NEWS,14.07.2013

Kenya raises price of petrol, diesel

Kenya's energy regulator raised retail prices for petrol and diesel on Sunday due to rising global oil prices and a weaker local currency, while decreasing the price of kerosene.

Fuel prices have a big impact on the rate of inflation in the east African economy. The rate rose to 4.91% in June from 4.05% a month earlier.

The economy heavily depends on diesel for transport, power generation and agriculture. Kerosene is used in many households for lighting and cooking.

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) reviews domestic energy prices every month, with adjustments made depending on fluctuations in international energy prices and foreign exchange fluctuations.

The cost of importing super petrol and diesel in June rose, while that of kerosene fell, while at the same time the Kenyan shilling weakened to 85.65 per dollar from 84.30 per dollar in the previous month the ERC said in a statement.

The regulator raised the maximum price of a litre of super petrol in Nairobi by 1.34 shillings to 109.52 shillings, and increased the price of diesel by 3.70 shillings to 102.86 shillings per litre.

The price of kerosene will fall by 2.03 shillings to 79.49 shillings, the commission said.

The new prices will take effect on July 15, and will be in force for a month.

Hollande rules out shale gas exploration

French President Francois Hollande ruled out exploration for shale gas during his presidency on Sunday, dousing hopes that a ban on hydraulic fracturing could be reviewed following a legal challenge by a US firm.
France's top court said this week it will examine the challenge to the ban by Schuepbach Energy, which held two exploration permits that were cancelled when the law was passed in 2011.
Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg stirred debate when he suggested creating a state-backed company to examine exploration techniques. But he was promptly overruled by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.
"As long as I am president, there will be no exploration for shale gas in France," Hollande told France 2 TV in a live interview after Bastille Day celebrations.
The International Energy Agency has named France as a European country with some of the most plentiful underground reserves of shale gas.
But Hollande's government, which comprises members of the Greens Party, has kept in place the 2011 ban and said it should remain in effect due to concerns that hydraulic fracturing can pollute underground water sources.
Scheupbach Energy challenged the ban in the local court of Cergy-Pontoise near Paris, which forwarded the case to France's highest administrative court, which then passed it on to the Constitutional Council.
"The debate on shale gas has gone on for too long," Hollande said.

EU to probe German energy law - report

The European Union plans an investigation into Germany's renewable energy law due to concerns that exemptions for some firms from charges levied on power users breaches competition rules, a German magazine reported on Sunday.
Without citing sources, Der Spiegel weekly said lawyers in Brussels had looked at the law which provides a framework for Germany's push to renewable energy, and that Commissioner Joaquin Almunia had concluded it may breach EU rules.
The Commission would open proceedings on Wednesday, it said.
The officials criticised exemptions made for energy intensive companies in Germany, reported the magazine, adding this may lead to companies having to pay millions of euros in back payments.
A spokesman for the Commission declined to comment on the report.
The EU said in March it would investigating power grid charge exemptions which have been granted to big steel, chemicals, glass, cement and building materials companies.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has set out ambitious goals for Germany to wean itself off fossil fuels, phase out nuclear power and switch to renewable energy sources but it is costly.
Households are paying for subsidies to renewable energy producers and have been hit by sharp increases in the last few years. Yet fears that German industry will become uncompetitive if it has to pay too much for energy has led to exemptions from these charges for many firms.
The debate about the cost of the energy transition and energy prices could become an issue in the September election.
Merkel has said she intends to rein in renewable subsidies and reduce the costs of the green revolution on consumers if she is re-elected in September.

