NEWS,21.02.2013

Hope for foreign workers in US

The leading business advocacy group and the largest labor federation say they have a deal on principles for a new visa programme to bring lesser-skilled workers to the US a key component of any immigration overhaul bill. The groups, the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO, announced the breakthrough on Thursday after weeks of closed-doors negotiations at the request of senators involved in crafting an immigration deal in Congress.The principles include agreement to create a mechanism to let businesses more easily hire foreign workers when Americans aren't available to fill jobs. This will require a new kind of worker visa program that does not keep workers in permanent temporary status.But the joint statement from the chamber and AFL-CIO makes clear that more work needs to be done to turn their deal into a bill.

5 big US banks cut mortgage debt

Five of the biggest US banks have cut struggling homeowners' mortgage balances by $19bn, part of a total $45.8bn in relief provided under a landmark settlement over foreclosure abuses. More than 550 000 borrowers received some form of mortgage relief between March 1 and December 31 2012, according to a report issued on Thursday by Joseph Smith, the monitor of the settlement.That translates to about $82 668 per homeowner, according to the report, which is based on the banks' own accounts of their progress.The report says $19.5bn of the $45.8bn in relief was in the form of short sales, in which lenders agree to accept less than what the seller owes on the mortgage.

Horsemeat scandal spreads to Asia

The fallout from Europe's horsemeat scandal has spread far outside the continent, with an imported lasagne brand pulled from shelves in Hong Kong and a new row over the treatment of horses farmed in the Americas.A host of top players have been caught up in the spiralling scandal including Nestle, the world's biggest food company, top beef producer JBS of Brazil and British supermarket chain Tesco.Hong Kong authorities ordered ParknShop, one of the biggest supermarket chains in the city, to remove lasagne made by frozen food giant Findus, one of the firms at the centre of the scandal.The product was imported from Britain and made by French firm Comigel.Hong Kong's Centre for Food Safety said Wednesday that the item "might be adulterated with horsemeat which has not undergone tests for veterinary drugs".The chain, owned by tycoon Li Ka-shing, has about 280 stores in Hong Kong and the neighbouring gaming hub of Macau.In Europe, the Czech Republic became the latest country embroiled in the horsemeat affair, with food inspectors ordering Tesco to withdraw Nowaco brand frozen "beef" lasagne after detecting horsemeat.The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority said it had found horse DNA in two samples of the Nowaco meals manufactured by the Tavola company in Luxembourg.Croatian company Ledo, which imported beef lasagne containing horsemeat into Slovenia, on Wednesday also accused Tavola of being responsible.Supermarkets in Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Ireland, Finland, France, Austria, Norway, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Slovenia have all removed meals from shelves.The Czech authority noted that horsemeat is sold for human consumption in the country, but that if not mentioned on the product label it was misleading to consumers and could lead to a fine of up to three million koruna (€118 000, $159 000).Spanghero, the French firm that sparked the food alert by allegedly passing off 750 tonnes of horsemeat as beef, was on Monday allowed to resume production of minced meat, sausages and ready-to-eat meals.But the company, whose horsemeat found its way into 4.5 million "beef" products sold across Europe, will no longer be allowed to stock frozen meat.The firm's sanitary licence was suspended last Thursday after it was accused of passing off huge quantities of mislabelled meat over a period of six months.Investigators on Wednesday conducted a second day of raids on Spanghero's headquarters in Castelnaudary in southern France, a source close to the probe said, adding they had already seized several documents and copied computer records.About 60 workers from French company Fraisnor, which produces fresh lasagne, demonstrated on Wednesday in the northern town of Feuchy for state financial aid, saying their sales had dived 70% after the scandal.The company, which manufactures about 700 tonnes of fresh lasagne a month, is on the point of laying off some of its employees.Most Swiss supermarkets on Wednesday withdrew horsemeat products from their shelves, not due to the spiralling fake labelling scandal but over allegations of cruel conditions on farms where horses are bred for meat.German discount chain Lidl said it had removed all horsemeat products from its shelves in Switzerland, while the country's second largest supermarket chain, Coop, said it had withdrawn around 20 horsemeat sausage products.The move came amid outcry over an investigative consumer show that aired on Tuesday evening on Swiss public television, featuring images taken by animal protection activists showing starving and visibly sick and suffering horses on farms in a number of countries that provide meat to Swiss stores.The Zurich-based Animal Protection Association had sent investigators to large horsemeat producing countries Canada, the United States, Mexico and Argentina to probe how the animals were kept, transported and slaughtered."Our investigators found that the horses were bred in conditions that did not meet any of the norms in place in Switzerland and the European Union," project leader Sabrina Gurtner said.Coop however said it would continue to sell fresh horsemeat, pointing out that it receives 70% of that meat from France and the remaining 30% from Poland.Switzerland's largest supermarket chain, Migros, meanwhile said it would not withdraw any horsemeat products, saying it trusted its Canadian supplier.Dried horsemeat products are widely consumed in Switzerland.Elsewhere Bolivia's President Evo Morales slammed western fast food as "a threat to humanity" as he accused multinational firms of seeking to block the development of his country's staple food quinoa.The left-wing Bolivian leader slammed capitalist "fast food" for causing cancer and other diseases, in a speech to the UN General Assembly to launch the commemorative year.Morales steered clear of the growing horsemeat scandal which European officials have been keen to stress is a labelling issue not a public health issue.

