NEWS,08.07.2013

Eurozone grants lifeline for Greece

Greece secured a €6.8bn ($8.7bn) lifeline from the euro zone on Monday, officials told Reuters, but was told it must keep its promises on cutting public sector jobs and other reforms in order to get all the cash.
The deal, which spares Greece defaulting on debt that falls due in August, will see Athens drip fed support under close watch from its international creditors to drive through unpopular reforms.
Under the terms of the deal, euro zone finance ministers agreed to make staggered payments of aid to Greece starting with a €2.5bn instalment from euro zone countries in July, said officials close to the talks.
The agreement foresees a further payment from eurozone countries of €500m in October.
Central banks in the Eurosystem will contribute €1.5bn in July and €500m in October, the officials said. The International Monetary Fund will give €1.8bn in August.
"That's the way it will be done," said one of the officials.
After more than three years on life support from Europe, Greece's governing coalition is split over how to meet the demands of its bailout programme, putting the country centre stage and threatening to reignite the euro zone debt crisis.
But a week of talks, culminating in promises to reform the public sector, appeared to convince international lenders the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank that Greece is committed to rebuilding its economy.

Talks begin over free trade zone

The United States and the European Union have launched groundbreaking free trade talks, putting aside for the time being the atmosphere of mistrust stirred up by revelations about Washington's spying on European allies.

The office of the US Trade Representative confirmed on Monday that the talks had begun in Washington.

The Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks have been more than a year in the planning.

The aim is to create the world's largest free-trade zone by knocking down the average 4% tariffs and, more importantly, clearing away regulatory discrepancies that now inhibit trade.

To allay European concerns about espionage without threatening negotiations, the sides have agreed to hold parallel talks on the spying allegations, which arise from documents leaked by fugitive US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

The US-EU economic relationship is already the world's largest, representing 30% of global trade, according to the office of the US Trade Representative.

If successful in reaching a deal on both tariff and non-tariff issues, that number could grow to nearly half of global economic output, serving a total population of 800 million.

Growth hormones

Discussions were also to take place among 15 smaller groups, according to an EU source close to the negotiations.

The US trade representative lists 24 issues to be covered, ranging from agriculture, expected to be one of the thorniest issues, to textiles and financial services.

Backers of the trade deal hope to finish talks within 18 to 24 months, with another two rounds of discussion to take place this year alone.

Officials emphasised that without compromises on standards and regulations, the expectations for economic stimulus will likely not be met.

The trade deal offers the prospect of up to 2 million new jobs, according to Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation.

The gross domestic products of the two sides could be boosted by 0.9% in the EU and 0.8% in the US, according to the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

Among the most contentious issues in agricultural production are the rules set for labelling of genetically altered products, which are banned in the EU, as well as the EU ban on growth hormones in cattle and on so-called chlorinated chickens.

No escaping the Fed

As the Federal Reserve moves closer to scaling back its monetary stimulus, central banks in the rest of the world may get another reminder this week of just how tough it is to decouple from US interest rates.
German and British bond yields tracked US yields sharply higher on Friday following solid US jobs data, a day after the European Central Bank and the Bank of England, anxious to protect their economies from rising US borrowing costs, said they would keep short-term rates firmly anchored near zero.
Minutes of the Fed's June 19 policy deliberations could put further upward pressure on bond yields if they show broad support for phasing out the central bank's asset purchases, now running at $85bn a month.
Fed chairperson Ben Bernanke caught markets off-guard by announcing after that meeting that the bond buying could run its course by mid-2014, depending on job market developments.
"You can imagine a story where bond yields are dragged higher. Obviously policy makers here and in Europe won't be too pleased with that," said David Owen, chief European financial economist with Jefferies in London.
"All they can do is to try to reiterate that, from the point of view of the macro economy, Europe and the UK are not in the same space as the US and so neither the ECB in particular, nor the Bank of England, is going to be raising rates for a very long time," he added.
Bernanke will have the chance to set the record straight as he is due to give a speech hours after the minutes come out.
Victoria Clarke, an economist with Investec in London, said the Fed chief and his deputy, Janet Yellen, probably favoured a careful withdrawal of stimulus.
"But we should also caution that the minutes risk a round of further nervousness, given that they will cite not only the views of the more influential voting members, but all members including those who are keen for a more aggressive exit to take place," Clarke said in a note.
Jobs gain momentum at last
Friday's employment report can only strengthen the hand of the Fed's hawks.
The economy added 195 000 payroll jobs in June, and the average monthly increase since September exceeds 200 000 - the threshold many think needs to be breached for growth to advance from its well-established rate of around 2%.
Bruce Kasman, an economist with JP Morgan in New York, now expects the Fed to start whittling down its bond buying in September. Before the jobs data he had thought the central bank might wait until December.
"The Fed has gotten what it needs to begin tapering. The substantial improvement in the labour market is there," Kasman said on a conference call.
Japan up, China down
Japan also has wind in its sails at long last, and the Bank of Japan - engaged, like the Fed, in a vast expansion of its balance sheet- is expected to upgrade its outlook of the economy for the seventh month in a row.
"Japan will outperform other developed markets for the rest of 2013," said Patrick Zweifel, chief economist in Geneva for Pictet Asset Management.
He said political risks facing the eurozone remained a concern, as last week's government rift in Portugal showed. But, even though May industrial output is likely to have edged down, Zweifel said economic headwinds were abating and the 17-country area could eke out modest growth in the second half of 2013.
By contrast, China, the world's second-largest economy, is likely to report sluggish exports and imports with deflation entrenched at the wholesale level - a tell-tale sign of overcapacity plaguing many industries, including shipping.
On Friday, China's largest private shipbuilder appealed for financial help from the government and big shareholders after cutting its workforce and delaying payments to suppliers.
"Despite recent signs of bottoming out in domestic activity, growth outlook remains fragile," said Tao Wang, UBS's chief China economist.

