NEWS,05.08.2013

U.S. Embassy Closings: State Department Says Posts In 19 Countries To Remain Closed

U.S. diplomatic posts in 19 cities in the Mideast and Africa will remain closed for the rest of the week amid intercepted "chatter" about terror threats, which lawmakers briefed on the information likened to intelligence picked up before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
One lawmaker said the chatter was specific as to certain dates and the scope of the operation; others said it suggested that a major terrorist attack, akin to 9/11, was being planned by the al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen.
Diplomatic facilities will remain closed in Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, among other countries, through Saturday, Aug. 10. The State Department announcement Sunday added closures of four African sites, in Madagascar, Burundi, Rwanda and Mauritius. The U.S. reopened some posts on Monday, including those in Kabul, Afghanistan and Baghdad.
Last week the State Department announced a global travel alert, warning that al-Qaida or its allies might target either U.S. government or private American interests. It said Americans should take extra precautions overseas and cited potential dangers involved with public transportation systems and other prime sites for tourists.
Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the decision to keep certain embassies and consulates shuttered throughout the week was done out of an "abundance of caution" and to "protect our employees, including local employees, and visitors to our facilities."
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday the briefings he has received "certainly emphasize these threats are specific and credible, equal if not more serious to the kind of chatter, as the intelligence called it, that was heard prior to 9/11."
But he added: "The average American should continue to be alert and vigilant and cautious but certainly not unduly alarmed or panicky." He spoke on MSNBC.
The intercepted intelligence foreshadowing an attack on U.S. or Western interests is evidence of one of the gravest threats to the United States in years, said several lawmakers said Sunday.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the conversation was "very reminiscent of what we saw pre-9/11." Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it was that chatter that prompted the Obama administration to order the closures and issue the travel warning.
Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC's "This Week" that the threat intercepted from "high-level people in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula" was about a "major attack."
Yemen is home to al-Qaida's most dangerous affiliate, blamed for several notable terrorist plots on the United States. They include the foiled Christmas Day 2009 effort to bomb an airliner over Detroit and the explosives-laden parcels intercepted the following year aboard cargo flights.
Rep. Peter King, the New York Republican who leads the House Homeland Security subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence, told ABC that the threat "was specific as to how enormous it was going to be and also that certain dates were given."
The Obama administration's decision to close the embassies and the lawmakers' general discussion about the threats and the related intelligence discoveries come at a sensitive time as the government tries to defend recently disclosed surveillance programs that have stirred deep privacy concerns and raised the potential of the first serious retrenchment in terrorism-fighting efforts since Sept. 11.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has scoffed at the assertion by the head of the National Security Agency that government methods used to collect telephone and email data have helped foil 54 terror plots.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a House Intelligence Committee member, said while he takes the threat seriously he hasn't seen any evidence linking the latest warnings to that agency's collection of "vast amounts of domestic data."
Other lawmakers defended the administration's response and promoted the work of the NSA in unearthing the intelligence that led to the security warnings.
King, a frequent critic of President Barack Obama, said: "Whether or not there was any controversy over the NSA at all, all these actions would have been taken."
The State Department noted that previous terrorist attacks have centered on subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats. It suggested travelers sign up for State Department alerts and register with U.S. consulates in the countries they visit. The alert expires Aug. 31.
The intelligence intercepts also prompted Britain and Germany to close their embassies in Yemen on Sunday and Monday. British authorities said some embassy staff in Yemen had been withdrawn "due to security concerns." France said Monday it would keep its embassy in the Yemeni capital closed through Wednesday.
Interpol, the French-based international policy agency, has also issued a global security alert in connection with suspected al-Qaida involvement in recent prison escapes including those in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan.

