NEWS,17.06.2013

Poll shows confidence in Obama slipping

Confidence in President Barack Obama has dropped below 50% to its lowest level in 19 months as Americans worry over broad government surveillance and other controversies, a poll showed Monday.
The tumbling approval numbers come as the White House faces criticism about a domestic program that gathers data on millions of Americans, the US tax agency's targeting of conservative groups which applied for tax-exempt status, and secret collection of journalists' phone records.
Obama's approval rating has now dropped to 45%, an eight-point slide since mid-May, according to CNN which conducted the survey.
Some 54% of the public say they disapprove of how the president is handling his job, marking the first time since November 2011 that a CNN poll showed a majority of Americans with a negative view of Obama.
It shows that for the first time in Obama's presidency, half of Americans do not believe he is honest and trustworthy.
"The drop in Obama's support is fueled by a dramatic 17-point decline over the past month among people under 30, who, along with black Americans, had been the most loyal part of the Obama coalition," CNN polling director Keating Holland said.
Fifty-one percent of respondents say that the existing National Security Agency program that scoops up a billion phone records per day - a programme leaked by a former defense contractor - is appropriate as part of counter-terrorism efforts.
But 43% say Obama has crossed the line in restricting civil liberties in order to fight terrorism, according to the telephone poll of 1 014 people 11-13 June.
"It is clear that revelations about NSA surveillance programs have damaged Obama's standing with the public, although older controversies like the IRS matter may have begun to take their toll as well," Holland said.
Obama opponents have seized on an inspector's damning May report which concluded that Internal Revenue Service agents inappropriately targeted tea party groups, to highlight abuse of power by the administration.
They also pointed to the White House's handling of a deadly attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya last 11 September, and revelations that the Justice Department ordered the seizure of reporters' phone records as part of a leak probe.
Number two House Republican Eric Cantor told CNN that the poll sends a "troubling" message to Obama in that the public is witnessing "a government that has abused its power, and, frankly, has lost focus on the issue that most Americans care about, which is getting people back to work".
But he held fire on the surveillance programmes themselves, saying he believed they strike a balance between civil liberties and national security.

Obama: Make peace permanent in N Ireland

US President Barack Obama on Monday urged young people in Northern Ireland to finish making "permanent peace" and set an example to other parts of the world stricken by religious conflict, violence and war.

Obama, accompanied by his wife Michelle, stopped in Belfast before leaving for the G8 summit, which is being held at a secluded lakeside hotel not far from the site of one of the worst killings in the province's conflict.

A 1998 peace agreement largely ended more than three decades of violence in the British-controlled province between mainly Catholic Irish nationalists seeking union with Ireland and predominantly Protestant unionists who want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

But militant nationalists, who include former operatives who split from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) after it declared a ceasefire, still stage sporadic gun and bomb attacks.

‘A courageous path toward permanent peace’

US leaders have a long history of promoting peace in Northern Ireland and Obama was eager to put his stamp on the issue.

"If you continue your courageous path toward a permanent peace...that won't just be good for you. It will be good for this entire island, for the United Kingdom, for Europe, and it will be good for the world," he told an amphitheatre packed with students.

Obama said people experiencing ethnic, religious, and tribal conflict elsewhere in the world were watching what was happening in Northern Ireland.

"You are their blueprint to follow," he said. "You are their proof of what's possible. Hope is contagious. They're watching to see what you do next."

He did not specifically mention the war in Syria, which is expected to dominate part of the discussions among leaders at the G8.

The summit site is 8km from Enniskillen, where an IRA bomb tore through a mainly Protestant crowd at a memorial service for Britain's war dead in 1987, killing 11 and wounding 63.

The deaths rocked support among Irish Catholics for the IRA and pushed its leaders towards dialogue with Unionists, which lead to a ceasefire and the peace deal.

‘Your choice’

The summit host, British Prime Minister David Cameron, is gambling that the remnants of the IRA are too weak to trouble the visiting leaders.