Total free over oil-for-food scandal

French oil giant Total and its chief executive were acquitted on Monday in the UN oil-for-food scandal under Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq.

The Paris criminal court also cleared 17 other defendants and Swiss oil trader Vitol in the far-reaching corruption probe.

Designed to ease the suffering of the Iraqi people, the oil-for-food programme allowed Iraq to sell some of its oil, despite the embargo imposed after the first Gulf War, in exchange for humanitarian goods.

The programme became mired in controversy after an independent inquiry led by the former US Federal Reserve chairperson Paul Volcker in 2005 disclosed a system of kickbacks and payments to prominent individuals with access to Iraqi oil.

Total, Europe's third-largest oil group by market capitalisation, was accused of bribery, complicity and influence peddling during the 1996-2003 programme - which handed the Iraqi government an illicit $1.8bn from the fraudulent system.

Prosecutors had argued that the defendants, who included Total's CEO Christophe de Margerie and ex-French interior minister Charles Pasqua, had knowingly participated in the illegal system that violated UN regulations.

Total had faced a fine of up to $2.4m while de Margerie, 61, had risked five years in prison and a fine of $482 000.

Prosecutors have 10 days to appeal against the verdict

Hillary Clinton - will she, or won't she?

Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to strike the right balance between staying out of the daily political maelstrom and setting herself up for a possible second presidential run. But her fans and foes are making that difficult.

