NEWS,31.07. AND 01.08.2013

UK bodies act to bolster consumer safety

Four British consumer and business bodies have taken legal steps that could compel the regulator to take swift action to end scams after years of financial product mis-selling.
In a bid to end the litany of mis-selling which stretches back to the 1980s with pensions and home loans, Britain's finance ministry said on Wednesday that four bodies have applied for "super complainant" status.
This means that if they collate enough documented evidence that consumers of financial services are being ripped off, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulator must say within 90 days what action, if any, it will take.
Banks have paid over £10bn ($15.26bn) in compensation so far for selling unsuitable loan insurance, a mounting bill that forced Barclays on Tuesday to announce plans to replenish its capital buffer.
One of the applicants for super complainant status, the Federation of Small Businesses, is representing companies who believe they were mis-sold interest rate protection by banks.
The FCA replaced the Financial Services Authority in April, which was scrapped partly because of mis-selling scandals. The FCA has a remit to protect consumers with its powers to ban products.
"By giving certain consumer and business groups the ability to make 'super-complaints' to the new regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, we can all help to tackle bad practice more rapidly and robustly than before," UK financial services minister Greg Clark said in a statement.
The other three bodies are the Citizens Advice Bureau, consumers association and Consumer Council Northern Ireland. Others are expected and a decision on who will be granted super complainant status will be taken later this year.
Britain passed a law in 2012 making it possible for consumer bodies to become super complainants and called in March for applicants.

'Obamacare' delay to hit US workers hard

President Barack Obama's decision to delay implementation of part of his healthcare reform law will cost $12bn and leave a million fewer Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance in 2014, congressional researchers said Tuesday.
The report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is the first authoritative estimate of the human and fiscal cost from the administration's unexpected one-year delay announced on  July 2 of the employer mandate - a requirement for larger businesses to provide health coverage for their workers or pay a penalty.
The analysts said the delay will add to the cost of "Obamacare's" insurance-coverage provisions over the next 10 years. Penalties paid by employers would be lower and more individuals who otherwise might have had employer coverage will need federal insurance subsidies.
"Of those who would otherwise have obtained employment-based coverage, roughly half will be uninsured (in 2014)," CBO said in a July 30 letter to Representative Paul Ryan, Republican chairperson of the House of Representatives Budget Committee.
Under Obama's healthcare reform law, employers with 50 or more full-time workers were supposed to provide healthcare coverage or incur penalties beginning on January 1. But the requirement will now begin in 2015.
The delay intensified doubts about the administration's ability to implement Obama's signature domestic policy achievement, and stirred Republican calls for a similar delay in another Obamacare mandate that requires most individuals to have health insurance in 2014.
The Republican-controlled House followed up the administration's decision by voting on July 17 for its own measures to delay the employer and individual mandates. Neither piece of legislation is expected to succeed in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
State and federal officials are racing to set up new online health insurance exchanges, where lower-to-moderate income families that lack health insurance will be able to sign up for federally subsidised coverage beginning on October 1. The poor will also be able to sign up for Medicaid coverage in 23 states that have opted to expand the programme.
Most large employers already offer health insurance and CBO said few are expected to drop coverage because of the delay.
But the change will still result in a $10bn reduction in penalty payments that some employers would have made in 2015 for failing to provide coverage next year, CBO said.
The change also means another $3bn in added costs for exchange subsidies. That is because about half of the one million workers who would have gained employer-sponsored coverage next year will now obtain insurance through the exchanges or via public programmes including Medicaid, CBO said.
Other changes, including an increase in taxable compensation resulting from fewer people enrolling in employment-based coverage, will offset those factors by about $1bn.
CBO now puts the net cost of Obamacare's insurance coverage provisions at around $1.38trn over the next 10 years, versus its May baseline projection of $1.36trn.

Obama offers 'grand jobs bargain'

