NEWS,30.06.2013

Kazakhstan trade trip test for Cameron

British prime minister David Cameron flew into Kazakhstan on Sunday to help inaugurate the world's costliest oil project and seal new business deals, but faced immediate pressure to denounce the country's poor human rights record.
Cameron's visit, the first by a serving British prime minister, is seen by the Central Asian government as a coup it hopes will cement its status as a rising economic power and confer a degree of legitimacy from the West it has long sought.
It comes just days before the 73rd birthday of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the former Soviet republic with a tight grip for over two decades.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair's consultancy firm already advises Nazarbayev, a former Communist party apparatchik who tolerates no dissent or opposition.
"We are very honoured and privileged to have such attention on the part of two prime ministers - Tony Blair and David Cameron," Kazakh foreign minister Erlan Idrissov told reporters in a phone call before the visit.
"We cherish and enjoy the support of developed countries."
Cameron, who is accompanied by a British business delegation, is expected to oversee the signing of about a dozen contracts involving British firms and to cut the ribbon on infrastructure elements of the Kashagan offshore oilfield.
Royal Dutch Shell has a 16.81% stake in the facility, which is in the Kazakh segment of the Caspian Sea. Nazarbayev said last week consortium members had so far invested $48bn, making it the most expensive oil venture in the world.
It is due to produce its first oil in September.
Cameron is also hoping to persuade Kazakhstan to expand transit rights for British military forces relocating equipment from Afghanistan between now and a planned withdrawal next year. Nazarbayev has already granted overflight rights, but Cameron is looking for land transit rights too.
As Britain's trade with the euro zone suffers because of the currency bloc's debt woes, it is looking further afield to forge business links with countries that have enjoyed rapid economic growth in recent years.
Tempting target
With a $200 billion economy, the largest in Central Asia, and deep oil and gas reserves, Kazakhstan is a tempting target. Britain is already among the top three sources of foreign direct investment, according to Kazakh officials.
Since its 1991 independence, officials said British firms have invested about $20bn in their economy, part of a total $170 billion ploughed into Kazakhstan since then. But more high profile trade links carry political risks.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Cameron had a duty to use his trip to denounce human rights abuses.
"We are very concerned about the serious and deteriorating human rights situation there in recent years, including credible allegations of torture, the imprisonment of government critics, (and) tight controls over the media and freedom of expression and association," it said in a letter on Friday.
Cameron told reporters in Islamabad on Sunday he never shied away from having difficult conversations on such trips.
"In all the relationships we have there's never anything off the table and we raise and discuss all these issues, and that will be the case with Kazakhstan as well," he said.
"It is important to make this visit. It's very much something I chose and wanted to do."
Kazakhstan was a key market for British firms, he added, saying that other European leaders had visited and it was "high time" a British prime minister did too.
In another awkward twist for Cameron, the London-based daughter of a jailed former Kazakh businessman, Mukhtar Dzhakishev, has urged him to raise her father's case when he meets Nazarbayev.
But it is the case of Vladimir Kozlov, a jailed opposition leader, that activists most want Cameron to mention.
An outspoken critic of Nazarbayev, Kozlov was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in October for colluding with a fugitive billionaire in a failed attempt to rally oil workers to bring down the government. Kozlov denied the charges.
Idrissov, the foreign minister, said criticism of his country was overdone.
"We do not claim that we have got everything right," he said. "It was never going to be possible to turn a country with no democratic institutions or culture into a Jeffersonian democracy in two decades."