Nearly six months after departing the State Department, Clinton finds herself in the middle of an early effort by both parties to prepare for her return to politics even as she keeps to a schedule of highly paid private speeches, work on her book and her family's global foundation.
Clinton has not said whether she'll seek the White House in 2016 but grass roots activists are already at work on a super political action committee called Ready for Hillary, which has rallied local supporters, started a fund raising campaign and rolled out prominent endorsements.
Republicans, meanwhile, vow to dissect her work during the Obama administration - including last year's deadly assault on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi - and use the former first lady as a fund raising tool.
The efforts to define Clinton, who carries the scars of being seen as an inevitable president during her 2008 campaign against Barack Obama, underscore her tricky balancing act.
If she acts too political, the strong approval ratings built up from her globe-trotting, above-the-fray role as secretary of state could suffer. If she allows the presidential talk to become too loud, she might get stuck with the inevitable nominee tag, making her vulnerable to a liberal upstart in a Democratic primary.
Yet if she avoids the limelight too much, she might create an opening for another Democrat to emerge or allow the steady criticism from Republicans for her tenure at State to sully her image.
Republicans are in the early stages of an effort to chip away at her record at the State Department. American Crossroads, the Republican group tied to strategist Karl Rove, released a web video in May that suggested Clinton was less than truthful in the Benghazi case, an episode they noted happened "all under Hillary Clinton's watch".
An independent review last year blamed the State Department for inadequate security but largely absolved Clinton of wrongdoing.
President Hillary
Separately, American Rising, a Republican super political action committee led by Matt Rhoades, who served as Republican Mitt Romney's campaign manager, created the Stop Hillary PAC and has been raising money off a potential Clinton campaign.
One email request, from Ted Harvey, a Colorado state senator and co-founder of the group, warned that "massive forces are aligning to begin a coronation of 'President Hillary.'"
Republicans say they would be remiss to give Clinton the time to quietly build a campaign behind-the-scenes without scrutinising her record.
"You have to play by the rules of the game. That's what was done to Mitt Romney and other candidates," said Danny Diaz, a former adviser to Romney's presidential campaign who is not involved with either group. "To operate under different sets of rules would be foolhardy."
Ready for Hillary, meanwhile, has no official ties to Clinton. But the group is encouraging her to run and laying the groundwork for a future campaign. Veterans of the Clinton White House like Craig T Smith and Harold Ickes are advising the group, which is building a network of supporters online and holding local rallies outside Clinton speeches.
Ickes and former Rep Ellen Tauscher organised three finance briefings for donors and potential donors in New York in late June and the group will release its first fund raising report later this month, providing an early glimpse of its resources.
Some donors have privately expressed concern with the focus on Clinton so early, even while other Democrats like Vice President Joe Biden and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley are viewed as potential candidates. They said it could backfire and create an aura of inevitability for Clinton that hurt her last time. Smith said they were trying to address just the opposite.
"If it was inevitable there would be no need for us to do it at all," Smith said.
Yet some Democrats aren't sold on the proposition. While Smith said he would have received a "red light" if the Clintons didn't approve of the super PAC's role - he said he hasn't heard anything negative - their effort is just getting off the ground and viewed with hesitation by some donors.
Private citizen
"I'd be surprised if many national donors want to spend the cash on a new grass roots organising effort geared toward 2016 when we just raised $1bn to create the best ground campaign in history," said Wade Randlett, a major Obama donor based in California's Silicon Valley. He said the Obama campaign offshoot, Organizing for Action, has been able to keep party activists engaged.
Clinton's most ardent supporters, including her husband, caution that voters should not read too much into her activities. The former president said in May his wife was "having a little fun being a private citizen for the first time in 20 years" and said the constant speculation was "the worst expenditure of our time".
Still, Hillary Clinton has spent time making her positions known on issues dear to the Democratic base. Via her much-buzzed about Twitter handle, she issued joint statements with her husband on the Supreme Court's striking down of a key provision in the Voting Rights Act and its rulings in two cases pertaining to gay marriage.
While Republicans see Clinton as a major threat in 2016, Republican officials report there is little appetite among top party donors to commit resources to anti-Hillary efforts right now.
"There are more immediate targets," said Charlie Spies, who led fund raising efforts for a pro-Romney super PAC last year.
"The most important thing Republicans can be focused on right now is keeping control of the House of Representatives in 2014. Once that is accomplished we can turn our sights to taking over the White House in 2016."

NEWS,23.06.2013

Saudi switches to Fri-Sat weekend

Oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia is switching its weekend to Friday-Saturday to better serve its economy and "international commitments", the official SPA news agency reported on Sunday quoting a royal decree.
Saudi Arabia becomes the last of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council - which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and United Arab Emirates - to abandon the Thursday-Friday weekend to be closer to the world's Saturday-Sunday weekend.
The decision takes effect in ministries and government departments from next week, while it will be implemented by schools and universities from the start of the next academic year.
According to the decree the change was made to better serve "the Saudi economy and its international commitments" and coordinate with the working days in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world.
It will "reduce the negative repercussions on economic and financial activity in the kingdom and make up for lost economic opportunities", said the decree.
Riyadh's stock exchange, the biggest in the Arab world, is open for five days a week, but until now only three of these coincided with the working week in the world's major financial centres.
Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter and a member of the G20 group of the globe's biggest economies.
The move had been previously rejected by clergymen in the kingdom, which follows the ultra conservative Wahhabi school of Islam, on the grounds that Saturday is the religious weekend for Jews.
Oman became the fifth GCC member state to make the switch several years after the other four members.