President Barack Obama proposed a "grand bargain for middle-class jobs" on Tuesday that would cut the US corporate tax rate and use billions of dollars in revenues generated by a business tax overhaul to fund projects aimed at creating jobs.
The goal, as outlined in his speech to an enthusiastic audience at an Amazon.com Inc facility in southeastern Tennessee, was to break through partisan gridlock in Congress with a formula that satisfies Republicans and Democrats alike.
But there was no sign that congressional Republicans who have fought nearly every facet of Obama's domestic agenda would look favourably upon the president's proposal.
The president's plan combined a proposed corporate tax rate cut desired by Republicans with new spending on infrastructure projects like roads and bridges as well as education investment desired by his fellow Democrats.
"I've come here to offer a framework that might help break through the political logjam in Washington and get some of these proven ideas moving," Obama said.
Despite the olive branch, Obama's proposal immediately drew fire from the top Republicans in Congress. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said: "It's just a further-left version of a widely panned plan he already proposed two years ago - this time, with extra goodies for tax-and-spend liberals."
Bickering broke out as the White House said it had tried to tell aides to John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, about the plan on Monday but, according to Obama spokesperson Jay Carney, "never heard back" from them.
The president in his speech also jabbed at Republicans over their support for a proposed oil pipeline from Canada and their continual opposition to his ideas.
The contretemps reflected the hyperpartisan environment that has made negotiations nearly impossible in Washington. Efforts to reach a "grand bargain" between Democrats and Republicans on deficit reduction have been at an impasse for months.
New showdowns over spending are expected in the fall, as Congress confronts an October 1 deadline to pass a bill funding the government and then a White House request to raise the federal borrowing limit, known as the "debt ceiling".
Senior administration officials said Obama is not giving up on a big deficit-cutting package, but since no agreement appears imminent, he is offering a new idea to try to follow through on his 2012 re-election campaign promises to help the middle class.
But his narrow proposal on corporate taxes suggested that Obama had all but abandoned a big deal with Republicans on deficit reduction. He argued the deficit was rapidly declining anyway and no deal seemed near with his political opponents.
'The white flag'
The president cast his latest tax proposal as part of a menu of items he is offering to help the United States pick up its economic game in a competitive world economy.
"If we don't make these investments and reforms, we might as well throw up the white flag while the rest of the world forges ahead in a global economy," he said. "And that does nothing to help the middle class."
Obama wants to cut the corporate tax rate of 35% to 28% and give manufacturers a preferred rate of 25%. He also wants a minimum tax on foreign earnings as a tool against corporate tax evasion and the use of tax havens.
In exchange for his support for a corporate tax reduction, Obama wants the money generated by a tax overhaul to be used to fund such projects as repairing roads and bridges, improving education at community colleges and promoting manufacturing, senior administration officials said.
For his part Obama, who will need Republican backing for any budget deal, had scathing words for Republican proposals on economic growth.
He spoke dismissively of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, which Republicans have urged him to approve because of its economic benefits. The president said it would create only 50 permanent jobs, adding: "That's not a jobs plan."
Obama's plan to cut corporate taxes while also curtail some existing tax benefits would result in a one-time source of revenue. The White House did not say how much money would be raised, but Obama called for $50bn for infrastructure spending in his State of the Union speech in February.
Republicans contended that by spending the revenue, it would violate Obama's previous commitment to a "revenue-neutral" overhaul of corporate taxes.
Administration officials said they recognise that the climate is difficult in Congress, with Republicans adamantly refusing anything that is seen as increasing spending and Democrats in no mood to cut taxes and get nothing for it.
The president, who has failed in several tries to reach a comprehensive fiscal accord with Republicans, accused them of holding a personal grudge against him and called for a good-faith exchange of ideas.
"If folks in Washington really want a grand bargain, how about a grand bargain for middle-class jobs?" Obama said.
"I don't want to go through the same old arguments where I propose an idea and the Republicans just say: 'No,' because it's my idea. So I'm going to try offering something that serious people in both parties should be able to support," he added.
Boehner's spokesperson, Michael Steel, criticised the proposal even before Obama's speech, saying: "Republicans want to help families and small businesses, too.
"This proposal allows President Obama to support President Obama's position on taxes and President Obama's position on spending, while leaving small businesses and American families behind."

