workers to maintain access to bailout loans.
ERT has a long history of nepotistic hiring practises and government-biased news coverage, but it also provides an invaluable link to the Greek diaspora, border areas and isolated islands.
The government says it will compensate ERT's almost 2 700 employees and has pledged to set up a new public broadcaster with less than half the staff before the end of summer.
A crucial meeting on the subject is planned for Monday evening between Samaras and the heads of Pasok and Dimar, Evangelos Venizelos and Fotis Kouvelis, amid continuing protests at ERT headquarters and strikes by Greek journalists.
Samaras triggered a nationwide uproar when he and Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras signed a legislative act shutting down ERT's television and radio stations last Tuesday in the latest austerity cutback.
But then Samaras offered to partially reinstate ERT.
"We do not agree with this proposal and we demand the immediate cancellation of the legislative act," Andreas Papadopoulos, spokesperson for the small leftist democratic Dimar party, told AFP.
Dimar is one of the three members of the ruling coalition, along with Samaras's conservatives and Pasok's socialists. The act was signed without the agreement of Dimar and Pasok.
Samaras heads the fragile coalition in a careful balancing act to enact unpopular austerity reforms in return for bailout loans from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
Decision defended
Pasok, a pillar of the coalition, also demands ERT's reopening while recognising, like Dimar, "the need for restructuring" of the 60-year-old broadcaster.
Samaras called on Friday evening on his government partners to set up a body charged with resuming "immediately" the broadcast of information programmes before creating a new radio-television broadcaster, envisioned in a draft law presented on Wednesday by the government spokeperson.
Samaras's proposal "is not a response to what Pasok had said", a party official said.
"As soon as ERT reopens, we will agree to setting up a commission to elaborate a restructuring plan on the basis of European audiovisual bodies, which will be proposed over the next two to three months with the aim of reorganising ERT," Papadopoulos said.
In a column published Saturday in the liberal daily Kathimerini, Samaras defended his decision to shut down ERT, which he said showed his government's "political will and determination" to fight waste and lead his country out of crisis.
Samaras's administration is under heavy pressure from Greece's EU-IMF creditors to dismiss thousands of state workers to maintain access to bailout loans.
ERT has a long history of nepotistic hiring practises and government-biased news coverage, but it also provides an invaluable link to the Greek diaspora, border areas and isolated islands.
The government says it will compensate ERT's almost 2 700 employees and has pledged to set up a new public broadcaster with less than half the staff before the end of summer.
A crucial meeting on the subject is planned for Monday evening between Samaras and the heads of Pasok and Dimar, Evangelos Venizelos and Fotis Kouvelis, amid continuing protests at ERT headquarters and strikes by Greek journalists.
Obama in Africa: Great 'bang for buck'
The White House on Friday insisted President Barack Obama's looming trip to Africa was overdue and would give great "bang for the buck", pushing back at concerns over the journey's cost.
Ben Rhodes, a top foreign policy aide to Obama, admitted that the president, despite his Kenyan heritage, had focused far more on other regions, including Asia and Europe, than Africa, despite crucial US interests there.
"For the United States to say we're a world leader except in this continent doesn't make any sense," said Rhodes, a deputy national security advisor.
"The US would be ceding its leadership position in the world if the president of the United States was not deeply engaged in Africa," Rhodes said.
Obama is due to travel to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania on a trip beginning at the end of this month for his first prolonged stay on the continent since taking office.
He has previously visited sub-Saharan Africa only once as president, with a short stay in Ghana in 2009.
Rhodes noted that Obama had travelled multiple times to the Asia-Pacific region, as part of a rebalancing of US foreign policy there and had made many trips to Europe, so Africa needed some attention.
"Africa's a critically important region of the world. We have huge interests there. You've got some of the fastest growing economies in Africa.
"You've got a massively growing youth population.
"You've got key security and counterterrorism issues that we work on with African countries," he said, adding that key US interests in combating HIV/Aids, and in supporting global health were also rooted in the continent.
"This is a deeply substantive trip and one that has been highly anticipated on the continent.
"Frankly, there's been great disappointment that the president hasn't traveled to Africa until this point other than a brief stop in Ghana."
"The president is not going to retreat from an entire continent."
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that plans for Obama to take a safari with his family in Tanzania had been cancelled due to budgetary concerns.
The newspaper, citing a Secret Service planning document, said the excursion would have required Obama's counter-assault team to carry sniper rifles with high-caliber rounds that could neutralise cheetahs, lions or other animals.
The paper said Obama's Africa tour, his first since taking office in January 2009, could cost the US government between $60m and $100m, based on cost of similar trips in recent years.
The report comes as many government agencies struggle with mandatory budget cuts that took effect in March because US lawmakers failed to strike a wider budget deal.
Hundreds of Secret Service agents are dispatched for the president's overseas visits along with dozens of vehicles, planes and other military and security assets.
The White House said that it was up to the Secret Service to determine costs and security needs for the US leader abroad - as was the case under former presidents George W Bush and Bill Clinton for instance.
Both Bush and Clinton undertook significant tours of Africa as president, requiring the vast security and logistical infrastructure that follows the US leader wherever he goes.
Rhodes, noting that other powers, including China, were seeking to increase their influence in Africa, portrayed Obama's upcoming visit as a smart investment.
"There will be a great bang for our buck for being in Africa.
"When you travel to regions like Africa that don't get a lot of presidential attention, you tend to have very long-standing and long-running impact from the visit."
US: Snowden will be held accountable
The United States is confident it will bring Edward Snowden to justice for "extremely
damaging" leaks about secret internet surveillance programmes, US Attorney General Eric
Holder said on Friday.
Snowden is hiding in Hong Kong and the United States has launched a criminal investigation after the former CIA technical
assistant blew the lid on the National Security Agency's (NSA) vast electronic
surveillance operation."This case is still under investigation and I can assure you that we will hold accountable the person responsible for those extremely damaging leaks," Holder told a news conference in Dublin after a meeting with EU officials.
"The national security of the United States has been damaged by those leaks. The safety of the American people and safety of people in allied nations is at risk," he said.
"I am confident that the person who is responsible will be held accountable."
Holder also said that he had agreed to share details with the European Union about the so-called Prism programme, which was exposed after Snowden spoke to British and American newspapers.
The 29-year-old Snowden has vowed to fight any bid to extradite him.