Europeans demand answers over bugging

The European Union angrily demanded answers from the United States on Sunday over allegations Washington had bugged its offices, the latest spying claim attributed to fugitive leaker Edward Snowden.
The report in German weekly Der Spiegel is likely to further strain relations between the United States and Europe, shortly after they launched formal negotiations to create what would be the world's biggest free trade area.
Der Spiegel said its report, which detailed covert surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) on EU diplomatic missions, was based on confidential documents, some of which it had been able to consult via Snowden.
"We have immediately been in contact with the US authorities in Washington DC and in Brussels and have confronted them with the press reports," the European Commission said in a statement.
"They have told us they are checking on the accuracy of the information released yesterday and will come back to us."
One document, dated September 2010 and classed as "strictly confidential", describes how the NSA kept tabs on the European Union's mission in Washington, Der Spiegel said.
Microphones were installed in the building and the computer network infiltrated, giving the agency access to emails and internal documents.
The EU delegation at the United Nations was subject to similar surveillance, Der Spiegel said, adding that the spying also extended to the 27-member bloc's Brussels headquarters.
It said the leaked documents referred to the Europeans as "targets", in intelligence activity reminiscent of the Cold War.
US Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes refused to be drawn into commenting directly on the allegations in a briefing in Johannesburg on Saturday, but said it was "worth noting" the US was "very close" to EU security services.
In another report on Sunday, Der Spiegel said leaked documents showed that the US secret services targeted Germany more than any other EU country.
Citing figures from NSA documents, the magazine said that half a billion forms of communication phone calls, emails, text messages and Internet chat entries were monitored in Germany every month.
The Spiegel reports are the latest in a series of allegations about US spying activity revealed by Snowden, a former NSA contractor who is holed up in a Moscow airport transit zone after the United States issued a warrant for his arrest and revoked his passport.
Speaking before the latest Spiegel revelations on Sunday, EU powerhouse Germany said the United States must quickly say whether the spying allegations were true or not.
"It's beyond our imagination that our friends in the US consider the Europeans as enemies," Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in a statement.
"If the media reports are accurate, it is reminiscent of actions among enemies during the Cold War."
European Parliament president Martin Schulz said he was "deeply worried and shocked" by the claims.
"If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations," he said in a statement, demanding full and speedy clarification from the US authorities.
The US authorities issued an arrest warrant this month for Snowden after he revealed details of NSA's so-called PRISM programme which collects and analyses information from Internet and phone users around the world, with access to data from Google, Yahoo! and other Internet firms.
US officials say the information gathered is vital in the fight against global terrorism but the scale of the programme raised deep concerns around the world.
Der Spiegel also referred to an incident more than five years ago when EU security experts discovered telephone and online bugging devices at the Justus Lipsius building.
In 2003, the EU announced it had found phone taps in the building targeting the offices of several countries, including Britain, France and Germany. It was not immediately clear if Der Spiegel was referring to this case.
Even before the most recent allegations, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding wrote to US Attorney General Eric Holder earlier this month calling for answers about its Internet spy programme, saying: "Fundamentally, this is a question of trust."
Snowden himself remains in political limbo at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport after flying in from Hong Kong last week, unable to fly on without legal travel documents or exit the airport without a Russian visa.
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said that US Vice President Joe Biden had asked Quito to reject any asylum request from the 30-year-old who is wanted by the United States on charges including espionage.
But he said Snowden's fate was in Russia's hands as Quito could not process his asylum request until he was on Ecuadoran soil.
"We have not sought out this situation," said Correa, saying it was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who recommended he seek asylum in Ecuador.
Assange, who is wanted for questioning in Sweden on sexual assault allegations, took refuge at the Ecuadoran embassy in London a year ago to avoid Britain putting him on a plane to Stockholm.
French MEP Jean-Luc Melenchon said Sunday that France should grant Snowden asylum and called for a suspension of all trade negotiations with the United States.
Earlier this month, Brussels and Washington formally launched negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement which would add tens of billions of dollars to the EU and US economies.

Kerry in last-minute push on Mideast peace

US Secretary of State John Kerry made a last-minute push on Sunday to revive Middle East peace talks as Israeli media said that days of exhaustive shuttle diplomacy had failed to break the deadlock.

Kerry has spent 13 hours with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since Thursday, with the latest session between the two men and their aides lasting until nearly 04:00 (01:00 GMT) at a hotel suite overlooking Jerusalem's Old City.

A sleep-deprived Kerry was to head to Ramallah in the West Bank on Sunday morning to consult for the third day in a row with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, a US official said. His previous two meetings with Abbas took place in Amman.

Israel's army radio painted a grim picture of Kerry's initiative, saying that he has apparently failed in his goal of restarting direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations after a gap of nearly three years.

The last face-to-face negotiations broke down quickly in September 2010, with Abbas accusing Israel of refusing to talk substance.

Sign on commitment

The Palestinian leader is pushing Israel to free the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners as a sign of commitment to peace, to remove roadblocks in the West Bank and to publicly agree to making the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war the baseline for negotiations.

But army radio said that Netanyahu was willing to consider just the first two conditions - but only after talks were under way, and even then in stages.

So far, Israel has flatly refused to countenance any return to the 1967 borders.

Army radio also said an Israeli committee was likely to push through the construction of another 900 new homes in annexed east Jerusalem, in a meeting scheduled to take place on Monday.

