NEWS,16.07.2013

Snowden applies for Russia asylum

Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden applied on Tuesday for temporary asylum in Russia, a pro-Kremlin lawyer said, after President Vladimir Putin accused Washington of "trapping" him in the country.

Snowden, wanted by the United States for revealing sensational details of its vast spying operations, is now spending a fourth week in the transit lounge at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport without ever crossing the Russian border.

"The application has been filed with the Russian authorities" through the Federal Migration Service (FMS), said prominent lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, who has been in contact with Snowden.

"I have just left him," he told AFP after meeting the fugitive in the transit zone.

In his application, Snowden had written that he was concerned about his safety should he return to the United States, the lawyer said.

"He wrote that he fears for his life, safety, he fears that torture or death penalty could be applied against him," Kucherena said separately in televised remarks.

Receipt confirmed

"And under these circumstances, understanding his position and situation, the Federal Migration Service should of course grant his request."

The head of the Federal Migration Service, Konstantin Romodanovsky, confirmed it had received the application. Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov referred all questions to the FMS.

Kremlin-friendly lawyer Kucherena participated in Snowden's meeting with rights activists and pro-Kremlin lawmakers at Sheremetyevo last week and said Snowden had contacted him for consultations after the encounter.

Kucherena said he was helping Snowden negotiate the complexities of Russian legislation and the difference between the status of refugee, political asylum and temporary asylum.

"He is actively consulting with me," Kucherena said. "After the meeting we've been in frequent touch."

Russian authorities generally consider an application for temporary asylum for up to three months, with preliminary consideration taking up to five days.

'Trapped' by US pressure

After the application is accepted, an applicant receives a temporary document allowing him to live and travel locally.

Temporary asylum lasts for one year and would in theory give Snowden enough time to find a way to leave Russia, possibly for Latin America. It then can be extended every year for another 12 months.

Snowden flew into Russia from Hong Kong on 23 June and has since been marooned in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo. He was checked in for an Aeroflot flight to Cuba on 24 June but never boarded the plane.

On Monday, Putin said Snowden would leave Russia "as soon as he can" and accused Washington of "trapping" the American in Moscow, saying no country wanted to take in Snowden due to US pressure.

Breaking silence for the first time since he arrived, Snowden, who is essentially stateless after Washington revoked his passport, held the closed-door meeting at the airport on Friday.

At the meeting, he said he would file for asylum in Russia before he could work out a way to travel legally to Latin America, asking the activists to petition Putin on his behalf.

Kremlin green light

Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have indicated that they would be open to offering the 30-year-old a safe haven.

Putin said earlier this month Snowden could claim asylum in Russia only if he stopped his leaks and the activists who had met Snowden on Friday said he promised not to harm the United States.

Even though the Kremlin has repeatedly said it had nothing to do with Snowden, political observers have noted that his meeting with activists at the state-controlled airport would have been impossible without a green light from the Kremlin.

The head of Amnesty International in Russia, Sergei Nikitin, who took part in the airport meeting, said Snowden would likely receive asylum.

"The way everything was organised so quickly, the whole logistics make it obvious for us that there's an interest of the authorities," he told AFP. "So the decision will probably be positive."

Nikitin had said he believed plain-clothed representatives of Russian special services had taken part in Friday's meeting.

Washington has reacted sharply to the possibility that Moscow might offer Snowden a safe haven and accused it of providing him with a "propaganda platform".

 