New leaks emerge from Snowden documents

Britain's intelligence services are tapping cables that carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and are gathering vast amounts of data, according to leaked documents from US ex-intelligence technician Ed Snowden, who faces spying charges in the United States.
The claims, published on Saturday by The Guardian newspaper, sparked a fresh outcry from privacy campaigners and surfaced as the United States filed criminal charges against 30-year-old Snowden and asked Hong Kong, where he has fled to, to detain him.
In a sign of growing international tensions, Germany said on Saturday that Europe would need Britain to clarify the latest allegations.
Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, who made the comments, added that the accusations would be a "catastrophe" if they are true.
A US justice department official meanwhile confirmed that a sealed criminal complaint has been lodged with a federal court in the US state of Virginia and a provisional arrest warrant has been issued.
Snowden faces charges of theft of government property, unauthorised communication of national defence information, and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorised person. Two of the charges were brought under the 1917 Espionage Act.
The Guardian reported that Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has started processing vast amounts of personal information, ncluding Facebook posts, emails, internet histories and phone calls, and is sharing it with its US partner the National Security Agency (NSA).
In reaction, however, GCHQ said it was "scrupulous" in its compliance with the law and declined to comment further.
The Guardian reported that GCHQ was able to tap into and store data from the cables for up to 30 days, under an operation codenamed Tempora.
"It's not just a US problem. The UK has a huge dog in this fight," Snowden told the newspaper.
"They [GCHQ] are worse than the US."
Snowden, who fled to Hong Kong in May, has since proceeded to leak details of secret US intelligence programmes to international media outlets.
Tempora
The Guardian claimed Tempora had been running for 18 months and GCHQ and the NSA were able to access vast quantities of communications between entirely innocent people.
It also said that the intelligence-gathering directly led to the arrest and jailing of a British terror cell, the arrests of others planning acts of terror, and three London-based people planning attacks prior to the city's 2012 Olympic Games.
The Guardian said the documents it had seen showed that by last year, GCHQ was handling 600 million "telephone events" each day, had tapped more than 200 fibre-optic cables and was able to process data from at least 46 of them at a time.
The two main components of GCHQ's surveillance programme are called "Mastering the Internet" and "Global Telecoms Exploitation", the daily said, adding that the operations were all being carried out "without any form of public acknowledgement or debate".
The Guardian added that it understood NSA staff and US private contractors had access to GCHQ databases.
Hong Kong officials remained tight-lipped on Saturday as to whether Snowden had been approached by the law enforcement authorities or was still a free man.
Police commissioner Andy Tsang told reporters it was "inconvenient" to disclose details of the case.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of Britain-based human rights pressure group Liberty, expressed shock at the latest revelations.
"I'm shocked but not surprised. Clearly they (GCHQ) are exploiting the fact that the internet is so international in nature," she told the BBC.
"And I'm pretty sad in a democracy when all that appears to be holding back the secret state is its physical and technological capability, and not its ethics or a tight interpretation and application of the law."
However, former foreign and defence secretary Malcolm Rifkind, the chairman of parliament's intelligence and security committee, told the BBC that all agencies like GCHQ used the latest technology to gain intelligence.
But he added: "If GCHQ wants to know the content of your or my email, they have to go through exactly the same legal procedure of getting a warrant from the secretary of state, regardless of whether they are going to intercept the emails themselves, or whether they are going to ask the NSA or someone else to do it."

US revokes NSA leaker Snowden's passport

The United States has revoked former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's passport, a source familiar with the case said on Sunday.
Snowden, who is wanted on US espionage charges, flew to Moscow from Hong Kong on Sunday and is seeking asylum in Ecuador, according to the foreign minister of the South American country.
The source declined to provide any further details of the US move to revoke Snowden's passport.
Ecuador has been sheltering WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at its London embassy for the past year.
On its Twitter feed WikiLeaks said Snowden "is bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks".
"Mr Snowden requested that WikiLeaks use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety. Once Mr Snowden arrives in Ecuador his request will be formally processed," it added.
Snowden was charged with espionage by the US authorities last week after revealing details about a vast National Security Agency programme of phone and internet surveillance.

