NEWS,15.07.2013

Kuwait sends $200m worth of oil to Egypt

Kuwait has sent two oil tankers carrying crude and diesel worth $200m to Egypt, a Kuwaiti newspaper said on Sunday, part of a $4bn aid package pledged by the Gulf Arab state last week after the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.
Kuwait last week joined other oil-producing Gulf states in pledging a massive aid package worth $12bn to Egypt in a show of support after the army toppled the Muslim Brotherhood government. Most US-allied Gulf monarchies regard the Brotherhood as a threat.
Kuwait's Arabic-language al-Rai newspaper quoted oil sources as saying that an oil tanker carrying between 90 000 and 100 000 tonnes of diesel that happened to be travelling through the Suez Canal was diverted to Egypt. A second tanker with 1.1 million barrels of crude was ordered to sail towards Egypt, it said.
The newspaper estimated the value of the cargo on each ship at $100m.
Kuwaiti officials were not immediately available to comment on the report.
The state news agency KUNA said last week that Kuwait's aid package would comprise a $2bn central bank deposit, a $1bn grant and $1bn in oil products. It did not say when the aid would be delivered.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had earlier pledged a total of $8bn in aid to Egypt.
The rise of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt since 2011 had unsettled most Gulf Arab states, including the UAE, which feared it would embolden Islamists at home.
Mursi became president a year ago in Egypt's first freely contested election but was ousted by the military after mass protests against his rule, which critics said was marked by creeping authoritarianism and mismanagement of the economy.
Kuwait has in the past coordinated policy with Saudi Arabia and the UAE by pledging financial aid for Gulf neighbours hit by social unrest such as Bahrain and Oman, but also Arab states further afield such as Morocco and Jordan.
The aid to Egypt from the three Gulf Arab oil producers is expected to help Cairo avoid a balance of payments crisis and overcome fuel shortages that were partly responsible for increasing public anger towards Mursi.
It will also ease pressure on Cairo to conclude long-running talks with the International Monetary Fund on a $4.8bn loan. However, a widening fiscal gap and political turmoil following Mursi's toppling last week will remain a pressing challenge for Egyptian authorities, analysts said.
Qatar lent Egypt more than $7bn during Mursi's year in power but other Gulf states remained aloof, wary of the Muslim Brotherhood's potential influence in their own conservative, dynastically ruled countries.

Australia to scrap carbon tax

Australia plans to scrap its carbon tax and bring forward an emissions trading scheme, Treasurer Chris Bowen said on Sunday, a policy shift certain to be a focal point in the forthcoming election.
Under current plans, Australia would move from the current fixed price on carbon essentially a tax assessed on larger companies entitling them to produce carbon emissions to a floating price in July 2015.
However, since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd regained the leadership of the governing Labour party last month, there has been mounting pressure to ditch the unpopular tax sooner.
Bowen said in a television interview that the tax would be axed and a planned emissions trading scheme, under which assessments for emissions are subject to market forces, brought forward.
He gave no details and said Rudd would announce the full plan in the coming days.
"It is no secret that we have been looking at this, that we are heading in this direction," Bowen told Channel Ten.
"We have believed in an emissions trading scheme for some time. What we are seeing is an emissions trading scheme being implemented earlier than was envisaged."
The carbon tax, set at A$24.15 a tonne, applies to around 300 of Australia's biggest polluters, including mining giant BHP Billiton, Qantas Airways and BlueScope Steel.
The emissions trading scheme would replace that with a floating price, based on current EU carbon futures and expected to be cheaper for big business.
Any new carbon plan cannot be legislated until after the elections, due to take place between late August and November. The conservative opposition has promised to scrap the carbon price if it wins office.
The planned change could undermine the government's budget strategy, as the carbon tax was due to raise A$8.14bn ($7.38bn) in 2013-14, and A$8.6bn in 2014-15. The shift could see revenue cut by around A$5.8bn in 2014-15.
Bowen would not be drawn on the impact on the budget, but said it would be "substantial" and would run to "several billion" Australian dollars.
The carbon tax was introduced last year under former prime minister Julia Gillard, ousted by Rudd in an internal party vote last month. He reclaimed the job she took from him in a similar fashion in 2010, shortly before the last election.
Rudd's reinstatement as prime minister has give Labor a boost from poor ratings in opinion polls. Surveys show Rudd is preferred by voters to opposition leader Tony Abbott, but Labor still trails the opposition narrowly.

