Kuwait sends $200m worth of oil to Egypt
Kuwait has sent two oil tankers carrying crude and diesel worth $200m to Egypt, a Kuwaiti newspaper said on Sunday, part of a $4bn aid package pledged by the Gulf Arab state last week after the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.
Kuwait last week joined other oil-producing Gulf states in pledging a massive aid package worth $12bn to Egypt in a show of support after the army toppled the Muslim Brotherhood government. Most US-allied Gulf monarchies regard the Brotherhood as a threat.
Kuwait's Arabic-language al-Rai newspaper quoted oil sources as saying that an oil tanker carrying between 90 000 and 100 000 tonnes of diesel that happened to be travelling through the Suez Canal was diverted to Egypt. A second tanker with 1.1 million barrels of crude was ordered to sail towards Egypt, it said.
The newspaper estimated the value of the cargo on each ship at $100m.
Kuwaiti officials were not immediately available to comment on the report.
The state news agency KUNA said last week that Kuwait's aid package would comprise a $2bn central bank deposit, a $1bn grant and $1bn in oil products. It did not say when the aid would be delivered.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had earlier pledged a total of $8bn in aid to Egypt.
The rise of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt since 2011 had unsettled most Gulf Arab states, including the UAE, which feared it would embolden Islamists at home.
Mursi became president a year ago in Egypt's first freely contested election but was ousted by the military after mass protests against his rule, which critics said was marked by creeping authoritarianism and mismanagement of the economy.
Kuwait has in the past coordinated policy with Saudi Arabia and the UAE by pledging financial aid for Gulf neighbours hit by social unrest such as Bahrain and Oman, but also Arab states further afield such as Morocco and Jordan.
The aid to Egypt from the three Gulf Arab oil producers is expected to help Cairo avoid a balance of payments crisis and overcome fuel shortages that were partly responsible for increasing public anger towards Mursi.
It will also ease pressure on Cairo to conclude long-running talks with the International Monetary Fund on a $4.8bn loan. However, a widening fiscal gap and political turmoil following Mursi's toppling last week will remain a pressing challenge for Egyptian authorities, analysts said.
Qatar lent Egypt more than $7bn during Mursi's year in power but other Gulf states remained aloof, wary of the Muslim Brotherhood's potential influence in their own conservative, dynastically ruled countries.
Australia to scrap carbon tax
Australia plans to scrap its carbon tax and bring forward an emissions trading scheme, Treasurer Chris Bowen said on Sunday, a policy shift certain to be a focal point in the forthcoming election.
Under current plans, Australia would move from the current fixed price on carbon essentially a tax assessed on larger companies entitling them to produce carbon emissions to a floating price in July 2015.
However, since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd regained the leadership of the governing Labour party last month, there has been mounting pressure to ditch the unpopular tax sooner.
Bowen said in a television interview that the tax would be axed and a planned emissions trading scheme, under which assessments for emissions are subject to market forces, brought forward.
He gave no details and said Rudd would announce the full plan in the coming days.
"It is no secret that we have been looking at this, that we are heading in this direction," Bowen told Channel Ten.
"We have believed in an emissions trading scheme for some time. What we are seeing is an emissions trading scheme being implemented earlier than was envisaged."
The carbon tax, set at A$24.15 a tonne, applies to around 300 of Australia's biggest polluters, including mining giant BHP Billiton, Qantas Airways and BlueScope Steel.
The emissions trading scheme would replace that with a floating price, based on current EU carbon futures and expected to be cheaper for big business.
Any new carbon plan cannot be legislated until after the elections, due to take place between late August and November. The conservative opposition has promised to scrap the carbon price if it wins office.
The planned change could undermine the government's budget strategy, as the carbon tax was due to raise A$8.14bn ($7.38bn) in 2013-14, and A$8.6bn in 2014-15. The shift could see revenue cut by around A$5.8bn in 2014-15.
Bowen would not be drawn on the impact on the budget, but said it would be "substantial" and would run to "several billion" Australian dollars.
The carbon tax was introduced last year under former prime minister Julia Gillard, ousted by Rudd in an internal party vote last month. He reclaimed the job she took from him in a similar fashion in 2010, shortly before the last election.