Wind of austerity chills turbine industry

Wearing face masks and wielding sanders, two workers smooth the surface of a massive fan for a wind turbine at the Gamesa factory in Aoiz, a town in Navarre, northern Spain.
But in hard times, it will be winds in Finland, not Spain, that make the finished product spin.
Last year, the plant delivered a wind turbine park to Malaga in southern Spain and another to Burgos, in the north, said factory manager Javier Trapiella.
"Now we don't produce for Spain," he added.
"It has all stopped."
For green energy producers, Spain has changed from a paradise with generous public support to a markedly less agreeable home.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative government is imposing an austerity regime to plug an accumulated energy sector deficit of €26bn ($34bn).
On Friday, the horizon darkened further with the approval of reforms cutting annual state aid for renewable energies by more than €1bn.
The change is enough to place at risk huge strides in the Spanish wind energy industry.
Spain ranks as number four globally in terms of installed wind energy but has dropped to seventh place in terms of new projects, according to the Global Wind Energy Council.
"For Spain, wind energy has really been an energy revolution. In 20 years we have gone from producing zero kilowatts to producing 20% of national demand today," said Heikki Willstedt Mesa, director of energy policy at the Spanish Wind Energy Association.
In the fourth largest economy of the eurozone, wind is often the main source of electricity.
"Unfortunately, since 2009 the government has slowed the development of wind energy in Spain with various regulatory measures," he said.
Cuts in state aid of 35%, removing subsidies for new turbines since the start of 2013, and then the latest changes announced on Friday: the sector has been hit hard and manufacturers are the first to feel the pain.
In February, French group Alstom closed two factories in Spain and laid off 373 employees.
"The economic crisis and the absence of a stable regulatory framework have slowed domestic demand," the group said, stressing the lack of activity in its Spanish sites.
Spain's Gamesa, which is among the industry's world leaders, gave the same reasons as it laid off 606 of its 4,800 staff in Spain and closed two blade factories in recent months.
Gamesa notably pointed to the "regulatory uncertainty" , the persistent economic crisis and financial problems in the sector, especially in southern Europe.
Making a wind turbine is almost a work of craftsmanship, said Gamesa's Trapiella. "You need good hands," he said. The fibreglass and carbon fibre blades measure 62.5 metres (205 feet) and weigh 15 tonnes each.
When finished they will leave by truck overnight for the port of Bilbao to be shipped by sea to Finland. About 40 blades are scheduled for delivery by February.
"If 90% of our sales were in Spain 10 years ago, it is the exact opposite today with 90% of sales coming from abroad," said Jose Antonio Cortajarena, Gamesa's corporate managing director.
"We are in more than 50 countries," he said, citing Mexico, Brazil and India as key markets.
"Even if our corporate headquarters are in Spain, the risk, our dependance on the Spanish market, is limited."
The Spanish Wind Energy Association is not so reassured.
"We have destroyed 25 jobs a day in the wind energy sector since the start of the year and the industry is on the borderline, it cannot take any more cuts," it said.
The industry has already suffered heavily.
"Of the 43 000 jobs we had in the wind industry in 2009, there are only 23 000 left, said Sergio de Otto, secretary general of the business group Fundacion Renovables (Renewables Foundation).

Snowden could cause 'more damage'

US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden on Sunday marked three weeks stuck in an airport transit lounge since he arrived in Russia, as a supporter warned the fugitive possessed even more secrets that could damage the US government.

Snowden, wanted by the United States for revealing sensational details of its surveillance operations, flew into Russia from Hong Kong on 23 June and has languished ever since in the transit zone in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

Breaking cover for the first time since he arrived, Snowden told a group of activists on Friday that he was applying for asylum in Russia until he could travel on to Latin America.

But Russian officials have yet to confirm receiving such an application which, if approved, would risk further straining Russia's already tense relations with the United States.

Meanwhile, the journalist first who published Snowden's revelations based on the sweeping US surveillance programmes said he possesses data that could prove far more "damaging" to the US government.

Glenn Greenwald told Argentina's La Nacion paper that Snowden, aged 30, had chosen not to release this information.

Damaging information

Russian President Vladimir Putin had said last week that Snowden could claim asylum in Russia only if he stopped harming US interests, a remark that prompted the fugitive to withdraw a previous application for asylum in Russia.

"Snowden has enough information to cause more damage to the US government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States," Greenwald told the paper.

"But that's not his goal," said Greenwald.

Russia was still waiting on Sunday for the promised request for asylum from Snowden, who had said that application would be made on Friday. It was not clear whether the hold-up was simply due to the weekend.

The head of Russia's Federal Migration Service (FMS) Konstantin Romodanovsky said on Saturday that "there is for the moment no application from E Snowden". If one was made, it would be examined "according to normal legal procedures", he added.

"For the moment, we do not know anything" about an asylum application, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax news agency.

Human rights in the transit lounge

The United States wants the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor returned to them to face trial over the leaks. Moscow has so far rejected that demand, saying it has no extradition treaty with Washington.

Washington has reacted sharply to the possibility that Moscow might offer Snowden a safe harbour.

"We would urge the Russian government to afford human rights organisations the ability to do their work in Russia throughout Russia, not just at the Moscow transit lounge," White House spokesperson Jay Carney said.

"Providing a propaganda platform for Mr Snowden runs counter to the Russian government's previous declarations of Russia's neutrality," he added.

US President Barack Obama spoke to Putin by telephone on Friday on issues including the Snowden affair, the Kremlin and White House both said, but no further details were forthcoming.