Kid-free couples fuel high-end boom

While their parents may have scrimped and saved to raise small armies of children on a single paycheck, growing numbers of high-earning Mexican couples are putting the department store before the baby carriage.
Couples with dual incomes but no kids, or "Dinks," are on the rise in Mexico, nearly doubling since 2005. They are buoying a growing high-end goods market, splashing out on everything from expensive lingerie to home decor.
Though just over a million in number, the couples are a gold mine for leading brands, and their spending habits are shoring up consumer demand as Mexico's economy cools.
Sandra Rodarte, 27, an events producer who shops for Apple products and loves fine whiskies, drops at least 10 000 pesos ($780) a month on non-essentials like annual trips to the United States.
She and her live-in boyfriend have no plans to raise a family, she explains while lunching at the exclusive marble-clad shopping mall, Antara, in downtown Mexico City.
"It's more fun, freer ... as a person and as a couple," said Rodarte, who is conscious that being a Dink means going against the grain in a culture that values marriage and motherhood. "Of course there are stigmas. Here in Mexico, women are supposed to leave their homes in white to get married as virgins."
Little data exists on how much Mexican Dinks spend, but a 2008 study by consulting firm De la Riva Group found that each couple shells out about 165 000 pesos ($12 900) per annum, largely on movies, restaurants and bars - or some 220 billion pesos ($17.17bn) in total.
That infusion is helping to boost Mexico's luxury goods market, which is projected to expand 12% this year, on par with growth over the last four years, according to Bain & Company, a consulting firm.
By contrast, total retail sales grew 3.7% last year.
For luxury leather goods maker Coach, Dinks are a growing market, company president Ian Bickley said in an email.
The firm, which set up shop in Mexico a decade ago, now boasts 26 locations, its biggest presence in Latin America, and plans to open a new store in the city of Queretaro this year.
And with good reason.
Spending in Mexico on designer apparel, luxury accessories and fine wines hit $3.88bn in 2012, up from $2.16bn in 2004, according to Euromonitor, a sales tracking firm.
"We see a definite uptick in interest from brands that just a couple of years ago we never imagined ... would be calling us and saying, 'We're interested in Latin America and what can you tell us about Mexico?'" said Franco Calderon, president of Latin American Retail Connection, which helps consumer goods stores set up shop in the region.
His firm is working on plans with luxury lingerie brand Agent Provocateur to debut in Mexico through top-end department store chain Palacio de Hierro.
Falling birth rates, rising spending
Dinks, a concept born in the 1980s, are still a small subset of Mexicans, making up a projected 3.4% of households at the end of 2012. That compares with 4.5% in regional peer Brazil, 14% in the United States and 17.6% in the United Kingdom.
But analysts see the number continuing to grow, thanks to powerful social changes.
Mexican women, who once were far likelier to be looking after children than becoming lawyers, accountants or doctors, are now almost as well educated as men.
In 1960, only 0.5% of women had a university degree. By 2010 the number had leapt to almost 16 percent - just a fraction behind their male peers.
Meanwhile, birth rates in Mexico have plunged to an estimated 2.2 babies per woman this year from 5.7 babies in 1976, according to the national statistics agency.
Unlike in Europe, where the birth rate is a low 1.6, Mexican Dinks typically postpone child bearing rather than avoid it altogether. Seven out of 10 Mexican Dinks in the De la Riva Group survey said they want to have children eventually.
One of them is Tatiana Romero, a 27-year-old licensing compliance expert at software firm The Foundry. She and her boyfriend spend about 10 000 to 11 000 pesos ($780 to $860) a month on non-essentials, including 2 000 pesos ($160) for a nice meal.
Romero, who bought a Mexico City home with her partner this month, said she hopes to have kids by age 33, but for now, she is happy to enjoy "the acquisitive power, the ability to treat ourselves" that comes with two incomes and no children.
A fan of clothing brands from H&M and Zara to Tommy Hilfiger and Hugo Boss, Romero says having a family "is something I grew up with. You dream about getting married and having kids."
The combination of delayed parenthood and dual income has encouraged more expensive tastes.
"You're talking about relatively young couples that have strong purchasing power because they work and have enough discretionary income that they can undoubtedly dedicate to decorating their homes," said Carlos Miranda, vice president of Grupo Axo, which this year brought home decor brand Crate & Barrel to Mexico from the United States.
Axo, which also operates cosmetics company Sephora and clothing label Emporio Armani, has already opened two Crate & Barrel stores in Mexico City, with plans for a third in the city of Puebla.
Hey big spender
To be sure, some see potential headwinds over Dinks' creditworthiness and financial optimism.
"They're spending more than they can afford," said Bain & Co Partner Claudia D'Arpizio, who describes the group as "Henrys," "High Earners, Not Rich Yet."
The De la Riva study suggested that saving is not a big priority for Dinks. As a group, however, they earn more on average than all other types of households, according to a 2010 survey by the Mexican statistics office.
What is clear is that spending by the no-kids set is resilient.
Sales at department stores Palacio de Hierro and Liverpool rose about 10% in the first quarter from the year earlier, almost double revenue growth at supermarket chains Wal-Mart de Mexico and Soriana over the same period.
"Clearly the soft patch has had a bigger impact on Mexico's upcoming middle class and not necessarily on the wealthier segments of the economy, which continue to consume," said Will Landers, an equity portfolio manager at BlackRock.

