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,31.05.2013

Opec set to hold oil output

OPEC ministers said they expected to keep oil output levels unchanged despite concern about demand in view of the weak economic outlook, as they started a crucial meeting in Vienna on Friday.
The 12-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), comprising nations from the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, is mindful that cutting production could raise prices and boost their incomes but that this could also boomerang by hampering fragile global recovery.
The outlook for global economic growth, and demand for oil, has been clouded by the combined impact of Chinese inflationary pressures, the long-running eurozone sovereign debt crisis and uncertainty over policy for the US economy, Opec says.
Questioned about whether the cartel would seek to roll over its daily output target of 30 million barrels per day, Angolan Oil Minister Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos said that this was likely.
"We are producing about 30 million barrels (per day). I think we will take the decision to maintain the situation," he told journalists at the start of the meeting in Vienna, where the cartel is headquartered.
He also expressed satisfaction with the current price level, noting: "$100 per barrel is good."
In reality, actual output exceeds 30 million mbpd.
United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei added: "There's nothing controversial (at this meeting), the levels of production being good and adequate to the market and the prices are appropriate."
Kuwait's OPEC governor Siham Abdulrazzak Razzouqi also said she expected no change, saying: "We think that the market is very stable."
"Supply and demand are in balance, prices are at a good level. Everything seems to be fine."
Even ahead of the meeting, there were indications that Opec - which pumps about 35% of global oil supplies would leave its official oil output ceiling at 30 mbpd, where it has stood since the end of 2011.
That OPEC produces above that level is partly thanks to a higher production from kingpin Saudi Arabia, which is the biggest producer in the cartel. It has also risen in recent times due to recovering production from Iraq and Libya.
"We are going to call for members to respect the ceiling," added Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez, signalling concern about overproduction.
Meanwhile Iran, which in the run-up to the meeting had pushed for lower output, seemed to have joined the consensus for maintaining the status quo.
"I think the current ceiling is logical, rational, reasonable," he said Friday as Opec members began their meeting.
"At the closed-door session we will recommend (to member countries) to keep maintaining their production (and) not surplus," he said.
Iran has been hit by international oil sanctions over its controversial nuclear programme which has seen it drop from second to fifth largest OPEC producer in the last two years.
Opec countries have been generally satisfied with the price of $100 per barrel, although Algeria and Qatar on Friday appeared flexible on the price.
"We dont have any price target, we are following the market," Algerian Energy Minister Youcef Yousfi told journalists.
Ahead of Opec's ministerial meeting, Brent oil prices stood at $101.60 in late morning trading in London.
Demand is being contained by weak growth in many advanced economies and by the boom of oil and gas production from shale resources in North America.
Opec's Secretary-General Abdullah El-Badri added that the cartel predicted an upswing in energy demand growth in the third and fourth quarter of this year.
However, he sounded a gloomy warning over the world economy.
"For demand growth, we have to look to the world economy. Some countries are fine, some countries are not really fine," El-Badri said.
"We have to watch out for demand ... because the United States has fiscal problems, China is also struggling with their inflation and, of course you know the problems of Europe."
Friday's gathering will also seek to identify the criteria under which members will decide their next secretary general at the next scheduled meet in December.

Record unemployment in the eurozone

Unemployment has reached a new high in the eurozone and inflation remains well below the European Central Bank's target, underscoring just how severe a challenge EU leaders face to revive the bloc's sickly economy.
Joblessness in the 17 nation currency area rose to 12.2% in April, statistics agency Eurostat said on Friday, marking a new record since the data series began in 1995.
With the eurozone also in its longest recession since its creation in 1999, consumer price inflation was far below the ECB's target of just below 2%, coming in at 1.4% in May, slightly above April's 1.2% rate.
That rise may quieten concerns about deflation, but the deepening unemployment crisis is a threat to the social fabric of the eurozone, with almost two-thirds of young Greeks unable to find work exemplifying southern Europe's threat of creating a 'lost generation'.
Economists and policy makers have expressed concern that the greatest threat to the unity of the eurozone is now social breakdown from the crisis, rather than market-driven factors.
In France, Europe's second largest economy, the number of jobless rose to a record in April, while in Italy, the unemployment rate hit its highest level in at least 36 years, with 40% of young people out of work.
Some economists expect the ECB, which meets on June 6, to act to revive the economy and go beyond another interest rate cut to consider a US-style money printing programme known as quantitative easing.
"We do not expect a strong recovery in the euro zone," said Nick Matthews, a senior economist at Nomura International in London. "It puts pressure on the ECB to deliver even more conventional and non conventional measures."
In the past, the euro zone has needed economic growth of around 1.5% to create new jobs, according to Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING. With the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development forecasting this week that the euro zone economy would contract by 0.6% this year, unemployment is set to worsen long before it turns around.
"We do not see a stabilisation in unemployment before the middle of next year," said Frederik Ducrozet, an economist at Economist at Credit Agricole in Paris. "The picture in France is still deteriorating."
5.6 million young jobless
ECB President Mario Draghi, whose bold decision-making helped protect the eurozone from break-up last year with a plan to buy the bonds of governments in trouble, has so far preferred to leave the onus on euro zone governments to reform.
A majority of economists polled by Reuters do not expect the ECB to cut its deposit or main refinancing rates in the coming months, although the OECD this week called for the bank to consider quantitative easing.
The Commission, the EU's executive, told governments this week they must focus on reforms to outdated labour and pension systems to regain Europe's lost business dynamism, a move to shift focus away from debilitating budget cuts towards growth.
EU leaders meeting at the end of June in Brussels are expected to put the problem of joblessness at the forefront of their summit.
European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, who chairs the meetings, said last week youth unemployment was one of the most pressing issues for the 27-nation European Union as a whole.
Ministers from France, Italy and Germany, meeting in Paris this week, called on their counterparts to help tackle youth unemployment, with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble describing it as a "battle for Europe's unity".
In April, 5.6 million people under 25 were unemployed in the European Union, with 3.6 million of those in the eurozone.
Even if governments take on unions and vested interests to enact reforms, they will take time to produce benefits.
The impact of the eurozone's debt and banking crises has been sapping confidence from companies and households.
Private consumption saved Germany from slipping into recession in the first three months of this year, but retail sales still fell unexpectedly in April because of the cold European winter.
Meanwhile, French consumer spending dropped again in February, falling by 0.2% after contracting in January. French household purchasing power contracted in 2012 for the first time since 1984.