Snowden eludes the US, flees to Russia

Former US spy Edward Snowden on Sunday arrived in Russia from Hong Kong, reportedly on his way to Venezuela, escaping the clutches of US justice at least for now in a shock development sure to infuriate Washington.
Snowden, the target of a US arrest warrant issued on Friday after he blew the lid on massive secret surveillance programmes, arrived in Moscow on a direct flight operated by Russian flag carrier Aeroflot.
The Hong Kong government said earlier it had "no legal basis" to prevent Snowden leaving because the US government had failed to provide enough information to justify its provisional arrest warrant for the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor.
Snowden, 30, landed at Sheremetyevo airport in the north of Moscow at 17:05, but there was no immediate official confirmation of where he would head next, an AFP correspondent at the airport said.
Russian media reports citing sources within Aeroflot said he would fly to Cuba on Monday and then board a flight to the Venezuelan capital Caracas.
"Russian law enforcement agencies have nothing against him and we have no orders to detain him," one law enforcement source told the state news agency Ria Novosti.
Relations between Russia and the United States remain frosty because of discord over a raft of issues including the Syria conflict, reflected in a tense meeting between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland last week.
'Snowden left Hong Kong legally'
Julian Assange's WikiLeaks operation claimed credit for helping to arrange asylum for the man behind one of the most significant security breaches in US history.
"Mr Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower who exposed evidence of a global surveillance regime conducted by US and UK intelligence agencies, has left Hong Kong legally," WikiLeaks said in a statement.
"He is bound for a democratic nation via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks," it said without revealing his final destination.
Snowden's latest interview on Sunday contained new revelations about US cyber-espionage against Chinese targets, drawing a stinging response from China's official news agency which branded Washington an espionage "villain".
The South China Morning Post, which has carried exclusive interviews with Snowden in Hong Kong, said Moscow would not be his final destination, and suggested that Iceland or Ecuador, which is currently giving Assange asylum in its London embassy, may be his ultimate port of call.
Snowden abandoned his high-paying job in Hawaii and went to Hong Kong on 20 May to begin issuing a series of leaks on NSA eavesdropping of phones and computer systems, triggering concern from governments around the world.
Obama's administration has insisted on the legality of the vast surveillance programme and said it has foiled a number of extremist plots.
Snowden's departure from Chinese territory could result in US retaliation against Hong Kong, but more broadly the affair is a shock to the Obama administration, which on Friday unveiled charges including theft and espionage against him.
White House National Security Advisor Tom Donilon had said on Saturday that the charges presented a "good case" for Hong Kong to extradite him and that "we expect them to comply with the treaty in this case".
Washington an espionage 'villain'
The government of Hong Kong, a special administrative region (SAR) under Chinese rule that has maintained its own British-derived legal system, said it had informed Washington of Snowden's exit after determining that the documents provided by the US government did not fully comply with Hong Kong legal requirements.
"As the HKSAR government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr Snowden from leaving Hong Kong," it said in a statement.
It also pressed Washington for answers "on earlier reports about the hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by US government agencies".
China's official Xinhua news agency attacked the United States as an espionage "villain" after Snowden detailed new allegations of NSA activity targeting mainland and Hong Kong interests.
In the latest revelations in the South China Morning Post, Snowden said the NSA was hacking Chinese mobile phone companies to gather data from millions of text messages.
He said US spies have also hacked the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing, home to one of six "network backbones" that route all of mainland China's Internet traffic -- and the Hong Kong headquarters of Pacnet, which operates one of the Asia-Pacific region's largest fibre-optic networks.
"These, along with previous allegations, are clearly troubling signs," Xinhua said in a commentary. "They demonstrate that the United States, which has long been trying to play innocent as a victim of cyber attacks, has turned out to be the biggest villain in our age.
Snowden's claims about Pacnet followed a report in Britain's Guardian newspaper in which he claimed the British government's electronic eavesdropping agency GCHQ had gained secret access to fibre-optic cables carrying global Internet traffic and telephone calls, and was sharing the information with the NSA.
The charges against him include theft of government property, unauthorised communication of national defence information, and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorised person.
Two of the charges were brought under the 1917 Espionage Act.