Turkey's Ergenekon Trial: Alleged 2002 Coup Plotters Convicted, Including Former Military Chief Ilker Basbug

In a landmark trial, scores of people including Turkey's former military chief, politicians and journalists were convicted on Monday of plotting to overthrow Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government soon after it came to power in 2002.
Retired Gen. Ilker Basbug was the most prominent defendant among some 250 people facing verdicts after a five-year trial that has become a central drama in tensions between the country's secular elite and Erdogan's Islamic-oriented Justice and Development Party.
The trial has sparked protests, and on Monday police blocked hundreds of demonstrators from reaching the High Criminal Court in Silivri, 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Istanbul, in a show of solidarity with the defendants.
But Monday's verdicts were not expected to set off the kind of violent anti-government demonstrations that were recently sparked by a government plan to build a replica Ottoman-era barracks at a park near Istanbul's central Taksim Square.
In addition to Basbug, at least 18 other defendants were sentenced to life in prison, including 10 retired military officers and Dogu Perincek, leader of the left-wing and nationalist Workers Party. At least 64 other defendants received sentences ranging from a year to 47 years, according to state-run TRT television news.
At least 21 people were acquitted. The fully tally of verdicts and sentences was not immediately available.
The defendants were accused of plotting high-profile attacks that prosecutors said were aimed at sowing chaos in Turkey to prepare the way for a military coup. The prosecutions already have helped Erdogan's government reshape Turkey's military and assert civilian control in a country that had seen three military coups since 1960.
The trial, which began in 2008, grew out of an investigation into the seizure of 27 hand grenades at the home of a noncommissioned officer in Istanbul in 2007.
The defendants were accused of being part of an alleged ultranationalist and pro-secular gang called Ergenekon, which takes its name from a legendary valley in Central Asia believed to be the ancestral homeland of Turks.
In thousands of pages of indictments, prosecutors maintained that the gang was behind a series of violent acts, including one in 2006 on a courthouse that killed a judge. Prosecutors say that the incidents were made to look as though they were carried out by Islamic militants, in a bid to create turmoil and provoke a military intervention.
Prosecutors say the gang also plotted to kill Erdogan, Nobel laureate author Orhan Pamuk and other high-profile figures.
The defendants have rejected the accusations, and they are expected to appeal Monday's verdicts and sentences to the Court of Appeals in Ankara.
Representatives of Turkey's main pro-secular opposition party lashed out against the verdicts, accusing the government of influencing the justice system.
"A verdict that was decided five years ago was made public today," said Akif Hamzacebi, a legislator from the opposition Republican People's Party. "All principles of rights, justice, human rights, fair trial were trampled on here."
Peter Stano, spokesman for the EU's Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele, said he would not comment on the specific rulings, but noted that the European Union has expressed concern before about defendants' rights in Turkey and indictments that are too general.
Prosecutors demanded life prison terms for 64 of the defendants, mostly on terrorism charges. Others were charged with possession of firearms or merely membership in Ergenekon.
Mehmet Haberal, a surgeon and founder of a university in Ankara, and Mustafa Balbay, the Ankara representative of pro-secular Cumhuriyet newspaper, both faced life prison terms but received sentences of 12 years and 34 years, respectively. The two men were elected to Parliament in 2011, while in prison, but were not able to take their seats. The court ordered Haberal released on time served because of health considerations.
Tuncay Ozkan, a prominent journalist who helped organize a series of anti-government protests in 2007, was given a life sentence.
The case has polarized the country between those who see it as an opportunity to unravel a shadowy network of ultranationalists known as the "Deep State" that allegedly acted behind the scenes with impunity, and those who believe it is a government attempt to muzzle Erdogan's secular-minded foes and undermine Turkey's secular legacy.
In a separate case, more than 300 military officers, including Turkey's former air force and navy chiefs, were convicted last year of other plots to bring down the government in 2003 and some were sentenced to 20 years in prison. Those verdicts are being appealed.

 

Gibraltar Entrance Fee: Chief Minister Compares Spain To North Korea Over Exit Charge