Greeks strike against public sector cuts

Trains ground to a halt and hospitals worked with emergency staff as Greek workers went on strike on Tuesday in protest at government plans to fire thousands of public sector employees.
Athens must reform and shrink its civil service to receive more bailout funds from foreign lenders but the latest plan of job cuts has sparked uproar among Greeks struggling with an unemployment rate of nearly 27%.
More than a week of marches by municipal workers are expected to culminate in a rally before parliament in the capital, with garbage collectors, bus drivers, bank employees and journalists among the groups joining the walkout.
"We are continuing our fight to put an end to policies that annihilate workers and drive the economy to an even greater recession," said the private sector union GSEE, which called the strike with public sector union ADEDY.
"We will stand up to those who, with wrong and dead-end choices, have driven the Greek people to poverty and despair."
Flights to and from Athens will be disrupted as civil aviation unions stage a four-hour work stoppage in solidarity.
City transport was also affected with bus and trolley bus drives holding work stoppages in the morning and in the evening. Trains stopped running and tax offices and municipal services remain shut.
Representing about 2.5 million workers, the two unions have brought workers to the streets repeatedly since Greece slid into a debt crisis in late 2009.
The latest strike comes before a parliamentary vote on Wednesday on reforms Athens agreed with its European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders as a condition for €6.8bn ($8.9bn) in aid.
Among the measures included in the bill are job cuts for teachers, municipal police and local government posts.
Demolition of rights
On Thursday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble will visit Athens, which is also expected to draw protests from Greeks who blame European paymaster Germany for austerity policies that have shrunk pay levels and boosted unemployment.
Greece's lenders, which have bailed it out twice with €240bn in aid, have grown impatient with the slow progress it has made in streamlining a 600,000-strong public sector widely seen as corrupt and inefficient.
But with unemployment at an all-time high and at twice the euro zone average, many Greeks are furious at plans to put 12 500 workers into a "mobility pool" by September, giving them eight months to find work in another department or get fired.
Some 25 000 workers will be placed in the scheme by the end of the year.
The plan has turned into the latest headache for Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's fragile coalition government, which nearly collapsed last month after he abruptly shut the state broadcaster ERT and fired its 2 600 staff.
ADEDY accused Samaras of using the "coup-like" closure of ERT to pave the way for mass firings in the public sector.
"The policy of mass layoffs, the dismantling of public institutions responsible and the demolition of any notion of labor rights inaugurate a new undemocratic governance of the country," the union said.

Dutch look again at tax treaties

The Dutch government is reviewing double taxation treaties with developing countries to determine if they are unfair and should be renegotiated, State Secretary of Finance Minister Frans Weekers said.
The decision to examine the treaties, some of which date back to the 1950s, came after several studies found that emerging economies are losing revenue due to low tax rates set in the deals.
It also comes amid a growing international effort to halt tax dodging by multinationals.
The Netherlands has more than 90 double taxation agreements. Several thousand international corporations, including 80 of the world's largest, use the Netherlands to re-route profits from dividends, royalties and interest, often paying no withholding tax in the country of origin.
From the Netherlands, capital can be transferred to tax havens, often reducing tax rates to below 10%. The use of holding companies known as "brass-plaque" companies has led to annual capital flows of €8 trillion ($10.44 trillion), or more than 10 times annual Dutch GDP.
"These investments via the Netherlands are a problem because they involve unintended use of Dutch tax treaties and investment treaties," said tax researcher Francis Weyzig of Utrecht Univercity.
The government commissioned the outside study into its dual taxation agreements (DTA) with Bangladesh, Ghana, Uganda, Zambia and the Philippines, a spokesman for the Ministry for Development said.
It was launched shortly after Mongolia cancelled its treaty with the Netherlands, accusing the Dutch of facilitating fiscal avoidance.
"We are looking at whether these treaties are possibly damaging for these countries," Weekers told Reuters. "We are looking (to see) if they can be misused and if there is a level playing field."
Weekers said the study would determine if rich countries have won better terms than developing ones.
A June study by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations found that use of the Dutch tax system by multinational corporations causes €771m ($1.01bn) in annual lost tax revenue in 28 developing countries.
There are at least 12 000 "brass-plaque" firms known as special purpose institutions in the Netherlands. In 2010, €278bn in dividends, royalties and interest were channelled through them.
The companies create roughly 13 000 jobs and generate €3-3.4bn in annual income for the Dutch economy through taxes, wages and services, less than half a percent of annual GDP, a government-backed study by Amsterdam University's Centre for Economic Research (SEO), found.