The United States has already rebuked China for allowing Snowden to leave for Russia from Hong Kong.

Asylum offers from the left

At his meeting with activists, Snowden vowed he did not want to harm the United States but it was not clear however whether this meant he was prepared to stop leaking intelligence in order to stay in Russia.

The leftist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have all offered Snowden asylum, but Snowden said that Western governments would prevent him from travelling to the region.

A summit of the Latin American Mercosur trade bloc issued a statement on Friday reaffirming the right to asylum and rejecting "any attempt at pressure, harassment or criminalisation by a state or third parties".

The bloc, meeting in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo, denounced four European countries that denied airspace to a plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales back from Moscow earlier this month.

They apparently suspected that Snowden was on board.

Mercosur leaders said they would recall their ambassadors from Spain, France, Italy and Portugal for consultations in protest at the incident.

In a statement, they rejected "any attempt at pressure, harassment or criminalisation by a state or third parties" in response to a decision to grant asylum.

Flight attendants praised for heroism

Before Asiana Flight 214 crash-landed in San Francisco, the last time the Korean airlines' flight attendants made news it was over an effort by their union earlier this year to get the dress code updated so female attendants could wear trousers.

Now, with half of the 12-person cabin crew having suffered injuries in the accident and the remaining attendants receiving praise for displaying heroism during the emergency evacuation, the focus has shifted from their uniform looks to their heroic actions.
In the 6 July crash three members of the crew were ejected from the planes sheared off tail section while still strapped in their seats. Those who were able, meanwhile, oversaw the emergency evacuation of nearly 300 passengers using knives to slash seatbelts, slinging axes to free two colleagues trapped by malfunctioning slides, fighting flames and bringing out frightened children.
'Muscle memory'
"I wasn't really thinking, but my body started carrying out the steps needed for an evacuation," head attendant Lee Yoon-hye, 40, said during a news conference on Sunday night before federal safety investigators instructed the airlines not to let the crew discuss the accident.
"I was only thinking about rescuing the next passenger."
Such conduct has given a measure of pride to members of a profession who often are recognised only for their appearance and customer service skills.
"In the face of tremendous adversity and obstacles, they did their job and evacuated an entire wide-bodied aircraft in a very short period of time," said Veda Shook, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants and an Alaska Airlines flight attendant.
"It's such a shining reflection, not just of the crew, but of the importance of flight attendants in their roles as first responders," Shook said.
Along with training in first aid and firefighting, flight attendants every year are required to practice the moves needed to get passengers off a plane in 90 seconds or less, Shook said.
They go through timed trials, practicing skills that include shouting over pandemonium and engine noise, communicating with people frozen in fear and opening jammed doors and windows, she said. The goal is to make performing these tasks automatic.
"We have the muscle memory," Shook said.
It's a significant departure from the days when flight attendants were always women and known as stewardesses or air hostesses. In that era decades ago, members of the cabin crew weren't expected to play much of a role in emergencies.
Laura Brentlinger, who spent 31 years as a United Airlines flight attendant, recalled having no idea how much danger everyone was in during one of her first emergency landings in 1972. She didn't realise the severity of the situation until it was over and she saw the pilot's face.
"In those days, it was like pat you on the head, just go back and keep the people nice and smile. That's how far we've come, thank the Lord," Brentlinger said. "We were just little Barbie dolls back there."
Roles expanded
The role of flight attendants in the US expanded significantly in 1989 after Air Ontario Flight 1363 crashed after taking off in Canada. An investigation revealed that a flight attendant had seen ice on a wing but did not speak up, assuming the pilots knew and would not welcome the information from her.
Since then, FAA rules have required that cabin crew members be incorporated into the communications system known as "crew resource management" that empowers all airline personnel to voice concerns to the cockpit even if it means challenging senior pilots.
The philosophy also authorises flight attendants to order emergency evacuations.
Hearing that the pilots of Asiana Flight 214 told the flight attendants to delay an evacuation for 90 seconds after the crash landing in San Francisco, giving the order only after a flight attendant spotted flames outside, made Brentlinger wonder whether Asiana Airline's attendants have the same authority.
"I'm sure they have a very different hierarchy and can't do anything without the pilot's permission," she said. "There is no doubt in my mind I would have evacuated that aircraft immediately."
'After the dust settles'
Brentlinger said her heart aches when she thinks about what Asiana's flight attendants are going through now and are likely to go through in the months to come.
She was aboard a 747 that lost a cargo door at 6 600 metres, sucking nine passengers to their deaths over the Pacific Ocean in 1989.
After the disaster aboard United Flight 811, Brentlinger said she suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder and was unable to get back on a plane for more than four years.
Handling the emergency itself was "the easiest part of the whole process... because you train for it and you just do it", she said.
She went on to say that "after the dust settles, so to speak" and one tries to get on with life, "it's horrific, at least it was for me".
The Flight 214 cabin crew consisted of 11 women and one man, ranging in age from 21 to 42, according to the airline.
Spokesperson Lee Hyomin said Asiana is not sharing information on emergency training hours of its flight attendants because the National Transportation Safety Board asked it not to share any information related to the accident while it's being investigated.
Rigorous training
Jean Carmela Lim, 32, a Sydney-based travel consultant, spent a year working as an Asiana flight attendant eight years ago and posted pictures from her experience on her travel blog, Holy Smithereens, this week. She recalls her weeks-long safety training as rigorous.
"We needed to be able to swim while dragging another human - dead weight - in one hand, and hoist ourselves and the dead weight onto the safety raft," Lim said.
The appearance standards were almost as demanding. Lim, who was 23 when she applied for the job, initially was told she was too old. During the interview, she was required to wear a short skirt without stockings.
Flight attendant school included sessions on hair, makeup and comportment. During flights, the cabin manager inspected the attendants to make sure they were wearing the right colour of nail polish and had their aprons properly ironed.
Lim said that appearance is important, but seeing pictures of Flight 214's attendants outside the burned-out aircraft in skirts made her hope their union prevails on the pants issue.
"If there's evidence that wearing a skirt will enable you to save more lives than wearing pants, then by all means keep them in skirts," she said. "If I'm trapped in a burning aircraft , I doubt I'll notice if the cabin crew saving me had lipstick on her teeth or had a tuft of hair out of place."