Obama said there was a time when no one could imagine that such a summit could be held in Northern Ireland.

He encouraged the students to move forward with the progress made by their political leaders and parents who helped achieve peace.

"Ultimately, whether your communities deal with the past and face the future united, together, isn't something you have to wait for somebody else to do that's a choice you have to make right now," he said.

Snowden dismisses claim he is Chinese spy

The young intelligence technician who leaked details of the vast US programme to monitor private internet traffic on Monday dismissed claims that he was working as a Chinese agent.
"This is a predictable smear that I anticipated before going public," Edward Snowden said in an online interview hosted by the Guardian newspaper in which he was asked why he had gone to Hong Kong before making his revelations.
Earlier, AP reported that Snowden defended his disclosure of top-secret US spying programs in an online chat and attacked US officials for calling him a traitor.

He adds the government will not silence him by jailing or, in his words, murdering him.

The Guardian said that its website hosted an online chat with Snowden, in hiding in Hong Kong, with reporter Glenn Greenwald receiving and posting his questions.

Snowden says he did not reveal any US operations against what he called legitimate military targets, but instead showed the NSA is hacking civilian infrastructure like universities and private businesses.

US officials say the data-gathering programmess were legal and operated under court supervision.

An e-mail to the NSA for comment was not immediately returned.

Merkel: US helped foil terror plot

Germany's chancellor says US intelligence was key to foiling a large-scale terror plot, acknowledging her country is "dependent" on co-operating with American spy services.

But Angela Merkel also told broadcaster RTL on Monday that she was "surprised" to learn of the scope of recently leaked US spying programmes.
Merkel said the US must clarify what information on people's communications is monitored and how, reiterating that she will raise the issue in talks with President Barack Obama in Berlin on Wednesday.
However, Merkel said security services could have not foiled a 2007 terror plot without "tips from American sources".
Four Islamic extremists were then arrested while preparing an explosive device with power equivalent to more than 400kg of TNT that authorities said was meant to attack American soldiers and citizens in Germany.

NEWS,12.05.2013

G7 to press on with bank reforms

Group of Seven finance officials agreed on Saturday to redouble efforts to deal with failing banks and gave a green light to Japan's drive to galvanise its economy.
British finance minister George Osborne said the finance ministers and central bankers meeting 40 miles outside London focused on unfinished bank reforms, with signs that plans for a eurozone banking union are fraying.
"It is important to complete swiftly our work to ensure that no banks are too big to fail," Osborne told reporters after hosting a two-day meeting in a stately home set in rolling countryside.
"We must put regimes in place ... to deal with failing banks and to protect taxpayers and to do so in a globally consistent manner," he said.
The emergency rescue of Cyprus after a near meltdown in March served as a reminder of the need to finish an overhaul of the banking sector, five years after the world financial crisis began.
Germany has come under pressure to give more support to a banking union in the euro zone. The plan could help strengthen the single currency area, but Berlin worries it may pay too much for future bank bailouts if it signs up to a scheme to wind up stricken lenders.
While the first step to create a single bank supervisor under the European Central Bank - looks set to be in place by mid-2014, a second pillar, a 'resolution' fund to close failed banks, is in doubt. And there is little prospect that a single deposit guarantee scheme will ever see the light of day.
A senior US Treasury official said the talks at the 17th-century Hartwell House zeroed in on the need not just for better bank supervision but also to clean up balance sheets so lending can pick up.
"There was a sense of urgency among the euro area participants," the official said.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble countered that the eurozone was no longer the main risk to the world economy.
As at previous international meetings, Japan escaped any censure for printing money on a scale that has pushed the yen sharply lower.
Osborne said the G7 - the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain, Italy, France and Canada - reaffirmed that fiscal and monetary policy should be aimed at domestic concerns, not currency manipulation.
"We will not target exchange rates," Osborne said. "I would say that the statement by the G7 of earlier this year was a successful statement and one that has been held to."
The yen hit a four-year low against the dollar on Friday , driven in part by Japanese investors shifting into foreign bonds, a move that had been expected since the Bank of Japan unveiled a massive stimulus plan.
But having urged Tokyo for years to do something to revive its economy, other world powers are not in a strong position to complain now that it is doing so. Then there is the fact that central banks such as the Federal Reserve and Bank of England have printed money in the way the Bank of Japan is.
Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said the G7 had levelled no criticism at Japan's monetary policy but Schaeuble said there had been "intense discussions" and that the situation would be monitored carefully.
Growth debate
Debate has also heated up about the need for governments to ease up on austerity, something Germany, Britain and Canada view with caution but Washington, Paris and Rome favour.
Osborne said there was less disagreement about whether governments should focus on debt-cutting or growth-boosting measures than is commonly assumed.
"Everyone is clear that there needs to be credible medium-term fiscal consolidation ... We also agreed that there needs to be flexibility," he said. "Growth prospects remain uneven and we can't take the global recovery for granted."
But his suggestion before the meeting that it should consider what more monetary policy could do to support economic recovery appeared to fall on deaf ears.
"There wasn't any call to do more," European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi told reporters after the meeting.
"It is quite clear that all central banks have done a lot, each one within its own mandate. So (the meeting) was just taking note of this ... All of us have really been active."
Several officials from visiting delegations questioned why Britain had called the gathering just three weeks after they and others met at International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington, but Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said the informal nature of the discussions had paid dividends.
"Freed from burden to agree a communique, the principals engaged more with each than I can recall before and as a result genuinely made real progress in taking forward some of the questions and issues that are facing the G7," he said.