Putin explores Baltic Sea shipwreck

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday dived to the bottom of the Baltic Sea aboard a submersible to explore the wreck of a ship that sank in 1869.
State television pictures showed Putin climbing aboard the Sea Explorer 5 underwater research vessel for the half-hour dive to the wreck of a frigate that sank in the Gulf of Finland.
"It is lying on its right side," Putin said in televised reports afterwards, saying the vessel was well-preserved.
"Indeed, it's in perfect state, the name of the ship can be clearly read.
"It's not scary, it's very interesting," he added, referring to the experience.
Television broadcast green-tinted footage showing the Russian strongman carefully inspecting the shipwreck from inside the submersible.
He said he was not at the controls himself, noting he was not skilled enough. "You have to have lots of experience to operate this machine," he was quoted as saying.
The Oleg was discovered by Russian divers in 2003 and is now being studied by scientists.
It lies at a depth of 60m between the islands of Gogland and Sommers.
The 60-year-old sports-mad president, who returned to the Kremlin for a third term last year, prides himself on keeping in peak physical condition and has raised eyebrows with a series of media-friendly stunts in recent years.
A self-professed thrill-seeker, Putin in 2009 dived to the bottom of Lake Baikal in Siberia aboard a mini-submarine.
In 2011, he announced that he had discovered two ancient urns while scuba diving in the Black Sea in 2011, but last year the Kremlin admitted the stunt was staged.

Italy's interior minister urged to quit

A leading Italian newspaper on Monday urged the deputy of head of Italy's fragile ruling coalition to resign over the expulsion of the wife and daughter of dissident Kazakh oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, who also serves as deputy premier, was not told of the operation in which Ablyazov's wife Anna Shalabayeva and their 6-year-old daughter Alua were expelled in May, the government said in a statement on Friday.

It said it had now withdrawn the deportation order.

The incident has added to the headaches facing Prime Minister Enrico Letta, who was already struggling to contain coalition tensions between Alfano's centre-right People of Freedom (PDL) and his own centre-left Democratic Party (PD).

Italian newspapers reported that at least four senior officials, including Alfano's own chief of staff could be sacked over the incident, and La Repubblica called for Alfano, a key lieutenant of centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi, to go.

"A minister who doesn't know about an operation of this kind and is not in control of the police is both responsible for everything and good for nothing: He should resign," the left-leaning newspaper said in a front-page editorial.

Economic interests

Members of Alfano's People of Freedom party rejected the demand, saying La Repubblica was trying to bring down the government only months after the deadlocked national election in February which forced the creation of the uneasy coalition.

The PD, wary about exacerbating problems for Letta, has been more circumspect but Dario Nardelli, a senior deputy, said "it is in Alfano's interest to clear up this situation".

Italy has major economic interests in Kazakhstan, including energy group Eni's stake in the giant Kashagan oil field. The case has also highlighted the close relations between Berlusconi's former government, in which Alfano served as justice minister, and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the oil-rich state for 17 years.

On Monday, Berlusconi, whose own legal problems have stoked coalition tensions, denied a report in the Unione Sarda newspaper that he had met Nazarbayev in Sardinia to discuss the case on 6 July, while the Kazakh leader was on holiday.

Letta has pledged to continue investigations into the deportation of Shalabayeva, who was hustled onto a private plane to Kazakhstan despite having a valid Latvian residence permit enabling her to stay in the European Union.

Ablyazov, a banker and ex-energy minister turned bitter critic of Nazarbayev, fled Kazakhstan after his bank BTA was declared insolvent and nationalised in 2009.

'Hostage' of the government

He was not present when Italian police raided the couple's Rome villa on 29 May and has accused the Kazakh government of "kidnapping" his family.

In an interview with La Repubblica on Monday, his eldest daughter Madina said her mother had been made a "hostage" of the government, which has been severely criticised for its treatment of political opponents by groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

"The possibilities open to my father's enemies are unlimited as this extraordinary expulsion proves once again," she said.