Iran sanctions bill to slash oil exports

The House of Representatives easily passed a bill on Wednesday to tighten sanctions on Iran, showing a strong message to Tehran over its disputed nuclear program days before President-elect Hassan Rouhani is sworn in.
The vote also highlighted a growing divide between Congress and the Obama administration on Iran policy ahead of international talks on the nuclear program in coming months. Iran insists the nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes.
The bill, which passed 400 to 20, would cut Iran's oil exports by another 1 million barrels per day over a year to near zero, in an attempt to reduce the flow of funds to the nuclear program. It is the first sanctions bill to put a number on exactly how much Iran's oil exports would be cut.
The legislation provides for heavy penalties for buyers who do not find alternative supplies, limits Iran's access to funds in overseas accounts and penalizes countries trading with Iran in other industrial sectors.
Existing US and EU measures have already reduced Iran's oil exports by more than half from pre-sanction levels of about 2.2m barrels per day (bpd), costing Tehran billions of dollars in lost revenue a month.
Most of the OPEC member's exports head to Asia, where the United States has worked with Iran's top four customers China, India, Japan and South Korea to push them towards alternative suppliers. The four have cut purchases from Iran by more than a fifth in the first half of this year, over and above the reductions made last year.
China
The success of any toughening of the sanctions will depend on China, Iran's top customer, which has repeatedly said it opposes unilateral sanctions outside the purview of the United Nations, such as those imposed by the United States.
The country reduced oil purchases from the Middle Eastern nation by 21% last year, but that was partly on account of differences in the first quarter over the renewal terms of annual contracts and shipping delays.
Chinese officials have said refiners are likely to cut shipments 5% to 10% this year from last. They cut imports 2% in the first six months of the year.
"I don't think the Chinese government will give in to this kind of pressure," said an official with a Chinese refinery that processes Iranian crude. "There is no chance that Iranian supplies would come to a halt."
For now, relatively steady oil prices have allowed the efforts to continue, but analysts say further sanctions risk pushing up prices and damaging the economies of US allies.
"This is almost like an embargo on Iranian oil imports. It is like giving Iran an ultimatum," a Seoul-based refining source said, after the vote. "I think we can find alternatives but we prefer Iranian crude as the economics are better. If very little Iranian crude is available, overall oil prices would rise."
The bill still has to be passed in the Senate and signed by President Barack Obama before becoming law. The Senate Banking Committee is expected to introduce a similar measure in September, though it is uncertain whether the language to cut exports by 1 million barrels a day will survive.
Critics of the bill said it shows an aggressive signal to Iran that last month voted in Rouhani, a cleric many see as more moderate. He will be sworn in on Sunday.
No higher priority
Rep. Ed Royce, a California Republican and Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who introduced the bill with Rep. Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, said the United States has no higher national security priority than preventing a nuclear-armed Iran.
Royce said the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's drive to develop a nuclear arsenal was evident. "New president or not, I am convinced that Iran's Supreme Leader intends to continue on this path," he said.
The vote showed a growing disagreement between the White House and Congress on Iran policy. A senior administration official said on Wednesday the White House is not opposed to new sanctions in principle, but wants to give Rouhani a chance.
The Treasury Department last week partially eased sanctions on Iran by expanding a list of medical devices that can be exported there without special permission.
One of the 20 lawmakers to vote against the bill, Jim McDermott, a Washington-state Democrat, said shortly before the vote that the rush to sanction Iran before Rouhani takes office could hurt efforts to deflate the nuclear issue.
"It's a dangerous sign to send and it limits our ability to find a diplomatic solution to nuclear arms in Iran," McDermott said.
A supporter of harsher sanctions disagreed.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "doesn't see our flexibility and good faith efforts as a sign of good intentions, he sees it as a sign of weakness," said Mark Dubowitz, the head of Foundation of Defense of Democracies, an advocate of sanctions.
"If anything, it's only going to be massively intensified sanctions that get him to blink."
But Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American council, said the House action undermines the US strategy which has long been one of good cop - bad cop.
The White House has taken a softer stance toward Iran's nuclear program and Congress has taken a tougher one. But now there are signs that the good cop cannot control the bad cop, he said.
"The impression on the Iranian side is not that it's good cop bad cop, but complete chaos and mayhem," Parsi said.
'Too much'
The bill also further denies Iran's government access to foreign currency reserves, and targets Iranian efforts to circumvent international sanctions against its shipping business.
"I think it's too much. Asian countries don't have much oil resources and they need to import a lot from the Middle East," said a trader with a North Asian buyer of Iranian crude. "If the United States keeps pushing further, it would be a big burden for Asian refineries."
While the bill has more steps to clear before becoming law, other buyers, apart from China, have already begun voicing their inability to reduce dependence on Iranian oil much further.
"Cuts in our imports from Iran have been the maximum as compared to other Asian countries," an Indian industry executive said. "At this moment there is no scope for further reduction."
India cut its Iranian oil imports by 43% over the first half of the year. That's more than the 27% cut by South Korea and 22.5% by Japan.
Turkey would also struggle to cut its crude oil imports from Iran any further, a Turkish official said. 

Snowden leaves Moscow airport

Fugitive former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden left Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on Thursday after Russia granted him refugee status, ending more than a month in limbo in the transit area.

A lawyer who has been assisting Snowden said the young American, who is wanted in the United States for leaking details of secret government intelligence programmes, had left the airport for a secure location which would remain secret.

"Edward Snowden has successfully acquired refugee status in Russia," the anti-secrecy organisation WikiLeaks, which is also assisting Snowden, confirmed on Twitter.

His lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told state television: "I have just seen him off. He has left for a secure location ... Security is a very serious matter for him."

Snowden, aged 30, arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on 23 June. He had hoped to fly to Latin America, where three countries have offered to shelter him, but was concerned that the United States would prevent him reaching his destination.

Snowden's case has caused new strains in relations between Russia and the United States which wants him extradited to face espionage charges.

According to reports, Snowden, who has left the airport for an undisclosed location, will be allowed to live in Russia for a year.

US dept 'horrified' by WikiLeaks release

Prosecutors in the case of US soldier Bradley Manning are focusing on the damage done by his release through WikiLeaks of more than 250 000 US diplomatic cables.