Experts cautious over equities rally

Optimism is blowing through stock markets around the world, lifting many of them to record high levels but this contrasts with widespread economic gloom and leads some analysts to wonder if some of it is just hot air.
Records have been created with increasing speed since the beginning of May.
The main DAX index in Frankfurt has reached a new record high level, and the markets in London and Tokyo have returned to the levels reached in October 2007 just before the financial crisis began.
Wall Street in New York is leading the way and sets a fresh record almost every day.
But the stock market in Paris lags behind. The main CAC 40 index has just risen to the level last reached in the middle of 2011 and is far below the record high level of almost 7,000 points set in October 2000, and still trails the 4,332 points registered just before the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank in the United States in September 2008.
Analysts at Swiss Life private investment managers commented recently that the markets "are swimming in the midst of paradox", questioning the strong rises at a time when the global economic situation is a long way from being stabilised and is even deepening in some places, including in Europe.
In financial circles, experts give various explanations for the rise of stock markets in mature economies.
Some hold that it is an artificial bull market driven by huge amounts of money pushed into economies by central banks. Others say that the rises are justified because investors are anticipating a recovery of the world economy and a recovery of those stocks which have fallen heavily.
"The dichotomy between the real economy and the financial sphere is widening and this is worrying," commented Guillaume Garabedian, a portfolio manager at French brokers Meeschaert Gestion Privee.
He held that that stock markets were rising mainly because central banks had been applying highly accommodating monetary policies, reducing their key interest rates, and pushing huge amounts of liquidity into the financial sector.
All classes of assets have been boosted by this, even the riskiest assets such as debt bonds issued by crisis-hit countries in southern Europe which are able to place their bonds despite still being in difficulty.
The rise of asset prices could even lead to a new financial bubble, some analysts are beginning to warn.
At Capital Spreads, Jonathan Sudeira said that "despite the efforts of the central banks, the volume of trading is falling and the high levels reached by some shares is beginning to look unjustified for traders who are being asked at the same time not to take account of the economic situation."
The "bulls", meaning those who think that share prices will continue to rise on a healthy and justified basis, also have their arguments. At the moment, they seem to have the upper hand.
"Extremely favourable" context
Portfolio managers in dealing rooms say that investors are encouraged by signs that the US economy is recovering, by underlying strength of activity in Germany, encouraging statements by the leaders of big companies about the outlook for the end of the year, and by the removal of the risk that the eurozone might collapse.
At French Natixis bank, economist Philippe Waechter said that apart from the policies of the central banks, the situation in the United States, still the guiding light for stock markets around the world, was satisfactory and explained why optimism had lifted the indices.
"There is growth, certainly it is moderate, but it is there and so there is positive anticipation," he said.
He noted that portfolio managers were looking for good rates of return from the shares they hold and consequently were inclined to go for riskier shares which offered higher returns.
In addition, companies which were cautious about trying to expand their businesses, were buying their own shares which pushed up the value of those stocks.
"Overall, we are in a context which is extremely favourable for stock markets," he said.
Garabedian said that the question boiled down to analysing the fundamental causes of the rise.
"Because if the markets are rising for reasons which are not sufficiently viable, the correction will be severe," he warned.