The chief minister of Gibraltar on Monday accused Spain of acting like North Korea after suggesting it could impose steep new entry and exit fees for the British territory.
Spain has long laid claim to Gibraltar, and the British territory on the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula is the source of occasional diplomatic friction between Madrid and London.
The latest spat involves an artificial reef being built in Gibraltar that Spain says is hurting its fishermen. It has floated the idea of charging people entering and leaving Gibraltar 50 euros ($66) as compensation.
Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo told BBC radio that such fees would violate European Union freedom of movement rules, and said "hell would freeze over" before the reef would be removed.
"What we have seen this weekend is saber-rattling of the sort that we haven't seen for some time," Picardo said, describing threats of border fees as "more reminiscent of the type of statement you'd hear from North Korea than from an EU partner."
Under Spain's former Socialist government, relations between Madrid, London and Gibraltar eased greatly.
But in an interview published Sunday in Spanish newspaper ABC, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said the "playtime" of that era was over.
Britain's Foreign Secretary said late Monday that he had spoken to Picardo to express solidarity with territory's residents.
"The U.K. stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of Gibraltar at this time of increasing Spanish pressure and rhetoric," William Hague said in a statement, repeating that the U.K. had pledged "not to compromise on British sovereignty over Gibraltar."
But he also nodded to the fact  so far the talk of sanctions had not amounted to real clampdown on the territory.
"We agreed that it was important to respond to actions, not rhetoric," he said.

North Korea Floods: Army Drills Cut Short To Provide Relief

North Korea has cut short summer military drills to mobilise troops for flood relief efforts after torrential rains left dozens killed and ravaged farmlands nationwide, according to a South Korean report.
The North's military ordered troops based in the country's west and southeast regions to hold "minimum" summer exercises and to instead focus on post-floods reconstruction, Yonhap news agency said.
It cited an unnamed Seoul government source.
"Many military units stopped the exercises and have mobilised troops for floods relief works," said the source quoted by Yonhap.
The communist state has staged summer military drills that partially coincided with the annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise conducted by its rival South Korea and the United States, that usually takes place in August.
"But this year's summer drill in the North will be scaled back considerably because it needs to focus on repairing floods damages," the source was quoted as saying.
Floods caused by heavy rains that pummelled the North since early July have destroyed some 6,000 houses, displaced more than 23,000 people and washed away a large swathes of farmlands, the North's state media said late last month.
The death toll has reached 33 across the nation and some 13,300 hectares of farmlands have been damaged, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said last week, warning of "longer-term impact" on the country's food security.
Decades of deforestation and decrepit infrastructure have left the impoverished North vulnerable to floods, which led to some 170 deaths last summer.

Berlusconi: 'I Am Innocent'

Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi pledged his support for Italy's fragile coalition government to a gathering of thousands of supporters on Sunday, but he remained defiant in the face of a supreme court ruling confirming his tax fraud conviction and four-year prison sentence, declaring: "I am innocent."
The three-time ex-premier and media mogul, who also faces a ban from public office, said he would not resist criticizing the verdict against him, nor the judges who passed it, calling Italian magistrates "irresponsible."
Berlusconi looked energized and appeared to speaking off the cuff throughout the 15-minute rally in front of his Rome residence, in contrast to his nine-minute video address after last week's ruling in which he appeared shaken and on the verge of tears as he read a prepared statement.
The crowd, many of whom arrived on buses during the day, waved flags and posters urging Berlusconi, 76, not to give up and declaring support from cities and regions throughout Italy. Supporters repeatedly chanted: "Silvio."
"I don't believe that anyone can come and say to us that this is a subversive demonstration, as many have said," Berlusconi said. "And no one can come and say, as they have, that we are irresponsible. Because we have said loud and clear that the government needs to continue to approve economic measures that we have requested."
The confirmation of Berlusconi's conviction on final appeal has put more stress on Premier Enrico Letta's uneasy cross-party coalition government, which requires the support of both Berlusconi's conservative forces and the center-left to pass urgent economic measures.
Berlusconi said the last few days were "the most anguished and painful of my life," and he thanked supporters for demonstrating their affection.
"I am here. I am staying here. I won't give up," Berlusconi said.
Italy's highest court on Thursday upheld Berlusconi's four-year prison sentence, the first time that the media mogul was definitively convicted and sentenced in two decades of trials and other criminal probes.
A law to reduce prison overcrowding slashes his sentence to one year and since he is over 70, he can choose home confinement or perform social services instead of going to prison.
He also faces a public office ban, which would deprive him of his Senate seat and prevent him from running in elections for the duration of the ban. Another appeals court in Milan has been ordered to decide its length.