N Korean farmers plant rice for bonuses

North Korean farmers knee deep in muddy paddies across the country have a new incentive during this year's crucial rice planting season: Possible bonuses that are part of an economic shift echoing ally China's steps three decades ago toward embracing capitalism.

Details about the changes are emerging nearly two months after the regime unveiled dual goals of building the economy and nuclear weapons in the first concrete economic policy laid out by leader Kim Jong-un, since he took power in December 2011.

Farmers say they have begun working under the new policies, which are designed to boost production by giving managers and workers financial incentives.

Foreign analysts say the moves to spur North Korea's moribund economy suggest Pyongyang is taking cues from Beijing on how to incorporate free market ideas within its rigid socialist system.

The North's policy enshrining its provocative push to build atomic weapons as a national goal has complicated efforts to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme and dominated international discussion about the country.

Pyongyang's economic priorities have drawn far less attention but some experts think important reforms could be unfolding.

Lifting living standards

Impoverished North Korea suffers chronic food and power shortages and has not released economic data for decades.

South Korea's central bank estimates the North's gross national income, an indicator of the average standard of living, was $1 250 per person in 2011 compared with $23 400 for South Korea.

In the past, the North Korean state set workers' salaries. Under new measures announced on 1 April, the managers of farms, factories and other enterprises have been given leeway to set salaries and offer bonuses to workers who help drive up production.

"This is definitely significant," said John Delury, an assistant professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.

Providing material incentives and loosening central control over economic decision making are two key elements in the transition from a command economy to a market-based system, he said.

Also announced on 1 April: The reappointment of Pak Pong Ju as premier after his dismissal from the post in 2007. Pak was central to attempts at economic change more than a decade ago.

"You just wouldn't bring back Pak Pong Ju unless you were going to try readjusting economy policy. There would be no reason to do that," said Delury, calling it a strong sign of Kim Jong Un's interest in lifting living standards.

Economic reform

North Korea's policy changes find an echo in China's market reforms that have transformed it into a manufacturing powerhouse and world's second-largest economy, while also lifting several hundred million out of grinding poverty.

Beijing dismantled the centrally planned economy slowly. In the 1970s, it began allowing farmers to keep more of their harvests, giving them an incentive to grow more to sell on newly permitted free markets. Food production soared.

In the mid-'80s, the government gave state enterprises the authority to link bonuses and salaries to better performance. Those changes were mostly aimed at managers, but they cracked a communist-era preference for egalitarianism.

New rules in the early 1990s gave state enterprises full flexibility to set wages, widening the use of performance incentives. In that decade, China truly broke away from its centralised "iron rice bowl" system of guaranteed employment and state-set incomes.

Delury and others cautioned that if the North is intent on economic reform, it is likely to be a fitful process.

"We have to be careful not to say: Aha, it's all change, it's finally here," he said. "The point is, and we see this from the Chinese case, this is a process that unfolds over time and there are starts and stops, too. But this is a strong signal of a push."

‘Greater profits’ 

AP reported last September that farmers were notified of upcoming management changes at collective farms that would put decision-making and responsibility for crops in the hands of local officials and give farmers the right to hold onto surpluses.

"Last year, we studied reasonable economic management methods in different fields of economic work, and introduced it to some units on a trial basis," Ri Ki Song, an economist from North Korea's Academy of Social Sciences, told AP this week.

North Korea formally announced the policy, and its expansion to include factories and other enterprises, a day after holding a plenary session of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party. Rodong Sinmun, the party paper, called it a "new strategic line".