Rudd's reinstatement as prime minister has give Labor a boost from poor ratings in opinion polls. Surveys show Rudd is preferred by voters to opposition leader Tony Abbott, but Labor still trails the opposition narrowly.
Putin explores Baltic Sea shipwreck
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday dived to the bottom of the Baltic Sea aboard a submersible to explore the wreck of a ship that sank in 1869.
State television pictures showed Putin climbing aboard the Sea Explorer 5 underwater research vessel for the half-hour dive to the wreck of a frigate that sank in the Gulf of Finland.
"It is lying on its right side," Putin said in televised reports afterwards, saying the vessel was well-preserved.
"Indeed, it's in perfect state, the name of the ship can be clearly read.
"It's not scary, it's very interesting," he added, referring to the experience.
Television broadcast green-tinted footage showing the Russian strongman carefully inspecting the shipwreck from inside the submersible.
He said he was not at the controls himself, noting he was not skilled enough. "You have to have lots of experience to operate this machine," he was quoted as saying.
The Oleg was discovered by Russian divers in 2003 and is now being studied by scientists.
It lies at a depth of 60m between the islands of Gogland and Sommers.
The 60-year-old sports-mad president, who returned to the Kremlin for a third term last year, prides himself on keeping in peak physical condition and has raised eyebrows with a series of media-friendly stunts in recent years.
A self-professed thrill-seeker, Putin in 2009 dived to the bottom of Lake Baikal in Siberia aboard a mini-submarine.
In 2011, he announced that he had discovered two ancient urns while scuba diving in the Black Sea in 2011, but last year the Kremlin admitted the stunt was staged.
Italy's interior minister urged to quit
A leading Italian newspaper on Monday urged the
deputy of head of Italy's fragile ruling
coalition to resign over the expulsion of the wife and daughter of dissident
Kazakh oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, who also serves as deputy premier, was not told of the operation in which Ablyazov's wife Anna Shalabayeva and their 6-year-old daughter Alua were expelled in May, the government said in a statement on Friday.
It said it had now withdrawn the deportation order.
The incident has added to the headaches facing Prime Minister Enrico Letta, who was already struggling to contain coalition tensions between Alfano's centre-right People of Freedom (PDL) and his own centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
Italian newspapers reported that at least four senior officials, including Alfano's own chief of staff could be sacked over the incident, and La Repubblica called for Alfano, a key lieutenant of centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi, to go.
"A minister who doesn't know about an operation of this kind and is not in control of the police is both responsible for everything and good for nothing: He should resign," the left-leaning newspaper said in a front-page editorial.
Economic interests
Members of Alfano's People of Freedom party rejected the demand, saying La Repubblica was trying to bring down the government only months after the deadlocked national election in February which forced the creation of the uneasy coalition.
The PD, wary about exacerbating problems for Letta, has been more circumspect but Dario Nardelli, a senior deputy, said "it is in Alfano's interest to clear up this situation".
Italy has major economic interests in Kazakhstan, including energy group Eni's stake in the giant Kashagan oil field. The case has also highlighted the close relations between Berlusconi's former government, in which Alfano served as justice minister, and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the oil-rich state for 17 years.
On Monday, Berlusconi, whose own legal problems have stoked coalition tensions, denied a report in the Unione Sarda newspaper that he had met Nazarbayev in Sardinia to discuss the case on 6 July, while the Kazakh leader was on holiday.
Letta has pledged to continue investigations into the deportation of Shalabayeva, who was hustled onto a private plane to Kazakhstan despite having a valid Latvian residence permit enabling her to stay in the European Union.
Ablyazov, a banker and ex-energy minister turned bitter critic of Nazarbayev, fled Kazakhstan after his bank BTA was declared insolvent and nationalised in 2009.
'Hostage' of the government
He was not present when Italian police raided the couple's Rome villa on 29 May and has accused the Kazakh government of "kidnapping" his family.
In an interview with La Repubblica on Monday, his eldest daughter Madina said her mother had been made a "hostage" of the government, which has been severely criticised for its treatment of political opponents by groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
"The possibilities open to my father's enemies are unlimited as this extraordinary expulsion proves once again," she said.