Canada's oil capital shut for days

Southern Alberta braced for more disruption on Saturday from floods that killed at least three people, forced about 100 000 from their homes and blacked out the centre of Canada's oil capital, Calgary.
Communities to the south and east of Calgary were on high alert as flood waters moved across the region. But with rainfall easing, a few residents began returning to damaged homes and authorities were hopeful that the worst might be over.
"It's morning in Calgary! Sunny, water levels are down, and our spirit remains strong," Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said on Twitter. "We're not out of this, but maybe have turned (the) corner."
The floods followed about 36 hours of unusually heavy rainfall - some communities received six months of their normal rainfall in under two days.
Evacuations started on Thursday in Calgary and in smaller cities. Utility Enmax switched off power to central Calgary on Friday afternoon lest water damage its downtown facilities, and the area was still without power and closed to cars on Saturday.
Eerily quiet
A few tourists and residents strolled in the carless streets of the city's core, but the area was eerily quiet.
Officials were unable to say how much it would cost to repair flooded homes and rebuild roads and bridges washed away by the murky brown floodwater.
Canada's main oil-producing region in the north of the province, was not affected, although some farmland was flooded, which will likely weaken crops that include wheat and canola.
Police said three bodies had been found near High River, south of Calgary. A fourth person may still be missing.
"A lot of Albertans have faced disasters the likes of which the majority of us could never imagine," Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths told a news conference.
In Calgary, authorities said water levels were expected to drop in the coming days. But the Bow River was still flowing at around five times its normal rate.
Essential operations
Nenshi said downtown could be off limits until the middle of next week "at the earliest," forcing companies to work from alternative sites.
A spokesperson for Imperial Oil, Canada's second-largest producer and refiner, said the company was working on plans to maintain essential operations, including allowing employees to work from other locations.
It was not clear when trading in Canadian crude oil would resume after little if any occurred on Friday.
Shorcan Energy Brokers, which provides live prices for many Canadian crude grades, operated out of Toronto on Friday rather than from Calgary, although no trades in Western Canada Select heavy blend or light synthetic crude took place.
Net Energy Inc, the other main Calgary crude broker, was closed on Friday and no trading took place.
Many roads and bridges remained closed, and the city banned the use of tap water for car-washing or other outside activities because treatment plants take more time to process the sludgy water. But Nenshi said Calgary water was still safe to drink.

Hillary Clinton wants a female president

Hillary Clinton has fed speculation that she might run for the White House in 2016 by telling an audience in Canada that she would like to see a woman president in the United States in her lifetime.
"Let me say this, hypothetically speaking, I really do hope that we have a woman president in my lifetime," Clinton told a private audience in Toronto. "And whether it's next time or the next time after that, it really depends on women stepping up and subjecting themselves to the political process, which is very difficult."
Clinton, a Democrat who was secretary of state under President Barack Obama, a former senator from New York and is the wife of former President Bill Clinton, is said to be undecided whether to seek the presidency in 2016.
Many Democrats and Republicans in the United States are expecting her to run, although the 65-year-old Clinton has said she needed to rest after four years as a globe-trotting secretary of state.
Polls have indicated she is far and away the most popular potential Democratic candidate for 2016, and that most Americans would prefer her to several possible Republican contenders.
Clinton picked up an endorsement on Tuesday from Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, who announced she is supporting a group encouraging Clinton to run for the White House.
McCaskill, who backed Obama over Clinton in the Democratic primaries in 2008, became the first member of Congress to announce her support for Clinton.
She praised the political action committee called Ready for Hillary for using the Internet to build support in the hope that Clinton will run.
Last week Clinton started her official Twitter account, describing herself as, among other things, a "wife, mom, lawyer, women & kids advocate." She alluded to her future as "TBD" - to be determined.
In her speech in Toronto, delivered on Thursday and posted on YouTube on Friday, Clinton said electing a woman president would "would send exactly the right historic signal to girls, women as well as boys and men. And I will certainly vote for the right woman to be president."

NEWS,21.12.2012

Obama nominates Kerry for Secretary of State

President Barack Obama has announced the nomination of US Senator John Kerry to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, calling him the "perfect choice" to guide American diplomacy in the years ahead.Obama settled on Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, after UN Ambassador Susan Rice withdrew from consideration last week.He said he expected quick Senate confirmation of the Massachusetts lawmaker."As we turn the page on a decade of war, he understands that we have to harness all elements of American power," Obama said at the White House.Even as Obama put in place one important piece of his revamped national security team, he held off on naming a new defense secretary.The delay comes in the face of a growing backlash from critics of former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, considered a leading candidate to replace Leon Panetta at the Pentagon.Kerry, 69, a stalwart Obama supporter known to have long coveted the job of America's top diplomat, will take over from Clinton, who has been consistently rated as the most popular member of the president's cabinet.But he will also have to pick up the pieces after a scathing official inquiry found serious security lapses by the State Department in the deadly September 11 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya a report that has tarnished the final days of Clinton's tenure.Kerry's nomination follows a political firestorm that engulfed Rice, seen as the early favorite for the State job, spearheaded by Republicans fiercely critical of her role in the administration's early explanations for the Benghazi assault.Rice, defended by Obama, said last Thursday she was withdrawing her name from consideration to avoid a potentially lengthy and disruptive confirmation process.Kerry, known nationally through his presidential run and for his role as a Democratic power broker in the Senate, offers no such challenges.The selection of Kerry sets a pragmatic tone as Obama begins reshaping his national security team, which will include a new CIA director.Kerry will be the leading Cabinet member charged with tackling a range of thorny global challenges, including Middle East upheaval, Iran's nuclear standoff with the West and winding down the war in Afghanistan all at a time of fiscal austerity at home. 