The Italian government has asked Kazakhstan to safeguard Shalabayeva's rights but Kazakh authorities say she will not be able to leave pending an investigation into allegations she illegally obtained passports for relatives of Ablyazov.

Spain PM under pressure in party scandal

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy faced calls to explain himself or resign over his alleged support for the ruling Popular Party's disgraced former treasurer, who headed to court on Monday over a slush fund scandal.

The 58-year-old, grey-bearded premier has denied any wrongdoing and refused to comment in past weeks on the growing controversy centred on former party treasurer Luis Barcenas.

Pressure on Rajoy mounted, however, as more allegations were revealed and as the 55-year-old Barcenas faced a High Court judge to answer questions over secret political payments.

Barcenas was called to appear in the Madrid court after conservative daily El Mundo last week published what it said was an original page from Barcenas' slush fund ledger and delivered the document to the court.

The excerpt purportedly showed extra payments from a secret fund to party officials including Rajoy when he was a minister under then prime minister Jose Maria Aznar in 1997, 1998 and 1999.

Barcenas is suspected of running a slush fund financed by corporate donors who were then rewarded with public contracts. The cash was allegedly used to supplement senior party members' salaries.

Illegal financing for 20 years

In the latest blow to Rajoy, the conservative daily El Mundo on Sunday published friendly mobile text messages between the prime minister and Barcenas from May 2011 to March 2013, ending about two months after the scandal erupted.

"Luis, I understand, be strong. I will call you tomorrow. Best wishes," said one of the messages reportedly from Rajoy to Barcenas, dated 18 January when El Mundo first published allegations over the slush fund.

"It is not good to try to determine what we will say or to comment on things that must be presented to the courts, which we must all respect," read another message allegedly sent by Rajoy.

Barcenas reportedly told El Mundo in an interview published on 7 July that the Popular Party had engaged in illegal financing for nearly 20 years.

The Popular Party has repeatedly denied secret financing allegations.

The leader of Spain's main opposition Socialist Party, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, on Sunday accused the premier of "serious collusion" with Barcenas and said he was severing all contact with the prime minister and his party.

Demands for explanation

"Given the unsustainable political situation in Spain, the Socialist Party calls for the immediate resignation of Mariano Rajoy as head of the government," he said.

But few people in Spain expect Rajoy to step down given his party's outright parliamentary majority.

An editorial in leading daily El Pais on Monday demanded an explanation from the premier.

"Out of respect for the democratic system, the citizens and his own party and voters, the head of government must give a true explanation to parliament," it said.

"Otherwise it will be impossible for him to regain his credibility."

Rajoy has so far resisted calls to appear before parliament over the scandal and has carefully avoided even mentioning the name Barcenas.

27% unemployment

But he is expected to face the press on Monday after hosting a visit by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

The corruption allegations have outraged Spaniards suffering in a recession with a record unemployment rate of more than 27%. Dozens of protesters rallied outside the Popular Party headquarters in Madrid on Sunday.

Barcenas is already behind bars while under investigation in a separate graft case.

A Spanish judge remanded Barcenas to custody on 27 June over alleged money laundering and tax fraud. He said the move was aimed at preventing him from fleeing and to preserve evidence.

Barcenas is being investigated over tens of millions of euros he allegedly stashed in Swiss bank accounts.