Ri, however, dismissed characterisations of the changes as reform.

What's new, he said, is allowing managers to dole out goods and cash as incentives. In addition, after meeting a state quota, managers can set their employees' salaries and offer bonuses to those who help drive up production, he said.

The main goal: to encourage "greater profits" and solve North Korea's chronic food shortage, Ri said.

‘Repay’ the state

Ri said North Koreans work hard, but the new incentives give them motivation to work even harder. "They are saying that higher salaries and shares will improve their life."

Political and military expert Ralph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum CSIS in Hawaii, noted that North Korea has rolled back past attempts at economic reform.

"The North Koreans have played reform games before and then just sort of pulled the rug out from under it," he said. Cossa cited NGOs as saying the military is pressuring farmers to donate their portion to the army.

Last year, a farmer's wife in Sariwon, south of Pyongyang, told the AP she planned to donate any surplus harvest to the state as a token of her patriotism.

At the Tongbong farm in the eastern city of Hamhung, farmers are in the midst of a busy rice planting season after a long, cold winter.

This year, things are being managed differently, said Kim Jong Jin, deputy chairperson of the farm's managing committee.

He said the state provided the farm with the rice seedlings, which farmers are now transplanting to paddies by hand. Farmers are on smaller teams that have direct responsibility over their plots.

After the rice is harvested, farmers must "repay" the state for the seeds. At Tongbong that means giving the state about 193kg of rice as payback for every 140kg of seedlings they received.

But any surplus can be kept by the team to sell, barter or distribute - a change from past policies that required farmers to turn all harvests over to the state.

"This encourages enthusiasm for production and we get more of what's produced," Kim said.

Police clash with Istanbul protesters

Riot police fired tear gas at hundreds of demonstrators on Friday, injuring at least a dozen people, in a bid to break up a four-day protest against a major construction project in Istanbul's iconic Taksim Square.

Several of the wounded were left lying on the ground unconscious after they were hit with large quantities of tear gas and pepper spray, while two people were hospitalised with injuries to the head, an AFP photographer witnessed.
Some protesters were also hurt when a scaffolding collapsed as they tried to escape the police intervention on the square.
Construction had began in November to pedestrianise the zone surrounding the famous square, a traditional gathering point for rallies and protests as well as a popular tourist destination.
The controversial project is aimed at easing the chronic congestion in the roads around the square.
Demonstrators have been trying to prevent workers from razing Taksim Excursion Park, which lies across from the square's centrepiece, the Ataturk monument. In place of the park, a shopping mall is to be built.
Critics say the project would turn the square into yet another soulless concrete commercial zone aimed at making money while driving away residents who use it as a meeting point.
Taksim Square has for decades been the rallying point for millions of Istanbul residents, as well as the political stage for demonstrators who pour in on a daily basis to make their views on different causes heard.