US economy showing 'surprising' signs of resilience

The US economy showed surprising signs of resilience in November despite the approach of the so-called fiscal cliff, as consumer spending rose by the most in three years and a gauge of business investment jumped. Consumer spending rose 0.6% when adjusted for inflation, while new factory orders for capital goods outside the defence and aerospace sectorsa proxy for business spending plans jumped 2.7%, the Commerce Department said today.Economists had pinned earlier weakness in investment plans on worries lawmakers and the White House might fail to strike a deal to avoid the brunt of tax hikes and government spending cuts scheduled to begin in January.They also worried consumers would hold back as the end-of-the-year deadline approached with both parties far apart on how to avoid the potential hit to the economy. But today's data suggests both consumers and businesses had mostly shrugged off the cliff, at least in November."It appears that the looming fiscal cliff hasn't been nearly as disruptive as we had feared," said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics in Toronto. Still, another report provided ample reason for caution as US consumer sentiment slumped in December, with households apparently rattled by on-going negotiations to lessen the fiscal tightening that could easily trigger a recession next year. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's final index of consumer sentiment in December tumbled more than expected to 72.9 from 82.7 a month before. US stocks fell sharply after a Republican proposal for averting the fiscal cliff was abandoned late yesterday, eroding optimism that a deal could be reached quickly. At the same time, US government debt prices rallied and the dollar gained ground as investors sought a safe haven. Economists still expect economic growth to cool in the fourth quarter as companies slow the pace at which they have been re-stocking their shelves, but the data suggests consumers are offsetting some of that drag. Consumer spending is on track to grow at a 2.2% annual rate in the fourth quarter, faster than during the prior three months, said Michael Feroli, an economist at JPMorgan in New York. Forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers raised its forecast for fourth-quarter economic growth by four tenths of a point to a 1.4% annual rate. In the third quarter, the economy expanded at a 3.1% rate. "The economy is holding in here at the end of the year despite the concerns about the fiscal cliff," said Gary Thayer, an economic strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors in St. Louis. Those concerns are not going away. In November, many analysts on Wall Street said they expected Washington would largely avert the fiscal cliff, and optimism had grown over the last week that a deal was within reach. Since Wednesday, however, negotiations have fallen into disarray. If Congress and the White House do not reach a deal in time, taxes will go up for all Americans beginning in January and the government will cut spending on a host of programs. Running off the fiscal cliff would slash the nation's trillion-dollar budget deficit nearly in half in just one year. The impact would only come gradually, but economists expect it would be enough to knock the country into recession in the first half of the year. So far, uncertainty over the talks appears to have had only a limited impact on the economy. New orders for durable goods, items meant to last three years or more, rose a greater-than-expected 0.7% in November due to gains in machinery, fabricated metal products, and computer and electronic products. Those increases were offset by a decline in volatile aircraft orders. The report also showed a rise in shipments, brightening the prospects for fourth-quarter economic growth. Shipments of non-defence capital goods orders excluding aircraft, used to calculate equipment and software spending in the government's measures of gross domestic product, gained 1.8%, after rising by a softer 0.6% in October.

Brazil to privatise airports

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Thursday announced that airports in Rio and Belo Horizonte, two host cities for the 2014 World Cup, will be privatized during a September 2013 auction."International experience shows that airports are good business," Rousseff said, recalling that last February, 20-year concessions were granted to manage three airports, two in Sao Paulo and one in Brasilia.Brazil, a continent-sized country of 194 million people, is seeking to upgrade its creaking infrastructure ahead of the 2014 World Cup.The previously granted concessions, valued at a total of $14bn, will upgrade congested terminals in preparation for handling the tens of thousands of tourists expected for the World Cup. Rousseff said Thursday that any private entities participating in the September auctions will have to include at least one international partner "with experience in running an airport handling at least 35 million passengers a year."This operator must have "at least a 25% stake" in the consortium.Companies with majority stakes in operations of other airports will not be allowed to take part in next year's auction. Rousseff said Brazil was now a "middle class country" in which more and more people will fly, including many of the "40 million Brazilians lifted out of poverty over the past decade".Civil Aviation Minister Wagner Bittencourt said the government hopes to raise $5.7bn through the concessions: $3.3bn for Rio's Tom Jobim airport and $2.4bn for Belo Horizonte's Confins airport.Brazil has announced huge investments in airport, highway and rail projects in partnership with the private sector to modernize its creaking infrastructure and jumpstart a sluggish economy expected to grow a mere one percent this year.Bittencourt said that in an initial phase, the government plans to invest $3.6bn to modernize 270 small airports. The longer term objective is to upgrade 689 public airports, he added.Experts meanwhile warn that the aviation sector has to contend with higher taxes and fuel costs, inadequate infrastructure and a leveling-off of demand."2012 can be seen as the worst year for commercial civil aviation," Paulo Kakinoff, president of Gol, the country's second biggest airline, said last week."This is due to a series of factors: a nearly 60 percent hike in fuel costs, the 10% depreciation of the real in relation to the dollar, higher taxes and new taxes."