NEWS,24.05.2013

Brazil to open huge oil field to auction

Brazil says it will auction concessions to drill and explore an offshore oil field believed to hold up to 12bn barrels of crude, the country's largest find.

The tender process for the Libra oil field will take place in mid-October, said National Oil Agency (ANA) director Magda Chambriard, changing an originally scheduled date in late November.
"I have worked in the oil industry for 30 years and have never seen anything like it," she said.
"Something this size will raise eyebrows all over the world."
Libra, discovered in 2010, is within the vast Santos Basin, located about 180km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.
Oil in the Santos basin, first discovered in 2007, lies under a thick layer of salt between five and seven kilometers below the ocean surface.
Brazil's first oil field auction in five years 142 land and ocean oil blocs in unexplored regions in north and north-eastern Brazil in mid-May raked in a record $1.4bn.
The ANA estimates that Libra holds between 26 and 42bn barrels of crude.
Chambriard said that its recoverable reserves of between eight and 12bn barrels are based on an estimated 30% on-site recovery rate.
The estimates, completed in May, are based on data obtained by drilling in the area and updates previous estimates, she said.
By way of comparison, the so-called Marlim field, which is the most productive one Brazil now has operating  at 600 000 barrels per day has a recoverable oil volume of 2bn barrels, Chambriard said.
Another, called Roncador, has 2.5bn she added. But Libra is another thing altogether.

The next pre-salt oil bloc auction will not likely be held until 2015, Chambriard said.

Brazil currently consumes some 800 million barrels of crude a year, so in the Libra reserve alone "there is enough oil to satisfy the current consumption rate for 12 years," said Florival Carvalho, a senior ANP official.
Brazil currently extracts some 300 000 barrels per day from the pre-salt region.

Cap on executive pay dropped - France

The French government has decided to drop a plan to impose a ceiling on executive pay in the private sector, though it will go ahead with a two-year super-tax on firms paying million-euro salaries, says Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici.
Moscovici told the daily Les Echos in an interview that the year-old Socialist government wanted to support business and job creation and was working to accelerate the take-up of tax credits aimed at lowering companies' labour costs.
"After several months of dialogue, I have decided to focus our legislative action on the 75% tax on salaries above €1m, which will be paid by the employer, Moscovici said, asked if a proposed law to cap pay was still in the works.
"We will not go beyond that: there will be no specific law on the governance of companies."
Moscovici said that instead the government was holding discussions with the business sector on the idea of letting shareholders have a say in a director's pay.
"Our aim is to avoid rooting the rules in law," he said.
"We prefer to go with 'a demanding auto-regulation', but careful, if the decisions announced are not up to scratch we still have the possibility of legislating."
President Francois Hollande's government is battling to overturn an image of being anti-business after corporate heads lashed out at its 75% super-tax plan and fought back at a plan last year to raise capital gains taxes.
The government has since rejigged its super-tax plan so that it applies to companies rather than employees over 2014 and 2015.
It has also altered the new capital gains tax rules so that entrepreneurs will not be punished for selling companies they have founded.
Moscovici said more needed to be done however, as France strives to return its economy to growth and halt soaring unemployment, which has risen to 10.6%.