The committee had given final approval to around 70 homes in the same area on Wednesday, on the eve of Kerry's visit.

Palestinian leaders have accused Israel of a lack of sincerity by moving ahead on construction in east Jerusalem - which they want as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

A top priority

Kerry has made the elusive goal of Middle East peace a top priority. He is paying his fifth visit to the region since taking on the role of top US diplomat in February.

But he is running against the clock.

Kerry is scheduled to attend a meeting of southeast Asian leaders in Brunei on Monday, at which he will also hold talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the Syrian crisis and a row over the presence in Moscow of US leaker Edward Snowden.

Kerry - whose predecessor Hillary Clinton had made Asia a defining focus - also plans to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and to hold three-way talks with Japan and South Korea, US allies whose relations have recently been sour.

US officials said Kerry was dedicated to seeking progress in the Middle East and plans to speak before flying out. He cancelled a dinner on Saturday in Abu Dhabi on the Syria crisis to spend more time shuttling between Netanyahu and Abbas.

"Kerry is willing to put in the legwork necessary to move this process forward in a meaningful way," a US official said on condition of anonymity.

Tight-lipped about meetings

US officials have been tight-lipped about the substance of Kerry's meetings, fearing that any public statements could put at risk his efforts.

On Kerry's all-night meeting with Netanyahu and senior aides, a US official said only that the two men discussed a "wide range of issues related to the peace process" over a dinner of hummus, pita and sea bream.

Netanyahu had a tense relationship with President Barack Obama during the US leader's first term, with the Israeli leader resisting calls to renew a freeze on settlement construction as part of efforts aimed at leading to a Palestinian state.

Israel had observed a 10-month freeze on new West Bank construction which expired shortly after direct negotiations began in September 2010, with the renewal of settlement building causing the talks to collapse.

While some ministers and aides have described Netanyahu as increasingly pragmatic, he emerged from January elections with a coalition of hardliners, many of whom oppose a Palestinian state.

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the far-right Jewish Home party, recently described the Palestinian issue as "shrapnel in the buttocks" a problem Israel simply had to keep suffering through but threatened to quit if the government agreed to a Palestinian state.

Abbas also faces internal dissent with the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls the impoverished Gaza Strip, strongly criticising him for pursuing talks.

NEWS,27.03.2013

Russian authorities search NGOs' offices

Russian authorities searched the Moscow offices of Human Rights Watch and three other prominent advocacy groups on Wednesday, part of a wave of hundreds of inspections that activists say is a campaign to silence criticism of President Vladimir Putin. Since returning to the Kremlin in May, Putin has tightened controls on non-governmental organisations (NGOs), requiring those with foreign funding to register as "foreign agents" a term echoing, for some, Stalin-era political repressions and Cold War spying.The Kremlin says it is working to prevent foreign governments meddling in Russian politics, but activists see the visits by prosecutors and other authorities ranging from tax officials to fire inspectors as harassment."This is part of a massive, unprecedented in its scale wave of inspections of NGOs throughout Russia... covering hundreds and hundreds of groups," said Rachel Denber, deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch."Most immediately it is an effort to intimidate. More broadly it's part of an effort to discredit ideas about human rights and civil society, to somehow tar them as foreign and suspect," she said by telephone from New York, where Human Rights Watch is based.The US has said it is very concerned about the inspections and European Union Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton on Tuesday described what she called the "raids" on NGOs as part of a trend that was deeply troubling.Germany complained to Russia on Tuesday about the inspections, including visits to two German think-tanks, saying the action could harm bilateral ties already strained by the Cyprus crisis.Federal migration officials visited the offices on Wednesday of a rights group run by Svetlana Gannushkina, one of Russia's most prominent campaigners to help refugees and migrants, Gannushkina said."I am a member of the state commission for migration politics. We are not working against our government I'm afraid that our government is working against our people," Gannushkina.Gannushkina said tax and migration service officers showed up unannounced and demanded passports of employees and visitors who did not look Russian."This is undoubtedly done to apply pressure, it's undoubtedly done to put pressure on civil society."Denber said a tax officer and three prosecutorial officials were polite but spent hours in the Human Rights Watch office in an unannounced inspection, demanding copies of registration papers and a slew of other documents. They were unarmed.'Foreign agents'Authorities on Wednesday also visited offices of anti-corruption group Transparency International Russia and Agora, a human rights organisation.On Monday, the Moscow offices Amnesty International were searched in checks the human rights advocacy group said showed "the menacing atmosphere for civil society" in Russia.The Kremlin denies cracking down on critics, but Putin's own advisory council on human rights has asked Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika to explain the wave of searches.Pavel Chikhov, the head of Agora, said the searches are aimed at gathering evidence of activities that would oblige them to register as "foreign agents" under the law.Russia's leading rights organisations, including the country's oldest rights group Memorial, election-monitoring body Golos and the Moscow Helsinki Group, have refused to register in defiance of the law.The penalties for failing to comply include six months' suspension without a court order and, for individuals, up to three years in jail.Putin, facing the biggest protests of his 13-year rule last year, accused foreign governments, including the United States, of meddling in Russia's domestic politics, and pro-Kremlin media said anti-Putin demonstrators were paid by foreigners to take to the streets.Last autumn, Moscow expelled the US Agency for International Development (USAid), saying it had tried to influence elections.