The first witness on Thursday at Manning's sentencing hearing was former deputy assistant secretary of state Elizabeth Dibble.
She says agency officials reacted with "horror and disbelief" when WikiLeaks began publishing the leaked cables in the autumn of 2010.
The former army intelligence analyst faces up to 136 years in prison for sending the cables and more than 470 000 Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports to the anti-secrecy website.
The government opened its sentencing case on Wednesday with testimony that WikiLeaks' publication of the leaked battlefield reports fractured US military relationships with foreign governments and silenced some friendly Afghan villagers.

NEWS,05 AND 06.05.2013

Google zaps brain power

The Shallows: what the Internet is doing to our brains by Nicholas Carr

IS THE internet a good thing or a harmful thing?

If that seems an odd question, it is probably because you are quite certain that the internet has been an enormous advantage to you in so many ways.

You came across my column as you quickly caught up on the latest news. You probably booked last night’s movie tickets online and searched for the critics' opinion of the movie before booking. You quickly found out everything you wanted to know about “existentialism” in a four-minute ‘Web search and skim’.

The title of the book, The Shallows, is Carr’s conclusion of what the Web is doing to how we think, read and remember. The book is an expansion of an essay he wrote for Atlantic magazine entitled “Is Google making us stupid?”.

Think of how you would have had to find information about existentialism before access to the Web was available.

You probably would have gone to a library to read a book on general philosophy as an introduction to the background out of which existentialism grew. Then, perhaps, something more specifically on the existentialists before finally settling into Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling.

Consider the difference between these two experiences. Carr suggests that the immediacy of the Web’s answers has turned him (and others) from “ a scuba diver in the sea of words” to someone who rides on the “surface like a guy on a Jet Ski”.

At a meeting at Duke University, Professor Katherine Hayles told Carr: “I cannot get my students to read whole books any more.” The students she is talking of are studying literature!

What makes this book so fascinating is not the observation that we have shorter attention spans but that our brains are being changed to have shorter attention spans. If this is correct, the question that follows is whether this means we are sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply.

My immediate response to this would have been a quick, of course not. I read and think about certain things deeply and others superficially.

Carr takes the reader through a tour of neuroscience and the question of how technologies can change the way your brain works.

Is your brain like your hand? Your hand is limited in the movements it can make. It can only get better at the proscribed movements through practice, or worse through disuse.

There is overwhelming evidence that our experiences and the technologies we use do reconfigure the brain.

In an experiment in the late 1990s, British researchers scanned the brains of 16 London cab drivers. Compared to the scans of the control group from the general public, the taxi drivers’ posterior hippocampus was much larger.

This part of the brain stores and manipulates spatial representations of the world. The longer a cab drivers had been on the job, the larger their posterior hippocampus.

They also discovered that the drivers’ anterior hippocampus was smaller than that of the general public, and that the shrinking of the anterior hippocampus could have reduced the cabbies’ aptitude for other memorisation tasks.

Throughout the ages, the latest technologies have changed both how we think about the world and how our brains process information. Carr demonstrates how “tools of the mind” from the alphabet, to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer have all had their effects.

Words were the aural means of communication until we developed the technology of the alphabet and we turned the aural into the visual representing the aural.

The clock changed not only how we thought about time, but how we thought about the world. The change was so wide spread and profound that we even began describing the world in the same mechanical terms.

It changed how we thought about time. It was no longer slowly evolving changes over which we have no control; rather, it was something that could be measured in minutes and seconds, and controlled. With a clock in ever town square and on every church building, our concept of time changed.

We are constantly reminded of time used, time spent, time wasted, and time lost. Our concepts of everything from achievement to productivity changed.

If the printed book forces us to focus our attention and promotes deep and creative thought, what is the effect of Google? Are we becoming ever more adept at scanning and skimming? Are we are losing our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection?

Wired magazines Clive Thompson wrote: “The perfect recall of silicon memory can be an enormous boon to thinking.” What is the price of that boon? The result may be “the shallows” of the title, but that shallows is incredibly wide.

This is a must-read. It is a thought-provoking and fascinating book.

Readability:   Light ----+ Serious
Insights:       High -+--- Low
Practical:      High ----+ Low

Spies fuel China's fast military build-up

China is using state-sponsored industrial espionage to acquire the technology it needs to forge ahead with a fast-paced military modernisation programme and cut its reliance on foreign arms makers, the Pentagon said in a new report on Monday.
"China continues to leverage foreign investments, commercial joint ventures, academic exchanges, the experience of repatriated Chinese students and researchers, and state-sponsored industrial and technical espionage to increase the level of technologies and expertise available to support military research, development, and acquisition," the US Defence Department said.
The department, in its 83-page annual report to Congress on Chinese military developments, said Beijing's publicly announced defence spending grew at an inflation-adjusted pace of nearly 10% annually over the past decade, but its actual outlays could be much higher.
China announced a 10.7% increase in military spending to $114bn in March, the Pentagon report said. But it estimated that China's actual spending for 2012 could range between $135bn and $215bn. US defence spending is more than double that at over $500bn.
"China continues to engage in activities designed to support military procurement and modernisation," the report said. "These include economic espionage, theft of trade secrets, export control violations, and technology transfer."