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,11.12.2012

  Italy petrol strike threatens to hit economy

Italian petrol stations began a 60-hour strike today to protest against rising costs and falling profits, causing long queues as drivers rushed to fill up before pumps closed.Hitting at the peak shopping period before Christmas, the strike comes at unwelcome time for retailers.Weak consumer spending has been a key factor in Italy's sluggish economy, which has been dipping in and out of recession since 2008."It is incredible, with all that petrol costs us nowadays, that they can even think of going on strike," Rome resident Ida Lauro said as she queued in her car.Unions have agreed to maintain minimum service on motorways, with at least one station open every 100 km.In a joint statement, unions said they called the strike to combat "a true aggression against the roughly 24,000 small businesses and 120,000 workers in the sector".They say oil companies have forced stations to absorb the costs of discounting campaigns, allowing them a profit of just one euro for every 100 euros ($155) or 55 litres of petrol sold.Oil distributors in Italy Esso and Shell were not immediately available for comment. A government attempt to come to an agreement with the unions this week fell through.Workers will demonstrate outside government buildings in Rome later today to pressure the state to intervene.The strike will end on Friday morning on ordinary roads and late on Thursday on motorways.Between December 17 and 22 the petrol stations will refuse to pay oil companies for refills. Then, between Christmas and New Year, they will refuse credit and debit card payments in protest at bank charges on electronic payments.Mario Monti's technocrat government has cut spending and raised taxes since it was appointed last year to pull Italy out of a debt crisis, and is the focus of increasing protests.The government was thrown into crisis last week when the party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi withdrew its support, prompting Monti to announce he would resign once the 2013 budget bill is passed before Christmas.

US to keep strong presence in Mideast

The US military will retain a "strong presence" in the Middle East despite a strategic shift to Asia, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said on Tuesday during a visit to Kuwait. The US plans to deploy a majority of its naval fleet to the Asia-Pacific along with other advanced weaponry but Panetta insisted that a robust American force would remain in place in the Middle East.Panetta spoke to journalists aboard his plane travelling to Kuwait City on a two-day visit to discuss bolstering security ties amid tumult in the region and tensions with Iran."Let me assure you that the United States is strong enough that we can maintain a strong presence in the Middle East as well as in the Pacific," he said.He acknowledged that the US had to be "flexible" in managing its forces in a more austere era and that it would have only one aircraft carrier in the Middle East for about two months to allow for maintenance work on another carrier, the USS Nimitz.The American military still had nearly 50 000 troops and warships positioned across the region, he said."But in the end, I am very confident that we're going to be able to maintain the ships and forces we need in order to respond to any contingency."The US has deployed more ships and aircraft in the strategic Gulf over the past year after Iran threatened to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz if Western countries boycotted Iranian oil exports.Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah al Ahmad al Sabah, held talks at his residence with Panetta in the presence of the crown prince, the prime minister, defence minister and senior officials, the state-run Kuna news agency reported.Kuna provided no details about the talks.During the visit, which ends on Wednesday, Panetta also plans to meet some of the 13 500 US troops stationed in the Gulf state to thank them for their service ahead of the Christmas holidays.His visit is the first to the emirate by a Pentagon chief in five years."We share a history of co-operation that goes back to the first Gulf War," in 1991 that ousted Iraqi occupation forces, Panetta said of Kuwait, calling the country an "important partner"."I look forward to discussing with the government of Kuwait how can we enhance that co-operation in the face of regional security challenges in the area," he said."Our presence in Kuwait and throughout the Gulf helps enhance the capabilities of partner nations, deters aggression and helps ensure that we're better able to respond to crises in the region."Panetta's visit coincides with a wave of protests in the oil-rich Gulf state, with thousands of opposition demonstrators demanding fresh elections due to a bitter dispute over amendments to the country's electoral law.Kuwaiti activists have called for protesters to camp outside parliament next Saturday on the eve of its opening session.

N Korea removes rocket from launch pad

North Korea has removed a long-range rocket from its launch pad for repair, South Korean media reported on Tuesday, a day after Pyongyang extended the widely-criticised mission's launch window.According to analysis of the latest satellite imagery, the entire three-stage Unha-3 carrier has been removed to a nearby assembly facility, Yonhap news agency quoted a military source as saying."It seems that North Korea has pulled down the rocket from the launch pad to fix technical problems," the source said.The defence ministry refused to confirm the report which, if true, would signal a lengthy delay in the launch schedule.North Korea says the rocket is being used to put a satellite into orbit, but the United States and its allies insist the launch is a disguised ballistic missile test.North Korea had originally provided a 10-22 December window for launching the rocket, but that was extended by another week on Monday when a "technical deficiency" was discovered in the first-stage engine.Yonhap's military source said Pyongyang was expected to go ahead with a launch after repair works are completed.The North's decision to try and launch the rocket in winter has led analysts to suggest a political imperative behind the timing, which may have overruled technical considerations.New leader Kim Jong-Un is believed to be extremely keen that the launch falls around the first anniversary of the death of his father and former leader Kim Jong-Il on 17 December.The possibility that the launch has been rushed has been backed by missile experts, sceptical that the problem which resulted in the failure of the North's last rocket launch in April could have been resolved in just eight months.North Korea is banned from conducting missile tests under UN resolutions triggered by Pyongyang's two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.The latest planned launch has been condemned by the United Nations, as well as the United States and its main military allies in Asia, Japan and South Korea.Russia has joined international calls for Pyongyang to cancel the mission, while China, North Korea's sole major ally and its biggest trade partner and aid provider, has expressed concern.EU foreign ministers said on Monday that an eventual launch would be a "provocative act" in breach of UN resolutions and require an international response.UN diplomats inside and outside the Security Council have started consultations behind the scenes on what action to take if Pyongyang goes ahead with the launch.According to Japanese reports, Japan, the United States and South Korea have agreed to demand the UN Security Council strengthen sanctions on North Korea to levels that match those on Iran.That would include increasing the list of financial institutions, entities and individuals already subject to asset freezes.