Kerry proposes US-EU free trade zone

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday a proposed US-EU free trade zone could help Europe emerge from the economic crisis and played down fears it would hit the farm sector."What is important is that ... we move rapidly to have a profound impact on the rest of the world," Kerry told French business leaders, including the heads of Air Liquide, Thales and GE France, at a meeting at the US ambassador's Paris residence."The EU and the United States together represent one-third of the total of all the goods and services sold in the world and we represent more than 50% of the total global economic output of the world," he said.US President Barack Obama last week notified Congress that the government would launch trade talks with the European Union aimed at forging the world's largest free-trade area.The Obama administration said it intends to launch negotiations with the EU "no earlier than 90 days" after the notification.13 million jobsKerry said the proposed free trade area could help Europe emerge from the current economic crisis."I believe as does President Obama that this may be one the best ways of helping Europe to break out of this cycle, have growth," Kerry said.The trade and investment ties support 13 million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic, according to the US Trade Representative.Kerry referred to concerns over agricultural products, saying: "I know the fears in some places. I believe personally than we can work through the differences."I understand the geographical components of certain products that are produced in France ... and I value that. Roquefort is Roquefort for a reason and Champagne is Champagne for a reason. We get it. There are to be ways to protect things that are geographically identified".

N Korea cuts military hotline with South

North Korea severed its military hotline with South Korea on Wednesday, breaking the last direct communication link between the two countries at a time of heightened military tensions.The decision coincided with an announcement that the North's top political leadership would meet in the next few days to discuss an unspecified "important issue" and make a "drastic turn".The hotline move was relayed by a senior North Korean military official to his South Korean counterpart just before the link was severed."Under the situation where a war may break out any moment, there is no need to keep up North-South military communications," the official was quoted as saying by the official Korean Central News Agency."From now, the North-South military communications will be cut off," he said.Several weeks ago North Korea severed the Red Cross hotline that had been used for government-to-government communications in the absence of diplomatic relations.Unleashing ‘all-out war’Severing the military hotline could affect operations at the Seoul-funded Kaesong industrial complex just north of the border because it was used to organise movements of people and vehicles in and out.The industrial estate established in 2004 as a symbol of cross-border co-operation has remained operational despite repeated crises in relations."We are negotiating with the North to prevent any operational issues," an official from the Kaesong management committee said, adding the North has yet to block movements of people to and from Kaesong.The South's unification ministry urged the North to retract its action, saying it's not good for "stable operation" of the complex where more than 50 000 North Koreans work at small labour-intensive South Korean plants.Cutting the hotline was the latest in a series of threats and actions that have raised tensions on the Korean peninsula since the North's long-range rocket launch in December and its nuclear test last month.Both events triggered UN sanctions that infuriated Pyongyang, which has spent the past month issuing increasingly bellicose statements about unleashing an "all-out war".Current situation volatileEarlier on Wednesday the North announced an imminent meeting of its ruling party politburo and launched a scathing attack on South Korea's new president, Park Geun-Hye.A North Korean state committee accused Park of slander and provocation after she made a speech warning the North that failure to abandon its nuclear weapons programme would result in its collapse."If she keeps to the road of confrontation... she will meet a miserable ruin," it said.In Seoul, some analysts suggested the North was fast running out of threats and targets for its invective as it sought to bully the international community into negotiating on Pyongyang's terms."They are upping the rhetorical ante in every possible way, but the international community is not reacting as it had hoped," said Cho Han-Bum, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification.Cho said the coming politburo meeting would probably seek to keep "the momentum going" through some symbolic gesture."I envisage a resolution that further raises the alarm, like declaring a top alert for the entire nation beyond the military," he said.Although North Korea is a past master of brinkmanship, there are concerns in South Korea and beyond that the current situation is so volatile that one accidental step could escalate into serious conflict.On Tuesday the North's military put its "strategic" rocket units on combat alert, with a fresh threat to strike targets on the US mainland, Hawaii and Guam, as well as South Korea.Pentagon spokesperson George Little said US forces were ready to respond to "any contingency". Japan, which hosts a number of US bases, said its government was "on full alert".The US and South Korean militaries signed a new pact last week, providing for a joint military response to even low-level provocation by the North.