NEWS,29.07.2013

Amazon hiring thousands of people

Amazon announced plans Monday to add 5 000 full-time jobs at 17 facilities in the United States and to hire more than 7 000 workers as it beefs up its customer-service network.
The online retail giant is creating jobs as it expands its distribution network to speed up deliveries. The facilities in 10 states across the country, from South Carolina to California.
Amazon said that more than 5 000 jobs were now available across its warehouse network, touting pay that is 30% higher than that of traditional retail stores.
"In the last year alone, Amazon opened eight fulfillment centers in the US, resulting in thousands of new jobs being added to communities nationwide," the company said in a statement.
The Seattle-based retailer also said it was currently hiring in four states for more than 2 000 jobs in its customer service network, which includes a mix of full-time, part-time and seasonal jobs.
Amazon shares fell 0.9% in morning trade in New York.

China agrees to talks on wine dispute

China and the European Union have agreed there is a "window for discussions" to try to resolve accusations that Europe is dumping wine in China, the EU's trade chief said on Monday.
The agreement is part of a deal announced at the weekend to defuse a row over dumping of Chinese solar panels in Europe, the biggest trade dispute yet between the two economies.
Responding to the EU's initial plan to impose punitive duties on solar panels, China launched an anti-dumping inquiry into European wine sales, which would lead to retaliatory duties on exporters in France, Spain and Italy.
"There is a window for discussions between the European Union and Chinese (wine) producers," EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht told a news conference. "The Chinese government has promised to facilitate such discussions," he said.
EU and Chinese diplomats expect the wine dispute, as well as another conflict over EU exports of polysilicon a raw material for solar panels to be dropped as a goodwill gesture.
China is the world's biggest importer of Bordeaux wines and consumption soared 110% in 2011 alone.
China's commerce ministry could not confirm any freeze to the EU wine investigation, the website associated with the Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily reported on Monday, citing an unnamed official.
A lawyer representing the Chinese industry association that filed the wine complaint said the firm had not received any notice on the freezing of the probe, the website www.people.com.cn said.
"The relevant investigation is still proceeding regularly," Yao Fengwen, a lawyer with Bo Heng (Beijing B&H Associates) law firm, told the site.
Germany's Wacker Chemie is the world's second biggest maker of polysilicon and would be hurt by any tariffs in China.

Foreign firms win $22.5bn Saudi contracts

Saudi Arabia has granted three foreign consortium's contracts worth $22.5bn (€16.9bn) to build a Riyadh metro, the kingdom announced at a news conference in the capital late Sunday.
The consortiums are led by US, Spanish and Italian firms.
The 176-kilometre (110-mile) six-line network is aimed at easing chronic traffic congestion in Riyadh, a city of six million people.
A consortium led by US engineering giant Bechtel Corp will construct two lines worth $9.45bn, the official SPA news agency reported.
Spanish BTP-FCC consortium will build three of the metro lines for $7.88bn, after it beat competition from South Korea's Samsung, France's Alstom and Freyssinet, and Dutch group Strukton to secure the deal.
Another line costing $5.21bn went to Italy's Ansaldo.
The lines are planned to stretch across the capital and serve the airport and the future King Abdullah Financial District.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia also plans to invest billions of dollars in rail networks linking major cities across the vast desert kingdom.
The kingdom already has a 449-kilometre passenger line between Riyadh and Dammam in Eastern Province, with a parallel freight line linking the capital with the Gulf coast city.

Focus on emerging markets

Fickle investors have spurned emerging markets in recent weeks, but this route has obscured a more alluring vista out on the horizon.