Notes to Obama, mayor had gun threats

A suspicious letter mailed to the White House and intercepted this week was similar to two threatening, poison-laced letters on the gun law debate sent to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the nation's most potent gun-control advocates, officials said on Thursday.
Yet another letter became known publicly on Thursday, one tainted with the poison ricin and mailed to President Barack Obama from Spokane, Washington, the FBI said. Authorities have arrested a man in Spokane in connection with that letter, which was intercepted on May 22.
The Secret Service said the White House-bound letter similar to the ones Bloomberg was sent was intercepted by a White House mail screening facility. Two similar letters postmarked in Louisiana and sent to Bloomberg in New York and his gun control group in Washington contained traces of the deadly poison ricin.
It wasn't immediately clear whether the letter sent to Obama contained ricin. It was turned over to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force for testing and investigation.
The two Bloomberg letters, opened Friday in New York and Sunday in Washington, contained an oily pinkish-orange substance.
New York Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Thursday the same machine or computer had produced the two letters to Bloomberg and the similar one to Obama and that they may be identical. He referred specific questions to the FBI.
The FBI said in a statement that field tests on the letters were consistent with the presence of a biological agent, and the letters were turned over to an accredited laboratory for the kind of thorough analysis that is needed to verify a tentative finding. "More letters may be received," the statement said, without elaboration.
The body of the letter mailed to New York was addressed to "you" and referenced the gun control debate. Kelly said the unsigned letter says, in so many words: "Anyone who comes for my guns will be shot in the face." He refused to quote directly from the letter, saying he didn't want to do the author's bidding.
Second letter
Bloomberg has emerged as one of the country's most important gun-control advocates, able to press his case with both his public position and his private money.
The New York letter was opened at the city's mail facility in Manhattan in a biochemical containment box, which is a part of the screening process for mayor's office mail.
"In terms of the processes and procedures that are in place now we think they worked," Kelly said. "This is sort of an effect of the post-9/11 world that we live in that these checks and facilities are in place and the system worked."
The second letter was opened on Sunday by Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the Washington-based nonprofit Bloomberg started.
The letter Glaze opened tested positive for ricin initially. The other letter to Bloomberg at first tested negative but tested positive at a retest Wednesday.
The postal workers union, citing information it got in a Postal Service briefing, said the letters bore a Shreveport, Louisiana, postmark. Kelly would not comment on the origin of the letter.
Louisiana State Police spokesperson Julie Lewis said state authorities have deferred to the FBI and have not opened an investigation. The Shreveport postal center handles mail from Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, so the letter could have come from any of those states, Lewis said.
The people who initially came into contact with the letters showed no symptoms of exposure to the poison, but three officers who later examined the New York letter experienced minor symptoms that have since abated, police said. The mayor visited the mailroom on Thursday but made no public comments on the topic.
Background checks
On Wednesday, he said he didn't know why they were sent.
One of the letters "obviously referred to our anti-gun efforts, but there's 12 000 people that are going to get killed this year with guns and 19 000 that are going to commit suicide with guns, and we're not going to walk away from those efforts", said Bloomberg, adding that he didn't feel threatened.
According to the federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, ricin is a poison found naturally in castor beans. Symptoms can include difficulty breathing, vomiting and redness on the skin depending on how the affected person comes into contact with the poison.
The letters were the latest in a string of toxin-laced missives, but authorities would not say whether the letters to Bloomberg and Obama were believed to be linked to any other recent case.
In Washington state, a 37-year-old was charged last week with threatening to kill a federal judge in a letter that contained ricin. On Thursday, the FBI said a suspicious letter containing ricin was mailed to Obama from Spokane on the same day similar ricin-tainted letters were mailed to the judge and to a post office. A fourth letter, sent to nearby Fairchild Air Force Base, continues to undergo testing, officials said.
About a month earlier, letters containing the substance were addressed to Obama, a US senator and a Mississippi judge. One of the letters postmarked in Memphis, Tennessee, was traced back to Tupelo, Mississippi, and a Mississippi man was arrested.
Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which now counts more than 700 mayors nationwide as members.
It lobbies federal and state lawmakers, and it aired a spate of television ads this year urging Congress to expand background checks and pass other gun-control measures after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
The background check proposal failed in a Senate vote in April, and other measures gun-control advocates wanted including a ban on sales of military-style assault weapons have stalled.
Separately, Bloomberg also has made political donations to candidates who share his desire for tougher gun restrictions. His super PAC, Independence USA, put $2.2m into a Democratic primary this winter for a congressional seat in Illinois, for example. Bloomberg's choice, former state lawmaker Robin Kelly, won.

Hagel to discuss cyberthreat with Chinese

The United States must develop "rules of the road" with China and other countries to mitigate cyber threats, Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said on Thursday.

The defence secretary spoke after a Pentagon report found that Chinese hackers have gained access to secret designs for a slew of sophisticated US weapons programs, possibly jeopardising the American military's technological edge.

Officials say the breaches described in the Defence Science Board paper were part of a broad Chinese campaign of espionage against top US defence contractors and government agencies.

"The United States knows where many of these incursions come from," Hagel told reporters on his plane as he travelled to the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, an international security conference in Singapore.

"It's pretty hard to prove that they are directed by any specific enemy but we can tell where they come from and we've got to be honest about that."

Cyber security is set to be discussed for the first time at a meeting of Nato defence ministers next week.

"We've got to find ways, working with the Chinese, working with everybody, [to develop] rules of the road, some international understandings," Hagel said.

Relationship

The Pentagon chief said Washington would press Beijing using both public diplomacy and private talks.

"I think it's always important when dealing with other nations that you use a very significant range of options," he added.

"I've rarely seen that public engagement resolves the problem but it's important that people state where they are on these issues."

During his stay in Singapore through Monday, Hagel plans to hold multiple bilateral talks with his Asian counterparts.

He pointed to an "evolving" military-to-military relationship with China.

The top US uniformed military officer, chairperson of the joint chiefs of staff General Martin Dempsey visited Beijing in April and Hagel has invited his Chinese counterpart Chang Wanquan to Washington in August.

President Barack Obama is set to meet with new Chinese leader Xi Jingping next week in California.

NEWS,24.05.2013

Brazil to open huge oil field to auction

Brazil says it will auction concessions to drill and explore an offshore oil field believed to hold up to 12bn barrels of crude, the country's largest find.

The tender process for the Libra oil field will take place in mid-October, said National Oil Agency (ANA) director Magda Chambriard, changing an originally scheduled date in late November.
"I have worked in the oil industry for 30 years and have never seen anything like it," she said.
"Something this size will raise eyebrows all over the world."
Libra, discovered in 2010, is within the vast Santos Basin, located about 180km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.
Oil in the Santos basin, first discovered in 2007, lies under a thick layer of salt between five and seven kilometers below the ocean surface.
Brazil's first oil field auction in five years 142 land and ocean oil blocs in unexplored regions in north and north-eastern Brazil in mid-May raked in a record $1.4bn.
The ANA estimates that Libra holds between 26 and 42bn barrels of crude.
Chambriard said that its recoverable reserves of between eight and 12bn barrels are based on an estimated 30% on-site recovery rate.
The estimates, completed in May, are based on data obtained by drilling in the area and updates previous estimates, she said.
By way of comparison, the so-called Marlim field, which is the most productive one Brazil now has operating  at 600 000 barrels per day has a recoverable oil volume of 2bn barrels, Chambriard said.
Another, called Roncador, has 2.5bn she added. But Libra is another thing altogether.