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,25.03.2012.

US puts forward World Bank nominee

Jim Yong Kim, the US nominee to lead the World Bank, will win broad international support despite an unprecedented challenge by candidates from emerging economies, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in an interview.Washington's hold on the World Bank presidency is being contested for the first time by candidates from emerging economies.Two respected economists and diplomats, Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and former Colombian finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo, have been nominated.Kim, a Korean-American health expert, is well known among development experts for his work in fighting HIV/AIDS and bringing healthcare to the poor.President Barack Obama nominated him for World Bank president over the weekend.."The president was looking for a candidate who could command broad support across the world," said Geithner."That's very important, because we don't make this decision alone.""Dr. Kim's mix of skills will be particularly compelling to the bank at this time and I think the world will be very impressed with him," he said.Emerging economies such as China, India, South Africa, Brazil and Russia have sought to use their growing economic clout to pry open the selection process for the heads of the World Bank and its sister organization, the International Monetary Fund.The World Bank has always been headed by an American and the IMF by a European since their inception after World War Two.Geithner said it was not a surprise that candidates from other countries had been nominated after a 2009 agreement by leaders of the Group of 20 nations for an open and transparent process to select leaders of the two institutions."We expected that to happen and think it is healthy for the institution as a whole," Geithner said. "But I can tell you from my conversations with developing and developed countries, I am confident he (Kim) will win broad support."US officials have acknowledged that giving up the World Bank presidency would make it difficult for the White House to obtain funding from Congress for the global lender, especially with lawmakers worried about mounting budget deficits.The United States has also argued that it does not head any other global organization.After a broad search that looked at US bankers, economists and politicians, Obama settled on Kim because the Dartmouth College president has a deep commitment to development issues, Geithner said.In particular, he cited Kim's experience in programs to fight HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in impoverished nations, which he said demonstrated that the nominee could get things done in tough environments.In coming weeks, Kim will visit nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America to try to convince them he is the best candidate to lead the poverty-fighting institution, US officials said.Kim was recommended to Obama by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, officials said. Kim and his long-time collaborator Paul Farmer worked with former President Clinton on reconstruction efforts in Haiti following a devastating earthquake in 2010.The White House has acknowledged it considered candidates tied more closely to Washington political circles, including US Senator John Kerry, US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and former White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers."The president wanted somebody who had defined their life through a commitment to the cause of development but had also demonstrated an ability to solve complex problems in a creative way," said Geithner, a Dartmouth alumnus who played a lead role in the search for a successor for outgoing World Bank President Robert Zoellick.Kim's development successes involving HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and the provision of inexpensive medicine to the poor have received wide praise. However, some development experts say he lacks the economic credentials and diplomatic skills of rival nominees Okonjo-Iweala and Ocampo.While the World Bank's mission remains focused on eradicating poverty, the rise of some once poorer clients such as China and India have forced it to also focus on impediments to development in emerging economies, including power supply and governance issues.Okonjo-Iweala and Ocampo would bring more expertise in these areas, some development economists say.A senior Obama administration official said the bank has ample expertise and what is needed at the top is someone who can get things done.The World Bank is involved in the design of health systems in developing countries, but its funding and influence in the area has been eclipsed by groups such as the Geneva-based Global Fund and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.Geithner said Kim has "an incredible feel for what matters most in development and recognizes that for economies to grow they have to invest in expanding opportunities for their people, in healthcare and in education.""Those are lessons that the most successful emerging and developing countries have learned and been forced to learn, and in that sense he has the ideal feel," Geithner added. "His experience comes from what he has done in the field, not just from his academic research."People who had worked with Kim were impressed by his ability to handle complicated situations in tough environments such as Haiti, Geithner said. In Haiti, Kim was credited with persuading the government to take steps to avoid an outbreak of tuberculosis.