North Korea: No guarantee of peace

China told a top North Korean envoy on Friday it wants a peaceful, denuclearised Korean Peninsula, and said the emissary warned there is "no guarantee of peace" but that his country was willing to hold talks with all sides.

The official state Xinhua News Agency said a top Chinese army general, Fan Changlong, made the call for denuclearisation in his meeting on Friday with North Korean Vice Marshal Choe Ryong Hae.
His comments were a reiteration of China's established position, but could be seen as a rebuke of its neighbouring ally, following a half-year gap in high-level contacts during which Pyongyang angered Beijing by conducting rocket launches, a nuclear test and other sabre-rattling.
Tensions surrounding the nuclear issue have "intensified strategic conflicts among involved parties and jeopardised the peace and stability of the peninsula”, continued Fan, a vice chairperson of the Central Military Commission overseeing China's armed forces.
A message from Kim
Choe, a personal envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was widely expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and deliver a message from Kim before returning.
"Conditions on the Korean Peninsula and in the east Asian region are complex and exceptional, and there is no guarantee of peace. North Korea's people require a peaceful and stable environment to build their nation," Choe was quoted as saying.
"North Korea is willing to work with all sides to search for a method of solving the problems through dialogue," Choe said.
The envoy's comments reflect both the threatening tone of North Korea's recent statements, and its desire to show deference to Beijing's hopes for a return to nuclear disarmament talks.
Choe met on Thursday with the ruling Communist Party's fifth-ranked official, and Chinese state media later quoted the envoy as saying that North Korea "is willing to accept the suggestion of the Chinese side and launch dialogue with all relevant parties”.
Sanctions
Beijing considered Pyongyang's recent moves an affront to its interests in regional stability and showed its displeasure by joining with the US to back UN sanctions, and cut off dealings with North Korea's Foreign Trade Bank.
China is North Korea's last significant diplomatic ally and main source of trade and economic assistance.
China's North Korea watchers said it is unlikely that Chinese leaders would have accepted Choe's visit without a promise from Pyongyang, that it was prepared to return to diplomacy as Beijing has sought.
"The relationship is rocky, so they will try to mend the relationship," Cui Yingjiu, a retired professor of Korean at Peking University, said of North Korea.
"Second, they also want to improve relations with the US and need China to be their intermediary."

N Korean envoy meets China president

A North Korean envoy met China's President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday and handed him a personal letter from leader Kim Jong-Un, Chinese state-run media reported.

Choe Ryong-Hae told Xi that North Korea is willing to take positive actions to solve problems through dialogue, the semi-official China News Service said, after months of high tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear programme.
The report did not disclose the contents of the letter.
It quoted Choe saying dialogue included the long-stalled six-party talks aimed at North Korea's denuclearisation, which are chaired by China and bring together the two Koreas, the US, Russia and Japan.
Choe also said that North Korea needs to create a peaceful regional environment.
China is North Korea's key economic benefactor and diplomatic protector.
The report quoted Xi as telling Choe that China's position is for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and Beijing hopes for a resumption of the six-nation negotiations.
The six-party talks have sought to persuade Pyongyang to abandon nuclear development in exchange for aid and security guarantees, but the process has stalled for years amid repeated North Korean atomic tests and ballistic missile launches.

Obama seeks to end 'war on terror'

Twelve years after the "war on terror" began, President Barack Obama wants to pull the United States back from some of the most controversial aspects of its global fight against Islamist militants.

In a major policy speech on Thursday, Obama narrowed the scope of the targeted-killing drone campaign against al-Qaeda and its allies and took steps toward closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.

He acknowledged the past use of "torture" in US interrogations; expressed remorse over civilian casualties from drone strikes; and said that the Guantanamo detention facility "has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law".

After launching costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is tiring of conflict. While combating terrorism is still a high priority for the White House, polls show by large margins that Americans' main concerns are the economy and domestic concerns such as healthcare.

"We have now been at war for well over a decade," Obama said near the start of his address. Toward the end, he added: "But this war, like all wars, must end."