Mystery shrouds 'most dangerous neo-Nazi'

The woman prosecutors call Germany's most dangerous neo-Nazi took her place in the dock on Monday at a landmark trial over a racist killing spree, but despite the high-profile proceedings remains an enigmatic presence.

Beate Zschaepe, known to a horrified Germany only from a dishevelled mugshot and a handful of holiday snaps, strode into the Munich courtroom looking smart and self-confident in a tailored black trouser suit and large hoop earrings.

It was just one more mysterious turn by the 38-year-old, the last surviving member of the far-right National Socialist Underground (NSU) who since her surrender 18 months ago has hidden behind a wall of silence.

When she walked through the door of the police station of Zwickau, a sleepy town in former communist East Germany, on 8 November 2011 to turn herself in, she told officers simply: "I'm the one you're looking for."

Since then, she has refused to divulge any secrets from the previous 14 years which she, according to the authorities, spent underground and on the run as part of a militant trio blamed for 10 murders.

"Everyone in Germany knows her name but no one knows who she is," the daily Die Welt wrote about the woman who has shaken the country's self-image of having learned the lessons of its Nazi past.

Macabre love triangle

Four days before she gave herself up, her two fellow gang members, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boehnhardt, died in an apparent murder-suicide after a bungled bank heist, finally bringing their lethal NSU to light.

Investigators say the three were locked in a macabre love triangle, robbing banks and living comfortably off the proceeds while they carried out their nationwide hunt for immigrant victims.

Zschaepe, the only surviving member of the group, is suspected of involvement in the killing of nine shopkeepers of Turkish or Greek origin across Germany between 2000 and 2006 and of a German policewoman in 2007, as well as 15 armed robberies, arson and attempted murder.

Dubbed "the Nazi moll" by the German tabloids, Zschaepe faces life in prison.

But those who knew her in Zwickau, where she shared a spacious rented flat with Mundlos and Boehnhardt, say she was a "gentle soul" who never revealed her far-right views.

"She was a kind of big sister, someone with a big heart," a shocked neighbour, who gave her name only as Heike K, told German television.

Dominant

She said her friend told her her name was Lisa, one of at least nine aliases Zschaepe used over the years.

Federal prosecutors say that although she likely never pulled the trigger, Zschaepe played a "dominant role" in the NSU, maintaining the delicate "emotional link" between herself and her lovers.

She fell first for Mundlos, the soft-spoken son of a university professor often seen taking care of his wheelchair-bound brother, at the age of 16, and later took up with Boehnhardt, a more volatile type with a weakness for weapons.

"Ms Zschaepe acted like a wife but for two men," one of their alleged accomplices told authorities.

Zschaepe held the purse strings, managing the windfalls from their bank hold-ups, prosecutors say.

She juggled several identities while she did the cooking and took care of their two pet cats, Lilly and Heidi.

Chaotic upbringing

On 4 November 2011, she allegedly blew up their apartment in a bid to destroy evidence after the deaths of the two Uwes - after dropping off the cats with a neighbour.

Zschaepe had a chaotic upbringing. Her mother, Annerose Apel, gave birth to her on 2 January 1975 in the East German city of Jena, purportedly after being unaware she was pregnant.

Her father was believed to be Romanian but refused to acknowledge her as his child.

During the first three years of her life, Beate's last name changed three times until she finally took the surname of her mother's second husband.

The girl spent much of her youth with her grandmother, to whom she has said she is still attached.

Zschaepe was 14 years old when the Berlin Wall fell, sending economic and ideological shockwaves through communities like hers and leading many to the political extremes.

When she finally gave herself up to police, Zschaepe had not seen her mother or grandmother in over a decade. Investigators say she saw Mundlos and Boehnhardt as her only real family.