The Italian government has asked Kazakhstan to safeguard Shalabayeva's rights but Kazakh authorities say she will not be able to leave pending an investigation into allegations she illegally obtained passports for relatives of Ablyazov.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, who also serves as deputy premier, was not told of the operation in which Ablyazov's wife Anna Shalabayeva and their 6-year-old daughter Alua were expelled in May, the government said in a statement on Friday.
It said it had now withdrawn the deportation order.
The incident has added to the headaches facing Prime Minister Enrico Letta, who was already struggling to contain coalition tensions between Alfano's centre-right People of Freedom (PDL) and his own centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
Italian newspapers reported that at least four senior officials, including Alfano's own chief of staff could be sacked over the incident, and La Repubblica called for Alfano, a key lieutenant of centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi, to go.
"A minister who doesn't know about an operation of this kind and is not in control of the police is both responsible for everything and good for nothing: He should resign," the left-leaning newspaper said in a front-page editorial.
Economic interests
Members of Alfano's People of Freedom party rejected the demand, saying La Repubblica was trying to bring down the government only months after the deadlocked national election in February which forced the creation of the uneasy coalition.
The PD, wary about exacerbating problems for Letta, has been more circumspect but Dario Nardelli, a senior deputy, said "it is in Alfano's interest to clear up this situation".
Italy has major economic interests in Kazakhstan, including energy group Eni's stake in the giant Kashagan oil field. The case has also highlighted the close relations between Berlusconi's former government, in which Alfano served as justice minister, and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the oil-rich state for 17 years.
On Monday, Berlusconi, whose own legal problems have stoked coalition tensions, denied a report in the Unione Sarda newspaper that he had met Nazarbayev in Sardinia to discuss the case on 6 July, while the Kazakh leader was on holiday.
Letta has pledged to continue investigations into the deportation of Shalabayeva, who was hustled onto a private plane to Kazakhstan despite having a valid Latvian residence permit enabling her to stay in the European Union.
Ablyazov, a banker and ex-energy minister turned bitter critic of Nazarbayev, fled Kazakhstan after his bank BTA was declared insolvent and nationalised in 2009.
'Hostage' of the government
He was not present when Italian police raided the couple's Rome villa on 29 May and has accused the Kazakh government of "kidnapping" his family.
In an interview with La Repubblica on Monday, his eldest daughter Madina said her mother had been made a "hostage" of the government, which has been severely criticised for its treatment of political opponents by groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
"The possibilities open to my father's enemies are unlimited as this extraordinary expulsion proves once again," she said.
The Italian government has asked Kazakhstan to safeguard Shalabayeva's rights but Kazakh authorities say she will not be able to leave pending an investigation into allegations she illegally obtained passports for relatives of Ablyazov.
Spain PM under pressure in party scandal
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy faced
calls to explain himself or resign over his alleged support for the ruling
Popular Party's disgraced former treasurer, who headed to court on Monday over
a slush fund scandal.
The 58-year-old, grey-bearded premier has denied any wrongdoing and refused to comment in past weeks on the growing controversy centred on former party treasurer Luis Barcenas.
Pressure on Rajoy mounted, however, as more allegations were revealed and as the 55-year-old Barcenas faced a High Court judge to answer questions over secret political payments.
Barcenas was called to appear in the Madrid court after conservative daily El Mundo last week published what it said was an original page from Barcenas' slush fund ledger and delivered the document to the court.
The excerpt purportedly showed extra payments from a secret fund to party officials including Rajoy when he was a minister under then prime minister Jose Maria Aznar in 1997, 1998 and 1999.
Barcenas is suspected of running a slush fund financed by corporate donors who were then rewarded with public contracts. The cash was allegedly used to supplement senior party members' salaries.
Illegal financing for 20 years
In the latest blow to Rajoy, the conservative daily El Mundo on Sunday published friendly mobile text messages between the prime minister and Barcenas from May 2011 to March 2013, ending about two months after the scandal erupted.
"Luis, I understand, be strong. I will call you tomorrow. Best wishes," said one of the messages reportedly from Rajoy to Barcenas, dated 18 January when El Mundo first published allegations over the slush fund.
"It is not good to try to determine what we will say or to comment on things that must be presented to the courts, which we must all respect," read another message allegedly sent by Rajoy.
Barcenas reportedly told El Mundo in an interview published on 7 July that the Popular Party had engaged in illegal financing for nearly 20 years.
The Popular Party has repeatedly denied secret financing allegations.