North Korea top task for new South head

Park Geun-Hye will be sworn in as South Korea's first female president next week - a historic landmark clouded by North Korea's recent nuclear test and threats emanating from Pyongyang. The daughter of the late dictator and vehement anti-communist Park Chung-Hee, Park campaigned on a policy of cautious engagement with Pyongyang in contrast to her hawkish predecessor, Lee Myung-Bak.But her plans are likely to be shelved, at least for the short term, after the 12 February nuclear test angered the public in the South and emboldened hawks in Park's ruling conservative party.The UN Security Council is still debating how to respond, but is almost certain to toughen sanctions on Pyongyang - a move that could trigger a sharp response from the North and possibly even another nuclear test.Kim Jang-Soo, a former defence minister who has been appointed Park's national security adviser, signalled on the same day as the test that the new administration's policy could "not be the same as before".Park strongly condemned the test and warned the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un that it would bring about its own collapse with its complete isolation from the international community.Park's first challenge will be hardliners in her own party who are staunchly opposed to engaging Pyongyang and some of whom have even begun calling in public for South Korea to build its own nuclear deterrent."We urgently need to solve the unbalanced nuclear capability between the two Koreas and may need nuclear arms ourselves for minimum self-defence," said Won Yoo-Chul, a senior member of Park's New Frontier Party.A survey by Gallup Korea published on Wednesday showed more than 60% of South Koreans support the idea of Seoul having its own nuclear weapons capability.At the same time, Park's efforts to mollify her party hawks are being undermined by the increasingly bellicose statements coming from the North.On Tuesday, the North Korean envoy at the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva warned that South Korea faced "final destruction" if Seoul and its allies pushed for tougher UN resolutions over the North's nuclear programme.Kim Yong-Hyun, a professor of North Korea studies at Dongguk University, said Park's hands would be tied after she took office."The UN Security Council will surely impose more sanctions that will be supported by Seoul," Kim said. "In that climate, I see little possibility for substantial cross-border talks for six months at least."Park had promised a package of substantial welfare programmes aimed at the South's rapidly growing elderly population, but the North's test has already resulted in a shift in spending priorities."We are now faced with an unexpected need to increase the defence budget," Park said on Monday.The North has traditionally sought to test the mettle of the South's new leaders as they take office, sometimes with a view to forcing Seoul -and the US - into negotiations.Despite the difficult environment, Moon Chung-In, a politics professor at Yonsei University, said Park needed to move swiftly and "proactively" to position South Korea as the chief international mediator with the North."That way Park will enjoy more diplomatic leverage with China and the US than before... so she needs to take a more open and proactive stance," Moon said.Inter-Korean contacts have been effectively frozen since Seoul accused Pyongyang of torpedoing one of its warships in March 2010, and halted almost all trade and aid to the impoverished North.The North denied involvement, but went on to shell an island on the South Korean side of their disputed maritime border in November 2010, leaving four South Koreans dead and sparking brief fears of a full-scale conflict.Paik Hak-Soon, a North Korean analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank, said the hard-line stance of Park's predecessor, president Lee, had failed to produce any results and should be discarded."If Park takes a confrontational stance, she will end up repeating the same mistake as Lee, who not only failed to curb the North's nuclear ambitions, but also saw inter-Korea relations worsen," Paik said."She needs to act as soon as possible to restart a dialogue, though it won't be politically easy," he said.