Germany arrests alleged Auschwitz guard

German authorities arrested on Monday a 93-year-old alleged former guard at the Nazi death camp Auschwitz, on charges of complicity in the mass murder of prisoners.
Prosecutors in the south-western state of Baden-Württemberg said, the man was believed to have worked at the camp between autumn 1941 and its closure in 1945.
Authorities declined to release the suspect's name, but media reports indicated it was Hans Lipschis, who figures among the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's most-wanted Nazis and is said to have served in the SS "Death's Head" battalion.
The man, who was detained at his home, "appeared before a judge and was taken into custody", the prosecutor's office in the state capital Stuttgart said in a statement.
"The indictment against him is currently being prepared."
Stuttgart prosecutors confirmed to AFP last month that they were working on a probe launched late last year against a suspect, who had worked at Auschwitz.
A cook vs a guard
Lipschis has been living in the Baden-Württemberg town of Aalen and reportedly told the authorities that he worked as a cook, not a guard, in the camp in occupied Poland.
However, prosecutors said the evidence pointed to the fact that the suspect in question had broader responsibilities.
"He took on supervisory duties although he did not only work as a guard," a spokesperson for the prosecutor's office told AFP.
"We will try to determine concretely when and what he did at Auschwitz."
She said the suspect was not believed to have killed prisoners himself but rather "that he abetted the actions of the perpetrators".
Despite his advanced age, the suspect underwent a medical examination and was determined fit to be taken into custody.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, in its 2013 report, lists Lipschis as its fourth most-wanted Nazi, saying he served in the SS-Totenkopf Sturmbann (Death's Head Battalion) from 1941 until 1945 at Auschwitz and "participated in the mass murder and persecution of innocent civilians, primarily Jews".
Lithuanian-born Lipschis was granted "ethnic German" status by the Nazis.
He moved to the US in 1956 but was deported to Germany in 1983, Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported last month.
Nazi Germany
More than one million people, mostly European Jews, perished at Auschwitz-Birkenau, operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland from 1940 until it was liberated by the Soviet Red Army on 27 January 1945.
Germany has broadened the scope of its pursuit of Nazi war criminals since the 2011 conviction of Ukraine-born John Demjanjuk, a former guard at the Sobibor death camp in Poland.
In that case, the court ruled that any role at a death camp amounted to accessory to murder, widening culpability from those found to have personally ordered or committed murders and atrocities.
Demjanjuk was sentenced to five years' prison for complicity in about 28 000 murders. He died at a nursing home last year while free awaiting an appeal.
Lipschis is among 50 surviving Auschwitz staff, who are being investigated in Germany under the broadened culpability rules.
Renowned French Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld said he had mixed feelings about the news from Germany.
"I am torn between my idea of justice and the necessity to chase down war criminals until they take their last breath," he told AFP.
"You need evidence and documents to incriminate them and I think there won't be any more eyewitnesses to implicate them."

Raid of US home stops 'terror attack'

The FBI says it believes "a terror attack was disrupted" when authorities raided a US mobile home.

The FBI arrested 24-year-old Buford Rogers on Friday, after a search of his home in Montevideo turned up Molotov cocktails, suspected pipe bombs and firearms.
The FBI said in a Monday statement that it believes "the lives of several local residents were potentially saved" by the search and arrest.
The agency says a terror plot was discovered through analysis of intelligence gathered by local, state and federal authorities.
The statement doesn't offer further details about the extent or manner of the alleged plot.
Rogers is in federal custody and is charged with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. It's not clear if he has an attorney.

NEWS,03.05.2013

US job market shows strength in April

US employment rose more than expected in April and hiring was much stronger than previously thought in the prior two months, easing concerns that belt-tightening in Washington was dealing a big blow to the economy.
Nonfarm payrolls rose 165 000 last month and the jobless rate fell to 7.5%, the lowest level since December 2008, the Labour Department said on Friday.
Payrolls rose by 138 000 jobs in March, 50 000 more than previously reported, and job growth for February was revised up by 64 000 to 332 000, the largest gain since May 2010.
"Overall, a strong set of numbers which will reassure markets that the U.S. economy is not as weak as it may have seemed given some of the earlier data," said Andrew Grantham, an economist at CIBC World Markets in Toronto.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected April payrolls to rise 145 000 and the unemployment rate to hold steady at 7.6%.
US stocks rallied on the data, while government bonds fell hard. The dollar strengthened against the yen and pared losses against the euro.
The drop in the jobless rate reflected a gain in employment, rather than people leaving the workforce. The workforce actually expanded, while the labor force participation rate - the share of working-age Americans who either have a job or are looking for one - held steady at a 34-year low of 63.3%.
Still, some details of the report remained consistent with a slowdown in economic activity. Construction employment fell for the first time since May, while manufacturing payrolls were flat.
The average workweek pulled off a nine-month high, with a gauge of the overall work effort falling, but average hourly earnings rose four cents.
The relative strength of the data was particularly surprising given other recent signs that suggested the economy had slowed sharply in recent weeks. Although the economy expanded at a 2.5% annual pace in the first quarter, a wide range of data suggested it ended the period with less speed. Further, factory activity barely grew in April.
Fiscal headwinds
Economists feared uncertainty over the full impact of higher taxes and deep government spending cuts on already sluggish demand was making businesses reluctant to hire. A 2% payroll tax cut ended at the start of the year, and $85bn in federal budget cuts went into effect on March 1.
"The idea that the employment is holding as well as it is in the face of the fiscal headwinds the economy is currently enduring is a very positive sign of the economy's underlying fundamental improvements," said Russell Price, senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Services in Troy, Michigan.
While the pace of hiring was stronger than expected in April, it remained below the pace needed to put a significant dent in the jobless rate.
Economists said the data did not appear strong enough to dissuade officials at the Federal Reserve from pressing forward with their bond-buying stimulus, although it could cool speculation the US central bank would step up its purchases.
On Wednesday, the Fed said it would continue to buy $85bn in bonds each month and that it would increase purchases should the need arise.
"I don't think today's data is strong enough to completely offset some of the weakness we have seen in some other areas, such as overall manufacturing activity and the general pace of economic growth, so I think the Fed will remain fully engaged," said Price.
All the job gains last month were in the private sector, which added 176 000 new positions. Gains were led by a rebound in retail employment, which had dropped in March after eight straight months of increases. Retail payrolls rose 29 300.
But construction employment surprisingly fell, shedding 6 000 jobs after 10 straight months of gains. Residential construction has been marching higher and the pullback in construction jobs could be the result of cold weather in April.
Manufacturing employment posted no gains last month.
Government payrolls dropped 11 000 after falling 16 000 in March. Most of the job declines last month came from the federal government and the US Postal Service.