Developing economies now account for 50% of global output and 80% of economic expansion, and are projected to continue growing far faster than developed nations. They are expected to possess an even larger share of global growth, wealth and investment opportunities in years to come.
So much so that the labels investors use to classify some of these nations will change as the developing develop and the emerging emerge into more potent economic powers.
But this long-term view has been lost on many of those who look to emerging market assets for a higher yield in the short term. Their ardour cooled when the Federal Reserve signalled it may soon ease the stimulus that has kept credit cheap, heralding higher interest rates ahead.
That was coupled with signs of slower growth in key emerging markets like China and Brazil.
Still, the developing world's gross domestic product growth of 5.0% this year and 5.4% next, as projected by the International Monetary Fund, will far outpace the advanced economies' 1.2% and 2.1%.
Developing countries are now also better armed to keep panic at bay, with more foreign exchange reserves than before and less aggregate debt than developed nations. Many have put their economies on firmer foundations.
Fear of a mass exodus of investors, however, has still sent emerging market shares down about 10% in the past two months, as measured by the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, compared with a marginal rise in the Standard & Poor's index of US shares.
Consider some other data that the World Bank has crunched, suggesting developing nations will attract increased capital flows because their growth implies big investment opportunities, improved creditworthiness and the ability to better diversify portfolios and manage risk.
According to one bank report, by 2030 developing countries will represent two-thirds of all global investment, up from about half today and from one-fifth in 2000.
At that time, half the global stock of capital is expected to reside in the developing world, compared to less than one-third today. That means a shift in the distribution of wealth and in the creation of opportunity.
This shift in investment activity coincides with the catch-up growth that began during the 1990s, as developing nations integrated into global markets, transformed their economies and improved their institutions, Hans Timmer, director of the World Bank team that produced the report, said.
"Productivity catch-up, increasing integration into global markets, sound macroeconomic policies and improved education and health are helping speed growth and create massive investment opportunities, which, in turn are spurring a shift in global economic weight to developing countries," the report said.
And to be clear, this is investment in buildings and machinery, not the more flighty financial flows.
The Bric nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are expected to loom large. China will make up 30% of all investment activity, while Brazil, India and Russia together will account for more than 13% of global investment in 2030, edging the 11% projected in the United States.
But their growing importance as sources and destinations of capital flows will not be a Bric story alone, the report says. It calls out sub-Saharan Africa, for example, which can be expected to not only receive a growing volume of capital flows but also to attract an increasing share of the total capital flows to developing countries.
The bank's researchers forecast that developing countries will likely have the resources needed to finance massive future investments for infrastructure and services.
That's predicated on strong saving rates, expected to top out at 34% of national income in 2014 and averaging 32% annually until 2030. Meanwhile, the saving rate for high-income countries will fall from 20% to 16%.
In aggregate terms, the developing world will account for 62-64% of global saving of $25-27trn by 2030, up from 45% in 2010.
This points to greater wealth in the developing world as a percentage of the global total: the average per capital income of the developing world is expected to rise from about 8.0% of that in high-income countries in 2010, to about 16% by 2030.
The average citizen of what is now a developing country, according to one bank scenario, will earn 19% of the income of an average high-income country citizen by 2030.
Indeed, one McKinsey study projects more than half the world's population will have joined the consuming classes by 2025, boosting consumption in emerging markets to $30trn a year. It will, the report says, be nothing short of the "defining growth opportunity of our times".
Seizing on this theme, Bhaskar Chakravorti and Gita Rao, writing in Foreign Affairs recently, pointed to the hand-wringing over the decline of American power and urged US businesses to compete in emerging markets to help themselves grow, hire again and create wealth.
Another fan with a long lens is Mark Mobius, chairperson of the Templeton Emerging Markets Group, who wrote last month that commodities, exports and infrastructure development could continue to be leading growth drivers in many emerging economies, but overall growth is likely to arise increasingly from healthier domestic demand.
"Expanding consumer wealth is creating an increasingly large and discriminating body of middle class consumers across emerging markets, and their demand is, in turn, creating increasingly significant domestic economic activity," Mobius said. "
"With a relatively high proportion of the population in emerging markets moving into the workforce and a relatively low proportion of dependents, demographics are acting to reinforce consumer demand."
These forecasts are not unconditional. Some risks will reduce over time. Others will increase.
The countries must continue to drive increases in productivity and attract investors to finance the investments, the bank's report says.
There is also an assumption that some of markets will have addressed some of the hurdles to invest now which variously include poor governance, lax enforcement of contracts and property rights, corruption, lack of adequate infrastructure and distribution networks and uneven pipeline of talent.
In addition, as emerging economies develop, their financial markets integrate more into global ones, and they ease restrictions on capital that flows across their borders. It then  becomes more difficult to shield them from international shocks, the World Bank's Timmer said.
They can mitigate those shocks as alternatives to the dollar rise, and as they build reserves in other currencies like the euro and the yuan.
There are other challenges that concern Neil Shearing, chief emerging markets economist at Capital Economics in London. The first, already well known in China, is the need to reposition economies to be more consumer-driven and less dependent on exports.
The second is avoiding the kind of investment bubble created in the eastern European property market - which burst a few years ago.
"If the investment is in glitzy shopping malls," Shearing told me, "it can create bubbles and be dangerous. Whereas investment in China is excessive but in roads, railways and ports that you do want to look for."
Growth may slow, and challenges will abound, but the prospects loom large. And therein lies opportunity.