Though aimed first at a domestic audience, Obama's speech at Washington's National Defence University was also the latest milestone in his campaign to reshape the global image of the US - particularly in the Islamic world.

Policy shift

But he faces obstacles from opponents in Congress who will try to block the closure of Guantanamo prison and reject his call to repeal the Authorisation for Use of Military Force passed right after the 11 September 2001, attacks. The law is the legal basis for much of the "war on terror".

Faced with criticism about civilian casualties in attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles, Obama said the United States would only use those drone strikes when a threat was "continuing and imminent", a nuanced change from the previous policy of launching strikes against a significant threat.

Under new presidential guidance signed by Obama this week, the defence department will also take over some lethal drone operations from the CIA.

That would subject drone attacks to more scrutiny from Congress and might lead to the Pentagon taking over drone operations in Yemen, but not in Pakistan, where the CIA is likely to continue to run the programme.

With al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden killed in a US raid in 2011, a number of the group's top members taken out in drone strikes, and the US military role in Afghanistan winding down, Obama made clear it was time for a policy shift.

"Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a boundless 'global war on terror' - but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America," Obama said.

‘Signature’ drone strikes

Human rights groups mostly welcomed Obama's assertion that America could not remain on "a perpetual war-time footing", but some activists said he was not going far enough.

Republican opponents warned against being too quick to declare al-Qaeda a spent force.

"The President is correct to highlight the successes in America's war on terror that have occurred since 11 September 2001," said Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican mentioned as a possible US presidential candidate in 2016.

"He is wrong, however, to understate the continued threat to the US homeland or to suggest that the lethality of the threats posed by a weakened al-Qaeda and its affiliates is a return to a pre-9/11 norm that Americans should just accept," Rubio said in a statement.

The new US drone rules are likely to reduce "signature" drone strikes, in which the United States targets what appear to be suspicious-looking groups of people. Those attacks are blamed for many civilian casualties in Pakistan's tribal areas near Afghanistan and in Yemen.

Obama "has clearly raised the bar significantly for the use of drone strikes with the very specific and restrictive criteria," said John Bellinger, former state department legal adviser in President George W Bush's administration.

"The standard for targeting is now the same for Americans and non-Americans - it must be a continuing and imminent threat of violence to Americans. And there must be a near certainty that no non-combatants will be killed," he said.

Closing Guantanamo Bay

The number of drone strikes has dropped in the past year after peaking in the middle of Obama's first term.

The New America Foundation's widely cited drone attack database shows there have been 355 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004 and more than 60 in Yemen since 2009.

Despite the new limits on drone attacks, pilotless aircraft are increasingly playing a role in the armoury of the United States and other countries. The US Navy made aviation history on 14 May by launching an unmanned stealth jet off an aircraft carrier for the first time, with an eye on possible rivals like China and Iran.

While Obama largely has a free hand as commander in chief to set US drone policy, Congress has used its power of the purse to block him from closing Guantanamo.

"I am grateful for the president's declaration that it remains his intent to close Gitmo. I am not confident he will get congressional support," said David Gushee, an ethics professor at Mercer University.

Obama has been frustrated by his inability to make good on his 2008 campaign pledge to shut the prison, which was opened by his predecessor, President George W Bush, to hold men rounded up on suspicion of involvement with al-Qaeda and the Taliban after the 11 September attacks.

Closure plan

A hunger strike by 103 of the 166 detainees - 32 of whom have lost so much weight that they are being force-fed - has put pressure on Obama to take action.

"There is no justification beyond politics for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should never have been opened," Obama said.

Obama's latest Guantanamo proposals will likely meet much of the same resistance his earlier ones did from Republicans and some Democrats who do not want to fund the transfer of detainees away from Cuba.

But two Senate Republicans, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said they could support closing Guantanamo and moving some of its functions to the United States if Obama presented a workable plan.

Obama suggested a suitable site could be found on the US mainland to hold military tribunals.

McCain and Graham have proposed that trials could be held at Charleston Naval Yard in South Carolina. A supermax prison in Illinois has also been proposed in the past for housing Guantanamo inmates.

"I don't mind if we try to find a place to move it into the United States," said Graham, who has been critical of Obama's security policies.

"What I want is a legal system consistent with being at war, and the reason we haven't closed Guantanamo Bay is that we don't have a plan to close it," he said.

While he cannot shut Guantanamo on his own, Obama has announced steps aimed at getting some prisoners out. He lifted a moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen out of respect for that country's reforming government. Yemenis make up the largest group of prisoners.