Clinton did not make Benghazi call

A seasoned diplomat who penned a highly critical report on security at the US consulate in Libya that was attacked last year defended his scathing assessment on Sunday but absolved then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Thomas Pickering, whose career spans four decades, stood by his conclusion in the report that decisions about the consulate were made well below the secretary's level.
His comments during several television show appearances were unlikely to quiet renewed Republican demands for accountability for the attacks in Benghazi that left four Americans dead, including US Ambassador Chris Stevens. Democrats say Republicans are trying to exploit the Benghazi deaths to undercut Clinton, an early favourite for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.
"We knew where the responsibility rested," said Pickering, who headed the Accountability and Review Board that investigated the attack, along with retired Admiral Mike Mullen, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"They've tried to point a finger at people more senior than where we found the decisions were made," Pickering said of Clinton's critics.
Pickering and Mullen's report released in December found that "systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels" of the State Department meant that security was "inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place."
The Obama administration has tried to move past the controversy, but a steady drip of new information is fuelling Republican claims that the government initially misled the public about the nature of the assault.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week heard a riveting minute-by-minute account from a former top diplomat in Libya about the two night time attacks on 11 September, 2012. Gregory Hicks, a former deputy chief of mission to Libya, detailed his phone conversations from Tripoli with Stevens.
Hicks and two other State Department witnesses criticized the Pickering and Mullen's review. Their complaints centred on a report they consider incomplete, with individuals who weren't interviewed and a focus on the assistant secretary level and lower.
Cover-up
The hearing produced no major revelation but renewed interest in the attacks that happened during the lead-up to the November 2012 presidential election.
The top Republican on the oversight committee, Republican Darrell Issa, said he wants sworn depositions with Pickering and Mullen. Issa said his panel has not been provided sufficient details on the State Department review, such as a list of everyone the investigators interviewed or a full transcript of those conversations.
"We want the facts. We're entitled to the facts. The American people were effectively lied to for a period of about a month," Issa said.
Republicans are insisting on exploring what happened at the consulate, what might be done to prevent future such attacks and what political calculations went into rewriting talking points the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, used on news shows the Sunday after the attack.
A series of e-mails that circulated between the State Department and the CIA led to weakened - and, in some cases, wrong - language that Rice used to describe the assault during a series of five television interviews the Sunday after the attacks.
"I'd call it a cover-up," said Senator John McCain, a Republican. "I would call it a cover-up in the extent that there was wilful removal of information, which was obvious."
2016 campaign
"I was surprised today that they did not probe Secretary Clinton in detail," Senator Kelly Ayotte said, of the review board.
One Republican eyeing a White House run, Senator Rand Paul, said at a public appearance that he thinks the Benghazi attack "precludes Hillary Clinton from ever holding office".
Clinton's allies said Republicans were looking to weaken her ahead of a potential 2016 campaign.
"This has been caught up in the 2016 presidential campaign, this effort to go after Hillary Clinton," said Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat. "They want to bring her in because they think it's a good political show and I think that's unfortunate."