NEWS,04.05.2012.

US and China in talks as ties at great risk

 U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) and China's Vice President Xi Jinping attend a dinner at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on May 3, 2012. Clinton on told China that it cannot deny the "aspirations" of its citizens as she opened talks in Beijing marred by a row over a Chinese dissident.The fourth round of the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue opened here today, with the two global players expected to boost their strategic mutual trust as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits.The current trust gap between Beijing and Washington stems from continual trade disputes, and more importantly, lack of concrete action on the US side to prove that its strategic shift to the Asia-Pacific region poses no threat to China. As a case in point, recent months have seen Washington moving to forge a closer military relationship with Manila through military assistance, warship sales and joint drills. The development comes at a time when the Philippines has been brazenly challenging China’s sovereignty over Huangyan Island, an integral part of China’s territory since ancient times. Despite US claims that it is not taking sides in the issue, its action speaks a louder truth: It is projecting visible influence, just as is desired by the Philippines. To preserve and promote the hard-earned China-US mutual trust, the United States needs to make more earnest efforts, instead of paying only lip service. In regard to trade disputes, many sober minds have pointed out that the punitive duties the United States has repeatedly slapped on Chinese goods are harmful not only to Chinese industries but to the recovering US economy. It is in the interests of both sides that US decision-makers sit down with their Chinese counterparts and negotiate a solution to their trade frictions, rather than simply resort to protectionist measures. In mid-April, China widened the trading band of its currency against the US dollar, a major step towards further increasing the flexibility of the yuan, which has been appreciating against the greenback since 2005. With China committed to reforming the yuan’s exchange rate regime, it is time that the United States discarded the ill-founded argument that its huge trade deficit with China is caused by the yuan’s “artificially low” exchange rate. In addition, the United States needs to play its due part in re-balancing bilateral trade by, among other things, removing the trade barriers against China. (Xinhua)

Polls show Sarkozy gaining on Hollande

Paris - Two polls released on Friday showed President Nicolas Sarkozy trimming Socialist Francois Hollande's lead for France's presidential runoff vote, the latest surveys to show the incumbent gaining ground after Wednesday's televised debate.A survey by pollster BVA showed Hollande taking 52.5% of the vote in Sunday's final round of the presidential election, down two points from late April, with Sarkozy taking 47.5%, a rise of two points.Separately, TNS-Sofres showed Hollande's score edging down 1.5 points to 53.5% from last week, with Sarkozy rising to 46.5% from 45% previously.A majority in the BVA survey still thought Hollande was most convincing in the televised debate, with 40% believing he gained the upper hand, against 31% who preferred the conservative Sarkozy.Four surveys conducted since the face-off have now shown Sarkozy gaining ground, following similar results from Harris Interactive and CSA on Thursday.A separate poll by OpinionWay carried out half before and half after the debate showed the Socialist frontrunner's lead narrowing to five points.Despite Sarkozy's gains, Hollande still retains a comfortable lead for Sunday's vote, with an average of recent opinion polls putting him six points ahead.The latest polls were also conducted before centrist Francois Bayrou's declaration on Thursday that he would not back Sarkozy in the second round, leaving his supporters to make up their own minds.Sarkozy's best hope of winning the vote hinge on his gaining support from at least 80% of far-rightist Marine Le Pen's voters, and around half of Bayrou's. Bayrou said on Thursday he objected to Sarkozy's recent lurch to the right, and that he himself would vote for Hollande.According to Friday's TNS-Sofres survey, 32% of those who voted Bayrou in the first round would vote for Sarkozy on Sunday while 37% would back Hollande. Meanwhile, 52% of Le Pen voters would choose Sarkozy in round two against 7% for Hollande, with a further 41% abstaining.