Of the 86 detainees who have been cleared for transfer or release, 56 are from Yemen. But al-Qaeda has a presence in the country and Washington will likely want guarantees that the prisoners will not take up arms against the United States after they are sent home.

Among the TV audience for Obama's speech were detainees at Guantanamo, who rely on television broadcasts and newspapers for hints about their fate.

"Detainees follow all coverage of Guantanamo closely, including today's speech, and the post-speech commentary, analysis and editorials," said Navy Captain Robert Durand, a spokesperson for the Guantanamo detention operation.

"There is interest and discussion, but no discernible reaction," he said.

Ban lifted on Guantanamo-Yemen transfers

President Barack Obama is lifting his self-imposed ban on transferring Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen, a step toward his goal of closing the US military-run prison that he said "has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law."

Nearly 100 of the 166 terrorist suspects held at the prison in Cuba are from Yemen and have had nowhere to go even if they had been cleared for transfer. Obama wouldn't send them home, and no other country was welcoming them.

Their hopelessness after a decade or more of imprisonment has contributed to a hunger strike at the detention facility that helped reignite the long-stalled effort to close it.

A leadership upheaval in Yemen has improved the country's security but not eliminated a terrorist organisation trying to recruit jihadists.

But Obama's decision announced on Thursday is not without risk. Detainees who have been released to Yemen in the past have joined terrorist fighters in the Arab nation.

The security concerns prompted Obama to suspend transfers to Yemen in January 2010 after a Nigerian man attempted to blow up a US-bound flight on Christmas Day 2009 with explosives hidden in his underwear on instructions from al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen.

Co-operation with US

Senator Saxby Chambliss, an opposition Republican, was among those on Capitol Hill criticising Obama's change in policy.

"Between December 2009 and today, has Yemen shown any indication that they are more capable of looking after those individuals? Absolutely not," Chambliss said. "And If we were to transfer those individuals to Yemen, it would be just like turning them loose."

Yemeni watchers in the US say there is reason to hope security has improved since long-time authoritarian leader Ali Abdullah Saleh was ousted after mass uprisings last year.

Al-Qaeda had been on the upswing under Saleh, but his successor, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has made fighting terrorism a top goal and restored co-operation with the United States in the effort.

Obama announced that he was lifting the moratorium on Yemeni transfers in a speech at the National Defence University in which he also defended targeted killings by US aerial drones and pushed Congress anew to authorise Guantanamo's closure.

The president did not explain his rationale behind the change in Yemen policy, but senior administration officials cited Hadi's leadership as an increasingly able partner to the US.

Flown in shackles

A Yemeni official told The Associated Press that a delegation, including the country's human rights minister, returned this week after a trip to Washington, where they agreed to set up of a rehabilitation centre to help reintegrate detainees with the support of the US and other Arab nations.

Rageh Badi, an adviser to Yemen's prime minister, said in an interview that the transfer ban had cast a shadow on the relations with the United States. Badi said lifting the ban is a "welcome step, a progressive one that removes much of the ambiguity and confusion between the US administration and the Yemeni government."

Yemeni authorities previously had a system to monitor returned detainees, but it ceased to function after massive anti-government protests swept most of the country, starting in early 2011.

Of the estimated 30 Yemenis who returned from Guantanamo, only a handful had stayed in Sanaa, the capital, while the rest moved to remote areas where government authority is minimal, or nonexistent.

David Remes, an attorney who represents many Guantanamo detainees, described a system roughly like parole for his clients who have been released to Yemen.

He said they have been flown in shackles aboard a military aircraft back to Sanaa and turned over to state forces, who spend a couple days debriefing them about their years of captivity before they return to their families.

Peaceful lives

If they want to leave town, they are required to register with state security forces, who keep track of their movements, Remes said.

"Although there is no such thing as zero risk, the men who have returned from Guantanamo are overwhelmingly living peaceful lives," Remes said. "And you can't hold 99 of 100 men captive because one might engage in bad acts when he is released, even two."

Yet some have returned to jihad. Among them is Saeed Ali al-Shihri, who emerged as the second-most senior commander of Yemen's branch of al-Qaeda after being released from six years of detention at Guantanamo Bay.

Yemini officials said in January that al-Shihri was killed in a US drone attack, but al-Qaeda denied he was killed and last month released an audio recording of him criticising Yemen's neighbour Saudi Arabia for its policy of allowing the US to launch drone strikes from bases in the kingdom.