NEWS,19.05.2012

Europe's economic woes dominate G8 gathering

 

US President Barack Obama will press European leaders to ease up on fiscal austerity and focus on economic growth at a summit that will discuss ways to stem turmoil in the euro zone and head off the risk of global contagion.At the wooded Camp David retreat in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains, Obama and leaders from other large economic powers will try to forge a common approach to tackling a crisis that threatens the future of Europe's 17-nation single currency.Though no major policy decisions are expected from the Group of Eight summit, leaders hope they can bridge enough of their differences to soothe rattled financial markets after worries about the risk of a Greek exit from the euro zone sent European stock prices to their lowest level since December."Hopefully we'll get some stuff done," Obama told Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti as he and other summit participants arrived for Friday evening dinner at a lodge at the secluded presidential retreat.Obama earlier in the day aligned himself with Monti and new French President Francois Hollande by urging a solution to the euro zone crisis that combines fiscal belt-tightening measures with a "strong growth agenda."On the other side of the debate is German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has pushed fiscal austerity as a means of bringing down huge debt levels that are burdening European economies.Voters in euro zone countries have shown frustration with that approach, ejecting governments such as that of Nicolas Sarkozy, who was defeated by Hollande, a socialist, in the May 6 French presidential election.A draft of the summit communique shown to Reuters will stress an "imperative to create growth and jobs."Also on the summit agenda are concerns about oil and food prices as well as Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and North Korea.Speculation has grown that Obama will use an energy session at the G8 to seek support to tap emergency oil reserves before a European Union embargo of Iranian crude takes effect in July.But with oil prices already sliding, a move by Obama to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve - alone or along with other countries - could expose him to criticism that the emergency supply should only be touched in a supply crisis.The Camp David summit kicked off four days of intensive diplomacy that will test leaders' ability to quell unease over the threat of another financial meltdown as well as plans to wind down the unpopular war in Afghanistan.After the Camp David talks wrap up late on Saturday afternoon, Obama will fly to his home town of Chicago where he will host a two-day NATO meeting at which the Afghanistan war will be the central topic.

 

EU, ECB working on Greece exit plans

 

The European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank (ECB) are working on an emergency scenario in case Greece has to leave the eurozone, EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht said in an interview published on Friday. The comments would appear to be the first time that an EU official has confirmed the existence of contingencies being taken for a possible Greek exit from the currency bloc. Speculation has been rife about such plans, but their existence has not been confirmed. "A year-and- a-half ago there may have been the danger of a domino effect," he said in an interview with the Belgium's Dutch-language newspaper De Standaard. "But today there are, both within the European Central Bank and the European Commission, services that are working on emergency scenarios in case Greece doesn't make it."He added: "A Greek exit does not mean the end of the euro, as some claim."” The source close to De Gucht said the commissioner was explaining that EU institutions had not been sitting on their hands for the past two years, and that they were now better prepared than they had been. Concern has grown that Greece may decide to leave or be forced out of the 17-country currency bloc after a rise in popular opposition to an EU-International Monetary Fund programme of fiscal austerity and structural reforms undermined attempts to form a government after May 6 elections. Greeks are scheduled to go the polls again on June 17. A victory by the far-left, anti-bailout coalition SYRIZA - which some opinion polls suggest is likely - would increase the possibility of the country leaving the euro. However, one opinion poll on Thursday showed the pro-bailout New Democracy party in first place, several points ahead of the SYRIZA, which has pledged to tear up the bailout agreement. The prospect of SYRIZA winning the election has sent the euro and markets across the continent tumbling this week. Earlier this week, the country's president said Greeks had withdrawn up to €800m from banks as the political uncertainty deepened. In a further blow, the ECB said it had halted liquidity operations with some Greek banks because their capital was too depleted. De Gucht told De Standaard he thought Greece would stay inside the eurozone, but that the crucial question until the next election was what conditions the ECB would set for guaranteeing the liquidity of Greek banks. "The endgame has begun, and how it will finish I do not know," he said. "The question is, can everyone maintain their sangfroid over the coming weeks." Asked earlier this week about any contingency planning for a Greek exit, the spokesperson for the EC replied: "There are many, many questions arising and many questions open about Greece and most answers have to come from Greece and we have to respect the ongoing political process. "Clearly, the future of Greece is in the eurozone. We are working on that."