Gas flows from Myanmar-China pipeline

Gas has started flowing to energy-hungry China through a pipeline from Myanmar, Beijing's official media reported, in a major project that highlights their economic links even as political ties come under pressure.
The 793-kilometre (492-mile) pipeline runs from Kyaukpyu on resource-rich Myanmar's west coast, close to the offshore Shwe gasfields, and across the country.
It enters southwest China at Ruili, near areas where heavy clashes between the rebel Kachin Independence Army and the Myanmar military were reported earlier this year.
As well as diversifying China's sources of fuel, by supplying energy to the vast and less developed west it could help Beijing's attempts to promote economic growth there.
It went into operation on Sunday at a ceremony in Mandalay, the official Xinhua news agency reported. "When torches flamed in the sky.... a storm of applause and cheers broke out," it said.
But the controversial project is the fruit of Beijing's long allegiance with the military junta that ruled Myanmar for decades, a bond that is weakening as the reforming government opens up to the West.
In an editorial on Monday China's Global Times newspaper, affiliated with the ruling Communist Party, said: "This is another breakthrough in China's strategy of energy diversification and has obvious significance in reducing China's dependence on the Strait of Malacca for the import of oil and natural gas."
Construction began in June 2010, according to China National Petroleum Corporation, the key investor. A parallel oil pipeline is also part of the project.
According to Xinhua, the gas pipeline will be able to carry 12 billion cubic metres annually, while the crude oil pipeline has a capacity of 22 million tonnes per year.
Under military rule Myanmar was a pariah state largely isolated from the rest of the world and subject to heavy international sanctions, but it maintained close economic links with China, which for years was its major foreign influence.
Now, with Myanmar which also includes tin and precious gems among its natural assets opening up politically and economically, more countries are setting up operations and seeking deals that sanctions had previously prevented.
"Myanmar used to be sanctioned by the West and China was its only friend," the Global Times editorial acknowledged.
"Nowadays, it has opened more to the West. This will reduce its passion in cooperating with China, but does not mean it will set itself against China."
But in a warning that Beijing expects its economic interests to be protected, the newspaper cautioned Myanmar that it must ensure agreements regarding the project are fulfilled, no matter who eventually leads the country, where democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi has entered parliament.
"China should be determined to supervise Myanmar in doing so," the paper said. "Myanmar should hold a serious attitude toward China, and Chinese will take (the Myanmar) people's attitude toward the pipeline as a test of their stance on China."
Chinese nervousness about its investments in Myanmar comes after Naypyidaw said last week it had revised a controversial copper mine agreement with a Chinese company, after dozens of Buddhist monks and villagers were injured in a botched police raid.
Myanmar Minister of Mines Myint Aung told parliament that new terms gave the government 51% of the revenue, replacing a previous deal that was a joint venture between the Chinese firm and a holding company owned by the Myanmar military.
In 2011, Myanmar President Thein Sein stopped construction on the China-backed $3.6bn Myitsone Dam on the Irrawaddy river amid public opposition to the project, a move that led Beijing to call for its companies' rights and interests to be protected.
The Shwe Gas Movement, a campaign group, says the pipeline project has sparked protests over issues including demands for higher salaries for local workers, and concerns among farmers about its environmental impacts.
Myanmar plans to renegotiate billions of dollars of natural resource deals as it imposes tougher environmental standards and clamps down on corruption, the US-based Asia Society said in a report last month.

NEWS,09.07.2013

UAE agrees to give Egypt $3bn - source

The United Arab Emirates has agreed to grant Egypt $1bn and lend it another $2bn, an Egyptian source close to the talks said on Tuesday.
The source said the amount was expected to be part of a larger financial package from the UAE.
The loan would be in the form of a deposit at Egypt's central bank, although the interest rate and maturity had yet to be finalised.
He also said that Saudi Arabia was expected to lend Egypt $2bn, which he expected to be confirmed within two days.