The leader of Spain's main opposition Socialist Party, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, on Sunday accused the premier of "serious collusion" with Barcenas and said he was severing all contact with the prime minister and his party.
Demands for explanation
"Given the unsustainable political situation in Spain, the Socialist Party calls for the immediate resignation of Mariano Rajoy as head of the government," he said.
But few people in Spain expect Rajoy to step down given his party's outright parliamentary majority.
An editorial in leading daily El Pais on Monday demanded an explanation from the premier.
"Out of respect for the democratic system, the citizens and his own party and voters, the head of government must give a true explanation to parliament," it said.
"Otherwise it will be impossible for him to regain his credibility."
Rajoy has so far resisted calls to appear before parliament over the scandal and has carefully avoided even mentioning the name Barcenas.
27% unemployment
But he is expected to face the press on Monday after hosting a visit by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The corruption allegations have outraged Spaniards suffering in a recession with a record unemployment rate of more than 27%. Dozens of protesters rallied outside the Popular Party headquarters in Madrid on Sunday.
Barcenas is already behind bars while under investigation in a separate graft case.
A Spanish judge remanded Barcenas to custody on 27 June over alleged money laundering and tax fraud. He said the move was aimed at preventing him from fleeing and to preserve evidence.
Barcenas is being investigated over tens of millions of euros he allegedly stashed in Swiss bank accounts.
The 58-year-old, grey-bearded premier has denied any wrongdoing and refused to comment in past weeks on the growing controversy centred on former party treasurer Luis Barcenas.
Pressure on Rajoy mounted, however, as more allegations were revealed and as the 55-year-old Barcenas faced a High Court judge to answer questions over secret political payments.
Barcenas was called to appear in the Madrid court after conservative daily El Mundo last week published what it said was an original page from Barcenas' slush fund ledger and delivered the document to the court.
The excerpt purportedly showed extra payments from a secret fund to party officials including Rajoy when he was a minister under then prime minister Jose Maria Aznar in 1997, 1998 and 1999.
Barcenas is suspected of running a slush fund financed by corporate donors who were then rewarded with public contracts. The cash was allegedly used to supplement senior party members' salaries.
Illegal financing for 20 years
In the latest blow to Rajoy, the conservative daily El Mundo on Sunday published friendly mobile text messages between the prime minister and Barcenas from May 2011 to March 2013, ending about two months after the scandal erupted.
"Luis, I understand, be strong. I will call you tomorrow. Best wishes," said one of the messages reportedly from Rajoy to Barcenas, dated 18 January when El Mundo first published allegations over the slush fund.
"It is not good to try to determine what we will say or to comment on things that must be presented to the courts, which we must all respect," read another message allegedly sent by Rajoy.
Barcenas reportedly told El Mundo in an interview published on 7 July that the Popular Party had engaged in illegal financing for nearly 20 years.
The Popular Party has repeatedly denied secret financing allegations.
The leader of Spain's main opposition Socialist Party, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, on Sunday accused the premier of "serious collusion" with Barcenas and said he was severing all contact with the prime minister and his party.
Demands for explanation
"Given the unsustainable political situation in Spain, the Socialist Party calls for the immediate resignation of Mariano Rajoy as head of the government," he said.
But few people in Spain expect Rajoy to step down given his party's outright parliamentary majority.
An editorial in leading daily El Pais on Monday demanded an explanation from the premier.
"Out of respect for the democratic system, the citizens and his own party and voters, the head of government must give a true explanation to parliament," it said.
"Otherwise it will be impossible for him to regain his credibility."
Rajoy has so far resisted calls to appear before parliament over the scandal and has carefully avoided even mentioning the name Barcenas.
27% unemployment
But he is expected to face the press on Monday after hosting a visit by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The corruption allegations have outraged Spaniards suffering in a recession with a record unemployment rate of more than 27%. Dozens of protesters rallied outside the Popular Party headquarters in Madrid on Sunday.
Barcenas is already behind bars while under investigation in a separate graft case.
A Spanish judge remanded Barcenas to custody on 27 June over alleged money laundering and tax fraud. He said the move was aimed at preventing him from fleeing and to preserve evidence.
Barcenas is being investigated over tens of millions of euros he allegedly stashed in Swiss bank accounts.
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