In confusion that underscores how difficult it can be to keep track of former detainees, it was the second time the group denied al-Shihri's death. US officials had previously announced al-Shihri's death in an airstrike in September last year. A DNA test, however, proved that the body recovered was not that of al-Shihri.

According to security officials in Yemen, there has not been any evidence to link any of the returnees with suicide bombings in the country.

However, some of them are thought to have fought against government forces in the southern Abyan province in 2011 and 2012, when al-Qaeda fighters took advantage of the security vacuum to seize large swathes of the area before they were pushed back by security forces last year.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

MI5 aware of suspects before attack

Britain's security services faced questions on Friday over whether they could have done more to prevent the murder of a soldier hacked to death in a busy London street, after it emerged that his suspected killers were known to intelligence officers.

The two suspects, Michael Adebolajo, 28 and Michael Adebowale, 22, are under guard in hospitals after being shot and arrested by police after the murder of 25-year-old Afghan war veteran Lee Rigby on Wednesday in broad daylight.
They have not yet been charged.
Adebolajo, filmed justifying the killing as he stood near the body holding a knife and meat cleaver in bloodied hands, was born in Britain to a Nigerian immigrant family.
Adebowale is a naturalised British citizen born in Nigeria.
Another man and a woman have also been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder, an early indication that police are investigating whether the attack was part of a wider plot.
Prime Minister David Cameron said a parliamentary committee would carry out an investigation into the role of the security services.
Britain's MI5 domestic spy agency had been aware of the men, but neither was considered a threat, a government source told Reuters.
Dramatic video footage showing the moment when police shot the two men was published on a British newspaper's website on Friday.
The shaky, 10-second clip shows one of the men sprinting towards a police car with a knife in his hand before he is shot and tumbles to the ground.
"It is important for the public to know that the security services and the police are operating properly," former London police chief Ian Blair told BBC radio.
Investigation
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said there would be a thorough investigation into the role of the police and intelligence agencies.
However, he said the incident underlined how "difficult it is in a free society to be able to control everyone".
The attack was the first Islamist killing since July 2005, when four suicide bombers struck London transport.
At that time, questions were also raised about the security services after it was revealed two of the bombers had been identified in a surveillance operation, but were not followed up.
Richard Barrett, former head of counter-terrorism at the Secret Intelligence Service MI6, Britain's foreign spy agency, said it would be impractical to track every person who expressed radical views in case they tipped over into violent extremism.
"To find the signals, the red flags as it were, I think is enormously hard," he told the BBC.
Adebolajo, who converted to Islam and took the name "Mujahid" - warrior - used to attend events run by the banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun, its leader Anjem Choudary has said.
Detectives are trying to determine whether the suspects had links to militants in Britain or overseas.
Sources familiar with the investigation have said no sign has emerged so far of direct links between the attack and an Islamist insurgency in the suspects' ethnic homeland Nigeria. Their surnames suggest they are from the Christian south of Nigeria, not the Muslim north where insurgents are active.
Police stepped up security at religious venues and transport hubs.
‘Lone wolves’
The murder, just a month after the Boston Marathon bombing, revived fears of "lone wolves", who may have had no direct contact with al-Qaeda but plan their own attacks.
A source close to the investigation told Reuters the attackers were known to MI5.
Adebolajo had handed out radical Islamist pamphlets, but neither was considered a serious threat.
Another source close to the inquiry said the local backgrounds of the suspects in a multicultural metropolis - nearly 40% of Londoners were born abroad - and the simplicity of the attack made prevention difficult. It required little preparation beyond buying a set of butcher's knives.
Peter Clarke, the former head of London's Counter Terrorism Command who led the investigation into the 2005 bombings, said if the men did turn out to be acting alone, it showed the difficulty the security services faced in trying to stop them.
"To an extent, if these people are acting as individuals it makes it even more difficult than if they're an organisation," he told Reuters. "Instead of having to dismantle an organisation, you are having to investigate and counter an ideology."
The two men used a car to run down Rigby outside Woolwich Barracks in southeast London and then attacked him with a meat cleaver and knives, witnesses said.
The pair told bystanders they acted in revenge for British wars in Muslim countries.
Rigby, who had a 2-year-old son, was not in uniform. The bandsman was working locally as an army recruiter.
In Nigeria, with a mixed Christian-Muslim population and where the authorities are battling an Islamist insurgency, a government source said there was no evidence the Woolwich suspects were linked to groups in west Africa.
British investigators are looking at information that at least one of the suspects may have had an interest in joining Somalia-based Islamist rebel group al-Shabaab, which is allied to al-Qaeda, a source with knowledge of the matter said.