The next pre-salt oil bloc auction will not likely be held until 2015, Chambriard said.

Brazil currently consumes some 800 million barrels of crude a year, so in the Libra reserve alone "there is enough oil to satisfy the current consumption rate for 12 years," said Florival Carvalho, a senior ANP official.
Brazil currently extracts some 300 000 barrels per day from the pre-salt region.

Cap on executive pay dropped - France

The French government has decided to drop a plan to impose a ceiling on executive pay in the private sector, though it will go ahead with a two-year super-tax on firms paying million-euro salaries, says Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici.
Moscovici told the daily Les Echos in an interview that the year-old Socialist government wanted to support business and job creation and was working to accelerate the take-up of tax credits aimed at lowering companies' labour costs.
"After several months of dialogue, I have decided to focus our legislative action on the 75% tax on salaries above €1m, which will be paid by the employer, Moscovici said, asked if a proposed law to cap pay was still in the works.
"We will not go beyond that: there will be no specific law on the governance of companies."
Moscovici said that instead the government was holding discussions with the business sector on the idea of letting shareholders have a say in a director's pay.
"Our aim is to avoid rooting the rules in law," he said.
"We prefer to go with 'a demanding auto-regulation', but careful, if the decisions announced are not up to scratch we still have the possibility of legislating."
President Francois Hollande's government is battling to overturn an image of being anti-business after corporate heads lashed out at its 75% super-tax plan and fought back at a plan last year to raise capital gains taxes.
The government has since rejigged its super-tax plan so that it applies to companies rather than employees over 2014 and 2015.
It has also altered the new capital gains tax rules so that entrepreneurs will not be punished for selling companies they have founded.
Moscovici said more needed to be done however, as France strives to return its economy to growth and halt soaring unemployment, which has risen to 10.6%.

North Korea: No guarantee of peace

China told a top North Korean envoy on Friday it wants a peaceful, denuclearised Korean Peninsula, and said the emissary warned there is "no guarantee of peace" but that his country was willing to hold talks with all sides.

The official state Xinhua News Agency said a top Chinese army general, Fan Changlong, made the call for denuclearisation in his meeting on Friday with North Korean Vice Marshal Choe Ryong Hae.
His comments were a reiteration of China's established position, but could be seen as a rebuke of its neighbouring ally, following a half-year gap in high-level contacts during which Pyongyang angered Beijing by conducting rocket launches, a nuclear test and other sabre-rattling.
Tensions surrounding the nuclear issue have "intensified strategic conflicts among involved parties and jeopardised the peace and stability of the peninsula”, continued Fan, a vice chairperson of the Central Military Commission overseeing China's armed forces.
A message from Kim
Choe, a personal envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was widely expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and deliver a message from Kim before returning.
"Conditions on the Korean Peninsula and in the east Asian region are complex and exceptional, and there is no guarantee of peace. North Korea's people require a peaceful and stable environment to build their nation," Choe was quoted as saying.
"North Korea is willing to work with all sides to search for a method of solving the problems through dialogue," Choe said.
The envoy's comments reflect both the threatening tone of North Korea's recent statements, and its desire to show deference to Beijing's hopes for a return to nuclear disarmament talks.
Choe met on Thursday with the ruling Communist Party's fifth-ranked official, and Chinese state media later quoted the envoy as saying that North Korea "is willing to accept the suggestion of the Chinese side and launch dialogue with all relevant parties”.
Sanctions
Beijing considered Pyongyang's recent moves an affront to its interests in regional stability and showed its displeasure by joining with the US to back UN sanctions, and cut off dealings with North Korea's Foreign Trade Bank.
China is North Korea's last significant diplomatic ally and main source of trade and economic assistance.
China's North Korea watchers said it is unlikely that Chinese leaders would have accepted Choe's visit without a promise from Pyongyang, that it was prepared to return to diplomacy as Beijing has sought.
"The relationship is rocky, so they will try to mend the relationship," Cui Yingjiu, a retired professor of Korean at Peking University, said of North Korea.
"Second, they also want to improve relations with the US and need China to be their intermediary."

N Korean envoy meets China president

A North Korean envoy met China's President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday and handed him a personal letter from leader Kim Jong-Un, Chinese state-run media reported.