NEWS,28.04.2012.

Dutch judge upholds foreigner pot ban

Long famous for "coffee shops" where joints and cappuccinos share the menu, the Netherlands' famed tolerance for drugs could be going up in smoke.A judge on Friday upheld a government plan to ban non-Dutch residents from buying marijuana by introducing a "weed pass" available only to residents.The new regulation reins in one of the country's most cherished symbols of tolerance - its laissez-faire attitude to soft drugs - and reflects the drift away from a long-held view of the Netherlands as a free-wheeling utopia.For many tourists visiting Amsterdam the image endures - and smoking a joint in a canal-side coffee shop ranks high on their to-do lists along with visiting cultural highlights like the Van Gogh Museum.The city's left-leaning Mayor Eberhard van der Laan is hoping to hammer out a compromise with the national government.Coffee shops also have not given up the fight. A week ago they mustered a few hundred patrons for a "smoke-in" in downtown Amsterdam to protest the new restrictions.A lawyer for owners, Maurice Veldman, said he would file an appeal against the ruling by a judge at The Hague District court, which clears the way for the weed pass to be introduced in southern provinces on May 1.The pass will roll out in the rest of the country - including Amsterdam - next year. It will turn coffee shops into private clubs with membership open only to Dutch residents and limited to 2 000 per shop.The most recent figures from the government's statistics bureau says the country has more than 650 coffee shops, 214 of them in Amsterdam. The number has been steadily declining as municipalities have imposed tougher regulations, such as shuttering ones close to schools.But the new membership rules are the most significant rollback in years to the traditional Dutch tolerance of marijuana use.The government argues that the move is justified as a way of cracking down on so-called "drug tourists", effectively couriers who drive over the border from neighboring Belgium and Germany to buy large amounts of marijuana and take it home to resell. They cause traffic and public order problems in towns along the Dutch border.Such issues do not exist in Amsterdam, where most tourists walk or ride bikes and buy pot purely for their own consumption.The weed pass "doesn't solve any problems we have here and it could create new problems", said city spokesperson Tahira Limon.It is not just hardcore potheads taking a toke in the city. Limon said four to five million tourists visit Amsterdam each year and around 23% say they visit a coffee shop during their stay.Amsterdam argues that the reasons coffee shops were first tolerated decades ago are still relevant today - they are well-regulated havens where people can buy soft drugs without coming into contact with dealers of hard drugs like heroin and cocaine.Coffee shops also are banned from serving alcohol and from selling drugs to people under 18.The government in The Hague said on Friday there would be no exceptions to the new rules."Amsterdam will also have to enforce this policy," said Job van de Sande, a spokespersonfor the ministry of security and justice.The conservative Dutch government introduced the new measures saying it wants to return the shops back to what they were originally intended to be: small local stores selling to local people.However the Dutch government collapsed this week and new elections are scheduled for September. It is unclear whether the new administration will keep the new measures in place.Coffee shop lawyer Veldman called Friday's court ruling a political judgment."The judge completely fails to answer the principal question: Can you discriminate against foreigners when there is no public order issue at stake?" he asked.Coffee shop owners in the southern city of Maastricht have said they plan to disregard the new measures, forcing the government to prosecute one of them in a test case.

Syria accuses UN chief of encouraging militants

 

 A Syrian government newspaper says UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon is encouraging militant attacks by focusing his criticism on the government.Saturday's editorial in the state-run Tishrin daily comes a day after Ban said Syrian President Bashar Assad's continued crackdown on protests has reached an "intolerable stage".Tishrin says Ban has avoided talks about rebel violence in favour of "outrageous" attacks on the Syrian government.The Syrian capital was hit by four explosions on Friday that left at least 11 people dead and dozens wounded.Assad's government blamed the blasts on "terrorists", the term the government uses to describe opposition forces that it says are carrying out a foreign conspiracy.