White House trims GDP forecast

The White House on Monday trimmed its outlook for US economic growth in 2013 and 2014, citing "serious headwinds" from European austerity measures and a slowdown in China, as well as across-the-board budget sequester cuts at home.
The mid-session budget and economic update highlighted the lingering impact of the recession that has stymied President Barack Obama's economic agenda.
In the review, the White House said it expected gross domestic product (GDP) to rise 2.0% this year and 3.1% next year less than the 2.3% and 3.2% forecast in Obama's budget of April 10.
The unemployment rate has fallen somewhat over the past six months but remains stubbornly high - at about 7.5%, because of what the Obama administration says is the lingering impact of the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Ahead of tough negotiations with Congress on spending cuts and raising the US debt limit, the White House slashed its estimate of the current year's fiscal deficit to $759bn, or 4.7% of GDP, from its April forecast of $973bn.
Republicans have been focusing on deficit reduction and spending cuts, while Obama has argued for programmes to spur jobs, financed in part by higher taxes on the wealthy.
White House budget director Sylvia Mathews Burwell said in a statement that the report shows Obama's budget "achieves the core goal of fiscal sustainability by putting federal debt on a declining path as a share of the economy".
Congress, however, is not expected to pass Obama's budget this year.
 

Brazil to probe reports of US spying

Brazil said on Monday it will investigate reports of US electronic spying on its citizens and called for a multilateral agency to govern the global internet.

The pledge came after the daily O Globo reported on Sunday that the US National Security Agency (NSA) spied on Brazilian residents and companies as well as people travelling in Brazil, citing documents leaked by the fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Earlier documents leaked by Snowden had alleged that the US maintained a vast surveillance system over the US territory, as well as EU offices in Washington and New York and some European countries, such as Germany.

The satellite intelligence collection base in Brasilia was jointly operated "at least until 2002 by the NSA and the Central Intelligence Agency", the report said.

"I have absolutely no doubt" about the veracity of the reports, Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo said.

"Now the circumstances in which this was carried out, the exact form and date, this we must verify," he added.

No confirmation

Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota welcomed Washington's readiness to discuss the issue describing the spying allegations as "extremely serious".

State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki confirmed the US had "spoken with Brazilian officials regarding these allegations".

But she refused to deny or confirm any details, saying simply "we plan to continue our dialogue with the Brazilians through normal diplomatic channels, but those are conversations that of course we would keep private".

President Dilma Rousseff, who is due to visit the United States later this year, "was very concerned. I would even say outraged", Bernardo said.

The communications minister said Brasilia planned to use the case to seek international support for the creation of a multilateral agency to govern the global internet.

"We need a change in the governance of the internet. It cannot be governed by a private US entity when we know that this entity is controlled by the US government," he added.

Not enough evidence

Bernardo also said he did not believe the NSA monitoring of Brazilians' telephone and email data was done with the collusion of Brazilian firms.

He met on Monday with the head of the National Telecommunications Agency Anatel, Joo Rezende, ordering him to check whether domestic companies were involved

O Globo said the US facility in Brasilia was part of a network of 16 "Primary Fornsat Collection Operations" maintained by the NSA around the world to intercept transmissions from foreign satellites.

Brazil leases eight satellites.

The daily said it did not have enough evidence to say whether the US operation continued after 2002.

It also published an NSA document dated September 2010 which seemed to indicate the Brazilian embassy in Washington and the Brazilian mission to the UN in New York were targeted by the agency.

In limbo

Psaki refused to comment on the allegations saying "we're not going to comment publicly on every specific alleged intelligence activity".

The new reports came as the former CIA contractor Snowden, aged 30, remained in limbo in a Moscow airport as he seeks a safe haven in Latin America having fled the US where he faces three felony charges.

The leftist leaders of Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua, who have strained ties with Washington, have all offered him asylum.

But he cannot leave the airport without a travel document after the US revoked his passport.

Washington has urged Russia to hand him over as a gesture of good will because the two sides have no extradition agreement.