Berlusconi, Monti set fiery campaign tone

Italy's Silvio Berlusconi on Tuesday set the tone for his election campaign saying nobody should care about bond spreads, and accusing Mario Monti of being "German-centric" as the prime minister said he had spared Italy from the same fate as Greece."Who cares about the spread?" the 76-year-old Berlusconi, who is running for the sixth time in two decades, said in an interview with Canale 5 television part of his media empire."The spread is a trick and an invention with which they tried to bring down the majority that ruled this country," said the three-time prime minister and billionaire, referring to his last government which collapsed in November 2011 following a parliamentary revolt and panic on the markets.The spread is the differential between Italian and benchmark German 10-year sovereign bonds  a closely watched measure of investor confidence.The spread had narrowed to below 300 points last week but has widened since Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party said on Thursday that it was withdrawing its support for Monti's government.Berlusconi then announced he would run for prime minister and Monti said he would resign as soon as parliament approves next year's budget, bringing forward the likely date for elections to February.There is growing speculation that Monti will also decide to run in the election although he has so far declined to comment, saying only that he is not considering the option "at this stage".The spread was around 349 points on Tuesday, while the stock market inched up 0.64% in afternoon trading - a day after it trailed other European bourses reacting to the weekend of political drama and the re-emergence of Berlusconi.Polls say the favourite to win is centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani, a cigar-chomping former communist and two-time minister who spearheaded a liberalisation drive when he was in office.Berlusconi on Tuesday also criticised Monti as "too German-centric" and said that all the main economic indicators had worsened since the former Eurocrat was installed in power.He continued saying that Italy's record-high public debt of nearly $2.6 trillion, or around 120% of gross domestic product, was "not as high as they want to make you think".Monti also gave an interview to Rai public television in which he said that the government had to be "very careful" and "calm" about bond spreads.In a rare moment of candour on his personal life, he revealed his own grandson had been nicknamed "spread" at his kindergarten and recognised the word as his own name when he heard it on television.Monti also warned about rising populism ahead of the elections, saying: "There is a tendency to over-simplify things, to present magical solutions."And he defended his record in government saying: "We have made great progress but at a cost. In the short term, there has not been growth."I would appreciate it if someone could explain to me how it would have been possible financially to spare Italy from suffering the same fate as Greece and make it grow at a rapid rate," he said.Newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano's online edition said the contrasting interviews with Monti and Berlusconi on Tuesday were a "head-on clash"."Each one used their own language, but this really is a challenge at a distance," the paper said.Berlusconi also announced that only 10% of the party's candidates in elections now expected in February would be chosen from current lawmakers.Fifty percent of the candidates will come from the business community, 20% from local government and 10% from the world of culture, he said, without explaining where the remaining 10% would come from.The PDL has been riven by infighting and hit by a series of fraud investigations since Berlusconi stepped down last year and retreated from the political fray before suddenly returning last week to the dismay of several dissident party members. Berlusconi also said he would be holding talks later on Tuesday with Roberto Maroni, leader of the populist Northern League party, on forming a possible coalition.Berlusconi's PDL and the Northern League won the last general election in 2008 but there have been tensions between the two parties in recent years.