Choe Ryong-Hae told Xi that North Korea is willing to take positive actions to solve problems through dialogue, the semi-official China News Service said, after months of high tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear programme.
The report did not disclose the contents of the letter.
It quoted Choe saying dialogue included the long-stalled six-party talks aimed at North Korea's denuclearisation, which are chaired by China and bring together the two Koreas, the US, Russia and Japan.
Choe also said that North Korea needs to create a peaceful regional environment.
China is North Korea's key economic benefactor and diplomatic protector.
The report quoted Xi as telling Choe that China's position is for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and Beijing hopes for a resumption of the six-nation negotiations.
The six-party talks have sought to persuade Pyongyang to abandon nuclear development in exchange for aid and security guarantees, but the process has stalled for years amid repeated North Korean atomic tests and ballistic missile launches.

Obama seeks to end 'war on terror'

Twelve years after the "war on terror" began, President Barack Obama wants to pull the United States back from some of the most controversial aspects of its global fight against Islamist militants.

In a major policy speech on Thursday, Obama narrowed the scope of the targeted-killing drone campaign against al-Qaeda and its allies and took steps toward closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.

He acknowledged the past use of "torture" in US interrogations; expressed remorse over civilian casualties from drone strikes; and said that the Guantanamo detention facility "has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law".

After launching costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is tiring of conflict. While combating terrorism is still a high priority for the White House, polls show by large margins that Americans' main concerns are the economy and domestic concerns such as healthcare.

"We have now been at war for well over a decade," Obama said near the start of his address. Toward the end, he added: "But this war, like all wars, must end."

Though aimed first at a domestic audience, Obama's speech at Washington's National Defence University was also the latest milestone in his campaign to reshape the global image of the US - particularly in the Islamic world.

Policy shift

But he faces obstacles from opponents in Congress who will try to block the closure of Guantanamo prison and reject his call to repeal the Authorisation for Use of Military Force passed right after the 11 September 2001, attacks. The law is the legal basis for much of the "war on terror".

Faced with criticism about civilian casualties in attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles, Obama said the United States would only use those drone strikes when a threat was "continuing and imminent", a nuanced change from the previous policy of launching strikes against a significant threat.

Under new presidential guidance signed by Obama this week, the defence department will also take over some lethal drone operations from the CIA.

That would subject drone attacks to more scrutiny from Congress and might lead to the Pentagon taking over drone operations in Yemen, but not in Pakistan, where the CIA is likely to continue to run the programme.

With al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden killed in a US raid in 2011, a number of the group's top members taken out in drone strikes, and the US military role in Afghanistan winding down, Obama made clear it was time for a policy shift.

"Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a boundless 'global war on terror' - but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America," Obama said.

‘Signature’ drone strikes

Human rights groups mostly welcomed Obama's assertion that America could not remain on "a perpetual war-time footing", but some activists said he was not going far enough.

Republican opponents warned against being too quick to declare al-Qaeda a spent force.

"The President is correct to highlight the successes in America's war on terror that have occurred since 11 September 2001," said Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican mentioned as a possible US presidential candidate in 2016.

"He is wrong, however, to understate the continued threat to the US homeland or to suggest that the lethality of the threats posed by a weakened al-Qaeda and its affiliates is a return to a pre-9/11 norm that Americans should just accept," Rubio said in a statement.

The new US drone rules are likely to reduce "signature" drone strikes, in which the United States targets what appear to be suspicious-looking groups of people. Those attacks are blamed for many civilian casualties in Pakistan's tribal areas near Afghanistan and in Yemen.

Obama "has clearly raised the bar significantly for the use of drone strikes with the very specific and restrictive criteria," said John Bellinger, former state department legal adviser in President George W Bush's administration.

"The standard for targeting is now the same for Americans and non-Americans - it must be a continuing and imminent threat of violence to Americans. And there must be a near certainty that no non-combatants will be killed," he said.

Closing Guantanamo Bay

The number of drone strikes has dropped in the past year after peaking in the middle of Obama's first term.

The New America Foundation's widely cited drone attack database shows there have been 355 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004 and more than 60 in Yemen since 2009.

Despite the new limits on drone attacks, pilotless aircraft are increasingly playing a role in the armoury of the United States and other countries. The US Navy made aviation history on 14 May by launching an unmanned stealth jet off an aircraft carrier for the first time, with an eye on possible rivals like China and Iran.

While Obama largely has a free hand as commander in chief to set US drone policy, Congress has used its power of the purse to block him from closing Guantanamo.

"I am grateful for the president's declaration that it remains his intent to close Gitmo. I am not confident he will get congressional support," said David Gushee, an ethics professor at Mercer University.

Obama has been frustrated by his inability to make good on his 2008 campaign pledge to shut the prison, which was opened by his predecessor, President George W Bush, to hold men rounded up on suspicion of involvement with al-Qaeda and the Taliban after the 11 September attacks.

Closure plan

A hunger strike by 103 of the 166 detainees - 32 of whom have lost so much weight that they are being force-fed - has put pressure on Obama to take action.

"There is no justification beyond politics for Congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should never have been opened," Obama said.