The US has warned "any country where he may be moving in transit, where he could end up and certainly any country that were to grant asylum, that could have an impact, of course, on our bilateral relationship", Psaki said.

Manning was 'upset' over Iraq, witness

Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of espionage, was "upset" about the plight of Iraqi civilians before he handed over a trove of secret files to WikiLeaks, a witness testified on Monday.

The Army private was dismayed over an incident in which 15 Iraqi civilians had been jailed - with US backing for handing out pamphlets criticising the government, said Sergeant David Sadtler, who helped oversee Manning's work as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad.

Manning "was concerned that this was happening," said Sadtler, who was called as a witness for the defence.

"He was upset at the situation."

Manning's lawyers focused on the episode as they began to present the case for the defence, painting a picture of a conscientious young man bothered by injustice and eager to shed light on US foreign policy.

In an earlier statement to the court, Manning said the Iraqis who were arrested had no ties to militants and their pamphlets were only a "scholarly critique" of government corruption.

Sadtler said Manning was up on international events and that other troops in his unit would come to him "if they needed to know what was going on in the world".

‘Delightful blood lust’

Manning, aged 25, has admitted to giving WikiLeaks more than 700 000 secret military intelligence files and diplomatic cables in the worst leak of classified information in American history.

He has pleaded guilty to lesser offenses that could carry a 20-year prison sentence.

But he is contesting 21 other charges, including the most serious count that he knew he was "aiding the enemy" by funnelling the files to the website. That charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Manning's lawyers earlier filed motions asking the military judge to dismiss several counts against their client, including the most serious charge that he "aided" al-Qaeda by spilling secrets.

The defence lawyers argued prosecutors lack evidence to back allegations he broke rules for using military computers, stole government "property", disclosed email addresses and assisted the enemy when he gave classified files to the anti-secrecy website.

The defence opened the proceedings by playing a 39min video of a 2007 US helicopter attack in Baghdad that went viral in 2010 after Manning passed the footage to WikiLeaks, which released the clip under the title "Collateral Murder".

The disturbing video, from a cockpit gunsight, shows two Apache helicopters firing at a group of Iraqi men whom the crew mistakenly believed were carrying weapons.

Two of those killed in the assault were Iraqis working for the Reuters news agency.

Manning has told the court the video troubled him, particularly jokes made by the air crew that showed what he called "seemingly delightful blood lust".

Talented

The prosecution rested its case last week but suffered an embarrassing setback after acknowledging the military had lost the contract Manning signed laying out the terms of his access to classified information.

As the trial entered its sixth week at Fort Meade in Maryland, north of Washington, the first defence witness told the court Manning had been one of the most talented members of an intelligence analysis unit, excelling at "data mining".

"He was our best analyst by far when it came to developing products," said Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Ehresman, who oversaw intelligence work produced by Manning and other enlisted soldiers.

Unlike other troops who often needed assignments to be spelled out in detail, Manning was the "go-to guy" and "would come up with exactly what you were looking for," he said.

Ehresman and two other witnesses said there were no rules in Manning's unit barring soldiers from running an executable file or program off of a CD.

The testimony was meant to bolster the defence’s argument that Manning did not exceed his authorised access to government databases or violate computer regulations.

The defence also called a former chief prosecutor of terror suspects at the US prison at its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Morris Davis, to try to cast doubt on the importance of documents leaked by Manning about detainees at the jail.

The "detainee assessment briefs" on Guantanamo inmates, which were leaked by Manning, were superficial biographical information that "were so wildly inaccurate as not to be useful" to prosecutors, Davis told the court.

The case has taken on added weight in the aftermath of another round of leaks from a former contractor for the National Security Agency.

Edward Snowden fled to Hong Kong and later to Moscow after handing over documents to the media revealing far-reaching US electronic surveillance of phone records and Internet traffic.

Obama still to decide on Afghan troops

US President Barack Obama has not yet decided how many troops to keep in Afghanistan after 2014, but a total pullout is one of the options under consideration, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

Pentagon spokesperson George Little, in a news briefing, declined comment on whether Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel supported keeping US forces in Afghanistan after 2014, saying he would not disclose Hagel's private recommendations to Obama.