Israelis being fooled on Iran: ex-security chief

Israel's former security chief Yuval Diskin on Saturday accused top ministers of misleading the public about the chances any pre-emptive military action against Iran's nuclear facilities succeeding.Diskin singled out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak for criticism over their increasingly bellicose comments in the standoff with Iran over its nuclear programme."My major problem is that I have no faith in the current leadership, which must lead us in an event on the scale of war with Iran or a regional war," Diskin said in comments carried by army radio and the Haaretz newspaper."I don't believe in either the prime minister or the defence minister. I don't believe in a leadership that makes decisions based on messianic feelings," he said."Believe me, I have observed them from up close ... They are not people who I, on a personal level, trust to lead Israel to an event on that scale and carry it off. These are not people who I would want to have holding the wheel in such an event."They are misleading the public on the Iran issue. They tell the public that if Israel acts, Iran won't have a nuclear bomb. This is misleading. Actually, many experts say that an Israeli attack would accelerate the Iranian nuclear race."Diskin, who stepped down as head of Israel's Shin Bet domestic security service last year after six years in the post, was addressing a public meeting in Kfar Saba in the Tel Aviv suburbs.In March, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan also spoke out publicly against a military option on Iran. He told US network CBS an Israeli attack would have "devastating" consequences for Israel and would, in any case, be unlikely to put an end to the Iranian nuclear programme.On relations between Israeli Jews and other groups, Diskin said: "Over the past 10-15 years, Israel has become more and more racist. All of the studies point to this. This is racism toward Arabs and toward foreigners, and we are also becoming a more belligerent society."Diskin also said he believed another political assassination, like that of then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 by a Jewish extremist, could occur in the future."Today there are extremist Jews, not just in the territories but also inside the Green Line - dozens of them - who, in a situation in which settlements are evacuated, would be willing to take up arms against their Jewish brothers," he said.

BREAKING NEWS,19.02.2012.

Iran halts oil sales to Britain, France

 President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking on TV 

Iran has stopped selling crude to British and French companies, the oil ministry said today, in a retaliatory measure against fresh EU sanctions on the Islamic state's lifeblood, oil.” Exporting crude to British and French companies has been stopped ... we will sell our oil to new customers," spokesman Alireza Nikzad was quoted as saying by the ministry of petroleum website. The European Union in January decided to stop importing crude from Iran from July 1 over its disputed nuclear programme, which the West says is aimed at building bombs. Iran denies this. Iran’s oil minister said on February 4 the Islamic state would cut its oil exports to "some" European countries. The European Commission said last week the bloc would not be short of oil if Iran stopped crude exports, as they have enough in stock to meet their needs for around 120 days. Industry sources told Reuters on February 16 Iran's top oil buyers in Europe were making substantial cuts in supply months in advance of European Union sanctions, reducing flows to the continent in March by more than a third - or over 300,000 barrels daily. France’s Total has already stopped buying Iran's crude, which is subject to fresh EU embargoes. Market sources said Royal Dutch Shell has scaled back sharply. Among European nations, debt-ridden Greece is most exposed to Iranian oil disruption. Motor Oil Hellas of Greece was thought to have cut out Iranian crude altogether and compatriot Hellenic Petroleum along with Spain's Cepsa and Repsol were curbing imports from Iran.Iran was supplying more than 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) to the EU plus Turkey in 2011, industry sources said. By the start of this year imports had sunk to about 650,000 bpd as some customers cut back in anticipation of an EU ban. Saudi Arabia says it is prepared to supply extra oil either by topping up existing term contracts or by making rare spot market sales. Iran has criticised Riyadh for the offer. Iran said the cut will have no impact on its crude sales, warning any sanctions on its oil will raise international crude prices. Brent crude oil prices were up $1 a barrel to $118.35 shortly after Iran's state media announced last week Tehran had cut oil exports to six European states. The report was denied shortly afterwards by Iranian officials."We have our own customers ... The replacements for these companies have been considered by Iran," Nikzad said. EU's new sanctions includes a range of extra restrictions on Iran that went well beyond UN sanctions agreed last month and included a ban on dealing with Iranian banks and insurance companies and steps to prevent investment in Tehran's lucrative oil and gas sector, including refining. The mounting sanctions are aimed at putting financial pressure on the world's fifth largest crude oil exporter, which has little refining capacity and has to import about 40% of its gasoline needs for its domestic consumption.