Obama's latest Guantanamo proposals will likely meet much of the same resistance his earlier ones did from Republicans and some Democrats who do not want to fund the transfer of detainees away from Cuba.

But two Senate Republicans, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said they could support closing Guantanamo and moving some of its functions to the United States if Obama presented a workable plan.

Obama suggested a suitable site could be found on the US mainland to hold military tribunals.

McCain and Graham have proposed that trials could be held at Charleston Naval Yard in South Carolina. A supermax prison in Illinois has also been proposed in the past for housing Guantanamo inmates.

"I don't mind if we try to find a place to move it into the United States," said Graham, who has been critical of Obama's security policies.

"What I want is a legal system consistent with being at war, and the reason we haven't closed Guantanamo Bay is that we don't have a plan to close it," he said.

While he cannot shut Guantanamo on his own, Obama has announced steps aimed at getting some prisoners out. He lifted a moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen out of respect for that country's reforming government. Yemenis make up the largest group of prisoners.

Of the 86 detainees who have been cleared for transfer or release, 56 are from Yemen. But al-Qaeda has a presence in the country and Washington will likely want guarantees that the prisoners will not take up arms against the United States after they are sent home.

Among the TV audience for Obama's speech were detainees at Guantanamo, who rely on television broadcasts and newspapers for hints about their fate.

"Detainees follow all coverage of Guantanamo closely, including today's speech, and the post-speech commentary, analysis and editorials," said Navy Captain Robert Durand, a spokesperson for the Guantanamo detention operation.

"There is interest and discussion, but no discernible reaction," he said.

Ban lifted on Guantanamo-Yemen transfers

President Barack Obama is lifting his self-imposed ban on transferring Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen, a step toward his goal of closing the US military-run prison that he said "has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law."

Nearly 100 of the 166 terrorist suspects held at the prison in Cuba are from Yemen and have had nowhere to go even if they had been cleared for transfer. Obama wouldn't send them home, and no other country was welcoming them.

Their hopelessness after a decade or more of imprisonment has contributed to a hunger strike at the detention facility that helped reignite the long-stalled effort to close it.

A leadership upheaval in Yemen has improved the country's security but not eliminated a terrorist organisation trying to recruit jihadists.

But Obama's decision announced on Thursday is not without risk. Detainees who have been released to Yemen in the past have joined terrorist fighters in the Arab nation.

The security concerns prompted Obama to suspend transfers to Yemen in January 2010 after a Nigerian man attempted to blow up a US-bound flight on Christmas Day 2009 with explosives hidden in his underwear on instructions from al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen.

Co-operation with US

Senator Saxby Chambliss, an opposition Republican, was among those on Capitol Hill criticising Obama's change in policy.

"Between December 2009 and today, has Yemen shown any indication that they are more capable of looking after those individuals? Absolutely not," Chambliss said. "And If we were to transfer those individuals to Yemen, it would be just like turning them loose."

Yemeni watchers in the US say there is reason to hope security has improved since long-time authoritarian leader Ali Abdullah Saleh was ousted after mass uprisings last year.

Al-Qaeda had been on the upswing under Saleh, but his successor, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has made fighting terrorism a top goal and restored co-operation with the United States in the effort.

Obama announced that he was lifting the moratorium on Yemeni transfers in a speech at the National Defence University in which he also defended targeted killings by US aerial drones and pushed Congress anew to authorise Guantanamo's closure.

The president did not explain his rationale behind the change in Yemen policy, but senior administration officials cited Hadi's leadership as an increasingly able partner to the US.

Flown in shackles

A Yemeni official told The Associated Press that a delegation, including the country's human rights minister, returned this week after a trip to Washington, where they agreed to set up of a rehabilitation centre to help reintegrate detainees with the support of the US and other Arab nations.

Rageh Badi, an adviser to Yemen's prime minister, said in an interview that the transfer ban had cast a shadow on the relations with the United States. Badi said lifting the ban is a "welcome step, a progressive one that removes much of the ambiguity and confusion between the US administration and the Yemeni government."

Yemeni authorities previously had a system to monitor returned detainees, but it ceased to function after massive anti-government protests swept most of the country, starting in early 2011.

Of the estimated 30 Yemenis who returned from Guantanamo, only a handful had stayed in Sanaa, the capital, while the rest moved to remote areas where government authority is minimal, or nonexistent.

David Remes, an attorney who represents many Guantanamo detainees, described a system roughly like parole for his clients who have been released to Yemen.

He said they have been flown in shackles aboard a military aircraft back to Sanaa and turned over to state forces, who spend a couple days debriefing them about their years of captivity before they return to their families.

Peaceful lives

If they want to leave town, they are required to register with state security forces, who keep track of their movements, Remes said.

"Although there is no such thing as zero risk, the men who have returned from Guantanamo are overwhelmingly living peaceful lives," Remes said. "And you can't hold 99 of 100 men captive because one might engage in bad acts when he is released, even two."

Yet some have returned to jihad. Among them is Saeed Ali al-Shihri, who emerged as the second-most senior commander of Yemen's branch of al-Qaeda after being released from six years of detention at Guantanamo Bay.