Mexico vigilantes kill criminal - claim

Armed vigilantes in southern Mexico engaged in a shootout on Wednesday with a group of men they described as criminals, killing one in what appeared to be the first death related to the month-and-a-half-old "self-defence" movement.The confrontation near the town of Ayutla raised the stakes in a growing movement that has seen residents of several towns arm themselves with a motley assortment of old hunting rifles, shotguns and pistols while conducting patrols and manning checkpoints to fight crime spawned by drug cartels.Bruno Placido, leader of the vigilante movement in the southern state of Guerrero, said one of the civilian patrols caught sight of a group of armed men, who opened fire on the patrol"There was one killed on the side of the criminals," he said.The masked vigilantes frequently stop passing motorists to search for weapons or people whose names are on hand-written lists of "suspects" wanted for crimes like theft and extortion.The vigilantes have opened fire before on motorists who refused to stop, slightly wounding a pair of tourists from Mexico City visiting a local beach in early February. The shootout on Wednesday came one day after the vigilantes freed the last of 42 people detained on suspicion of crimes ranging from theft to extortion and murder, a move that authorities had hoped spelled the beginning of a new, more regulated phase for the "self-defence" groups.The Guerrero state government said the vigilantes turned 20 of the final detainees over to police. It said the other 22 had been suspected of lesser offenses and were released on Tuesday because the vigilantes considered they had been sufficiently punished."The state government foresees that the release of these detainees closes a chapter, and sets things on the road to institutionalising and regulating community police forces," the state government said in a statement.Placido, the vigilantes' leader, confirmed that some prisoners had been turned over.State officials hope the vigilantes can be persuaded to join already-established "community police" forces that operate in some Guerrero towns, where unmasked residents with some training and minimal uniforms, usually printed T-shirts, perform routine patrols and turn over suspects to town assemblies. Following local custom, those assemblies try the suspects and can impose some sentences.The recently formed "self-defence" groups, however, have none of those trappings. They consist of men wearing ski masks and bandanas over their faces while manning the improvised highway checkpoints and patrolling rural areas.Residents tired of rampant crime set up the roadblocks in early January and detained about 53 people. They held the detainees at improvised jails in villages around Ayutla, in some cases for more than 1 month. They released the first 11 detainees in early February.While local media have reported that self-defence groups have spread to 36 communities in eight states, that may exaggerate their numbers. For example, assistants to the mayors of two towns in the State of Mexico, next to Mexico City, where self-defence groups had reportedly formed, denied that any vigilante committees existed in their towns.But "self-defence" represents an attractive option for some rural towns in Guerrero and neighbouring states like Michoacan and Morelos. Because official forces are woefully inadequate and often corrupt, vigilante groups can press to have their members hired by local governments as backup security forcesEven in some of the rougher neighbourhoods on Mexico City's eastern outskirts, improvised block committees have formed to fight crimes like burglaries and muggings."No More Robberies! If We Catch You, We Will Lynch You!" reads one banner that a local block committee hung across the street in the town of Texcoco, east of the capital. A local resident who works at a car wash said residents organized the block committee, called "Vigilant Neighbour Committee", about two years ago in the face of frequent home robberies.Residents ring local church bells to alert each other if they see a crime in progress. The man said they had caught thieves but hadn't lynched any. "The police usually come to pick them up before anything can happen," said the car-wash employee, who did not give his name for fear of reprisals."Before, they would just come into your house to steal, and you would say, 'Sure, take whatever you want,'" said the man. "But nowadays, they beat your family, they start attacking your family."Eduardo Gallo, a prominent anti-crime activist, said the armed community groups pose the danger of becoming vengeful mobs, "but that is what the citizenry is being forced into when they don't have any public safety".Gallo said the "self-defence" groups are likely to hang on, and perhaps grow, if authorities don't guarantee public safety in the wave of drug cartel violence and common crime.Police reform has a long way to go in Mexico, with only about half of the country's police officers vetted and subjected to background checks."I think we are going to see the self-defence phenomenon grow a bit more, and even see them turn into revenge groups, until this hits bottom and the government begins to change its attitude," Gallo said.