Obama reaches out to Mexican young

President Barack Obama and Mexico's new president, Enrique Pena Nieto, are stepping gingerly to avoid any suggestion of meddling in each other's most contentious issues.
Instead, Obama is drawing attention to the cultural ties that have linked the two nations and the economic bonds that have begun to take hold more recently.
Obama was to deliver a speech on Friday to an audience made up primarily of students, highlighting the role they can play in deciding Mexico's future and promoting the type of broad exchanges he envisions under a new immigration regime in the United States.
After his speech, Obama was to meet privately with Mexican businessmen, where he would stress the commercial ties between the two countries. Mexico is the second-largest export market for US goods and services.
Later, he was to travel to Costa Rica, where he planned to deliver a blunter message to Central American leaders struggling with weak economies and drug violence.
Obama was to meet with Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, then attend a gathering of leaders from the Central American Integration system. The regional network also includes the leaders of Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.
The US view of the region is that its pervasive violence and security weaknesses are holding back economic growth, and that with fewer Mexicans crossing the border illegally, the rest of the region has become the main source of illegal immigration into the United States.
New initiatives
As a result, Obama is expected to call for stepped up security co-operation, regional economic integration, and improvements in human rights and democratic reforms.
Friday's Mexico City speech comes as Obama's popularity in Mexico has risen over recent years and as views of the United States also improve. A Pew Research Centre poll in March found that two-thirds of Mexicans have a favourable opinion of the US, compared with 44% favorability in 2010.
About half of Mexicans have confidence that Obama will do the right thing on world affairs, up from 38% in 2011.
Still, dozens of migrant families deported from the US even though their children were born there rallied outside the US Embassy before Obama's arrival on Thursday. "Obama, don't deport my Mama", one sign said. So far, the Obama administration has deported more than 1.6 million people.
For all the attention to commerce and trade, the visit to Mexico less than two days long  was not designed for major breakthroughs or new initiatives. Indeed, on one of the top economic pacts before them, the two presidents merely reaffirmed a goal to conclude negotiations this year on a Trans-Pacific Partnership, an Asia-Pacific trading bloc that is key to Obama's efforts to boost exports to Asia.
Both men, however, did announce a new partnership to build on the business relationship with closer cooperation between top officials in Mexico and the US, including Vice President Joe Biden.
At a joint news conference on Thursday, Obama and Pena Nieto carefully sidestepped potential trouble spots. Obama steered clear of commenting on Pena Nieto's decision to end the broad access that US security agencies have had in Mexico to combat drug trafficking, a decision that has alarmed some US officials.
Domestic affair
"President Pena Nieto and his team are organizing a vision about how they can most efficiently and effectively address these issues," Obama said. "And we will interact with them in ways that are appropriate, respecting that ultimately Mexico has to deal with its problems internally and we have to deal with ours as well."
For his part, Pena Nieto declined to get drawn into the current immigration debate in Washington, a top priority for Obama but one that is at a delicate stage in Congress. Asked to comment on the debate, the Mexican president merely said that the Mexican government acknowledged the efforts under way in Congress.
"Mexico understands that this is a domestic affair for the US and we wish you the best push that you're giving to immigration," he said.
Likewise, he demurred when asked to react to the failure in the Senate to pass gun control legislation, including an expanded background check for firearms buyers, even though many guns obtained illegally in the United States make their way into the hands of drug dealers in Mexico.
He said he agreed with Obama's campaign to stem gun violence, but added: "This is a domestic issue in the United States."
Obama vowed to keep pressing for gun legislation, saying: "We recognise we've got obligations when it comes to guns that are oftentimes being shipped down South and contributing to violence here in Mexico."