Yemini officials said in January that al-Shihri was killed in a US drone attack, but al-Qaeda denied he was killed and last month released an audio recording of him criticising Yemen's neighbour Saudi Arabia for its policy of allowing the US to launch drone strikes from bases in the kingdom.

In confusion that underscores how difficult it can be to keep track of former detainees, it was the second time the group denied al-Shihri's death. US officials had previously announced al-Shihri's death in an airstrike in September last year. A DNA test, however, proved that the body recovered was not that of al-Shihri.

According to security officials in Yemen, there has not been any evidence to link any of the returnees with suicide bombings in the country.

However, some of them are thought to have fought against government forces in the southern Abyan province in 2011 and 2012, when al-Qaeda fighters took advantage of the security vacuum to seize large swathes of the area before they were pushed back by security forces last year.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

MI5 aware of suspects before attack

Britain's security services faced questions on Friday over whether they could have done more to prevent the murder of a soldier hacked to death in a busy London street, after it emerged that his suspected killers were known to intelligence officers.

The two suspects, Michael Adebolajo, 28 and Michael Adebowale, 22, are under guard in hospitals after being shot and arrested by police after the murder of 25-year-old Afghan war veteran Lee Rigby on Wednesday in broad daylight.
They have not yet been charged.
Adebolajo, filmed justifying the killing as he stood near the body holding a knife and meat cleaver in bloodied hands, was born in Britain to a Nigerian immigrant family.
Adebowale is a naturalised British citizen born in Nigeria.
Another man and a woman have also been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder, an early indication that police are investigating whether the attack was part of a wider plot.
Prime Minister David Cameron said a parliamentary committee would carry out an investigation into the role of the security services.
Britain's MI5 domestic spy agency had been aware of the men, but neither was considered a threat, a government source told Reuters.
Dramatic video footage showing the moment when police shot the two men was published on a British newspaper's website on Friday.
The shaky, 10-second clip shows one of the men sprinting towards a police car with a knife in his hand before he is shot and tumbles to the ground.
"It is important for the public to know that the security services and the police are operating properly," former London police chief Ian Blair told BBC radio.
Investigation
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said there would be a thorough investigation into the role of the police and intelligence agencies.
However, he said the incident underlined how "difficult it is in a free society to be able to control everyone".
The attack was the first Islamist killing since July 2005, when four suicide bombers struck London transport.
At that time, questions were also raised about the security services after it was revealed two of the bombers had been identified in a surveillance operation, but were not followed up.
Richard Barrett, former head of counter-terrorism at the Secret Intelligence Service MI6, Britain's foreign spy agency, said it would be impractical to track every person who expressed radical views in case they tipped over into violent extremism.
"To find the signals, the red flags as it were, I think is enormously hard," he told the BBC.
Adebolajo, who converted to Islam and took the name "Mujahid" - warrior - used to attend events run by the banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun, its leader Anjem Choudary has said.
Detectives are trying to determine whether the suspects had links to militants in Britain or overseas.
Sources familiar with the investigation have said no sign has emerged so far of direct links between the attack and an Islamist insurgency in the suspects' ethnic homeland Nigeria. Their surnames suggest they are from the Christian south of Nigeria, not the Muslim north where insurgents are active.
Police stepped up security at religious venues and transport hubs.
‘Lone wolves’
The murder, just a month after the Boston Marathon bombing, revived fears of "lone wolves", who may have had no direct contact with al-Qaeda but plan their own attacks.
A source close to the investigation told Reuters the attackers were known to MI5.
Adebolajo had handed out radical Islamist pamphlets, but neither was considered a serious threat.
Another source close to the inquiry said the local backgrounds of the suspects in a multicultural metropolis - nearly 40% of Londoners were born abroad - and the simplicity of the attack made prevention difficult. It required little preparation beyond buying a set of butcher's knives.
Peter Clarke, the former head of London's Counter Terrorism Command who led the investigation into the 2005 bombings, said if the men did turn out to be acting alone, it showed the difficulty the security services faced in trying to stop them.
"To an extent, if these people are acting as individuals it makes it even more difficult than if they're an organisation," he told Reuters. "Instead of having to dismantle an organisation, you are having to investigate and counter an ideology."
The two men used a car to run down Rigby outside Woolwich Barracks in southeast London and then attacked him with a meat cleaver and knives, witnesses said.
The pair told bystanders they acted in revenge for British wars in Muslim countries.
Rigby, who had a 2-year-old son, was not in uniform. The bandsman was working locally as an army recruiter.
In Nigeria, with a mixed Christian-Muslim population and where the authorities are battling an Islamist insurgency, a government source said there was no evidence the Woolwich suspects were linked to groups in west Africa.
British investigators are looking at information that at least one of the suspects may have had an interest in joining Somalia-based Islamist rebel group al-Shabaab, which is allied to al-Qaeda, a source with knowledge of the matter said.