Conservatives suffer in UK local votes

David Cameron's Conservative Party has taken a beating in local elections amid a surge of support for an anti-European Union and anti-immigration party, heaping pressure on the prime minister to shore up support ahead of the next general election.

The early results on Friday show that the right-wing United Kingdom Independence Party, or UKIP, won 42 county council seats, while the opposition Labour Party gained 26. The Liberal Democrats - junior partners in Britain's coalition government - were down 16 county council seats, while Cameron's ruling Conservatives lost 74 seats.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage whose party Cameron once referred to as a bunch of "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists" said the results will send a "shock wave" through the British political establishment.

"This is a real sea-change in British politics," Farage told the BBC.

The rise of UKIP adds to pressure on Cameron to staunch a flow of voters from his party ahead of the next general election in 2015 and to take a harder line on European reform and immigration.

The results could lend momentum to voices within Cameron's party urging the prime minister to introduce legislation needed to enshrine his pledge for a referendum on European Union membership by 2017.

Michael Fabricant, the Conservative Party's vice-chairperson, confessed he was unsure what voters were saying. "'I hope there will be some serious research about exactly WHAT message UKIP voters are giving: none-of-the-above, or specific issues," he said in a Twitter message.

Voting took place in 34 council contests across England, plus the Isle of Anglesey in Wales.

North Korea Report: Pentagon Says Pyongyang Still Working Toward Goal Of Being Able To Strike U.S. With Nukes

North Korea "will move closer" to its announced goal of being able to strike the U.S. with a nuclear-armed missile if it keeps investing in tests of nuclear and missile technology, the Pentagon said Thursday in a report to Congress.
The unclassified version of the report, which was required by a 2012 law, offered no estimate of when North Korea might achieve that capability. It said the pace of progress will depend in part on how many resources are invested.
The report fits an established U.S. intelligence picture of North Korea making an enormous effort to become a nuclear power and of an economically poor country directing a disproportionate amount of resources to its military.
Much about North Korea is a mystery to Western intelligence agencies, including the intentions of its leader, Kim Jong Un, who came to power after his father, Kim Jong Il, died in December 2011. The Pentagon report said the U.S. foresees little change in North Korea's key strategic aims, which it said to include using "coercive diplomacy" to compel acceptance of its security interests, as well as developing a nuclear arsenal and undermining of the U.S.-South Korean alliance.
"We anticipate these strategic goals will be consistent under North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong Un," it said.
U.S. intelligence agencies are not fully in agreement on how far North Korea has advanced in its effort to make a nuclear weapon small enough to fit atop a ballistic missile. In April, a U.S. congressman disclosed that the Defense Intelligence Agency believes with "moderate confidence" that the North could deliver a nuclear weapon by ballistic missile but with "low reliability." The DIA assessment did not mention the potential range of such a strike.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, the top U.S. intelligence official, said shortly after the DIA assessment was made public that its conclusion was not shared by other intelligence agencies. Clapper said North Korea has made progress but has not "fully developed, tested or demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear-armed missile."
In its report Thursday, the Pentagon made no mention of the DIA report.
The Pentagon asserted that North Korea wants to leverage the perception that it poses a nuclear threat in order to counter technologically superior forces. South Korea, which does not have nuclear weapons, has a modern military that benefits greatly from a close alliance with the U.S. There are about 28,500 American troops based in the South.
The Pentagon report noted that North Korea has recently showcased its advances in missile technology, including an April 2012 parading of a new road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile that the Pentagon says has not been flight tested.
"These advances in ballistic missile delivery systems, coupled with developments in nuclear technology ... are in line with North Korea's stated objective of being able to strike the U.S. homeland," the report said.
After a February 2013 nuclear test, North Korea made what the Pentagon called "authoritative public announcements" of its desire to field nuclear-armed missiles with sufficient range to attack targets in the United States.
"North Korea will move closer to this goal, as well as increase the threat it poses to U.S. forces and allies in the region, if it continues testing and devoting scarce regime resources to these programs," the report said.
Earlier this year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a series of bellicose threats to attack South Korea, Japan or the United States with nuclear weapons, sparking tough rhetoric in return. In response, the Pentagon in April announced plans to beef up its missile defenses by deploying 14 additional missile interceptors at a military base in Alaska.
Thursday's Pentagon report said the North's work on a space-launch vehicle has contributed heavily to its effort to build a missile capable of reaching the U.S. with a nuclear warhead. That work was highlighted by the launch of a satellite into space last December.
But it added that the North has yet to test a re-entry vehicle, without which it cannot deliver a warhead to a target. A workable re-entry vehicle is necessary to get a warhead back into Earth's atmosphere with protection against severe heating.
The report also projected that North Korea under Kim will stick to its current strategic priorities, including developing nuclear weapons to deter any attack from outside powers and trying to undermine the alliance between the United States and South Korea.