NEWS,20.05.2013

Bird flu costs China industry $65bn

China's human H7N9 bird flu outbreak has cost the country's poultry industry more than 400 billion yuan ($65bn) as consumers shun chicken, government officials said according to state media Monday.
The sector has been losing an average of one billion yuan a day since the end of March, the Beijing Times said, citing Li Xirong, head of the National Animal Husbandry Service.
H7N9 avian influenza has infected 130 people in China, killing 35, since it was found in humans for the first time, according to latest official data.
Poultry sales have tumbled and prices plunged, Li said, causing major financial problems and job losses as a result.
Another agriculture ministry official, Wang Zongli, said government agencies should set a good example for the public by treating "poultry products in a correct way", the report added.
In a stunt to boost confidence, officials and poultry business leaders in the eastern province of Shandong held a widely reported all-chicken lunch last week, according to Chinese media.
China has seen several food safety scares in recent years, including one in which the industrial chemical melamine was added to dairy products in 2008, killing at least six babies and making 300 000 ill.

US to keep close eye on anti-Semitism

The state department has appointed a special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism as a new report documents a global increase in incidents of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

Ira Forman, former CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council, was chosen as special envoy as the state department released its annual report on religious freedom around the world.
The report said expressions of anti-Semitism by government officials, religious leaders and the media were of great concern, particularly in Venezuela, Egypt and Iran.
At times, the report said, such statements led to desecration and violence.
Secretary of State John Kerry called the report a "clear-eyed, objective look at the state of religious freedom around the world" and said that in some cases, the report criticises US allies and would-be allies.

Russia foils terror attack on Moscow

Russian security services said on Monday they had foiled a terror attack on Moscow, killing two of the plotters and arresting another.
"Our forceful actions prevented an attempted act of terror in the capital," the National Anti-Terror Committee said in a statement.
The statement said the men, all three of them ethnic Russians, were detected on the outskirts of Moscow. A gunfight erupted during their attempted arrest which left a Russian federal security official lightly injured.
The committee added that all three men are suspected of having received their training in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Kremlin said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been personally informed about the foiled plot.

Republicans eye White House amid scandal

Scandals dogging President Barack Obama are a political gift to Republicans, who could use some good luck after recent election losses.

It's not clear, however, how Republicans can best capitalise on Democrats' woes.
The White House's scandal problems offer a big, enticing target.
Congressional Republicans have ripped into the ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), who apologised last week for the tax agency's heightened scrutiny of tea party affiliates and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
Republicans have been equally indignant in ongoing inquiries into the administration's role in last September's terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four US officials, including an ambassador.
Another controversy now dogging the White House - the justice department's secret seizure of AP’s phone records in a security leak investigation - has thus far stirred less emotion and partisanship in Washington.
An ‘inept’ administration
Taken together, Republicans say, these three controversies portray a rapaciously political and inept administration.
That could be a powerful message in next year's congressional elections, and perhaps in the 2016 presidential race.
"I think people are beginning to think, 'Is anybody running the government up there?'" said Congressman Tom Cole, a close ally of House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner. "Incompetence, detachment, lack of oversight. I think the damage is going to be real and lasting for the president."
Last November's election dynamics that led to Obama's re-election and Democratic gains in Congress complicate the picture, however, and some Republican leaders are urging a bit of restraint in exploiting the White House's new weaknesses.
Party leaders wince when their more zealous colleagues talk of trying to impeach Obama and remove him from office.
Immigration reform
Some Republicans would like to deny Obama a legacy-enhancing prize like passing an overhaul of US immigration laws, one of Obama's biggest second-term goals.
But party strategists say Republicans may need immigration reform more than Democrats do.
Some conservatives, like rising star Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, are urging their party to embrace an overhaul, including a path to citizenship for 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States.
Hispanics are America's largest minority group and one that is steadily making up a bigger share of the electorate.
They overwhelmingly backed Obama in both his elections, and the trend might worsen for Republicans if they don't show greater interest in Latinos' concerns. For many, that includes major changes to immigration laws.
In the end, the scandals - titillating as they are inside Washington - may have surprisingly little impact on immigration legislation and other bills in Congress.
Boehner, asked on Thursday how the Republicans' apparent momentum might influence legislation, said: "I don't expect that it will."
Tea party
The controversies have managed to reignite the limited-government tea party movement, whose influence in 2012 had waned compared to its muscular role in 2010.
Tea party groups have found new political fuel, especially in the IRS scandal that largely centres on such conservative groups, and are flooding mail boxes with fiery fundraising letters and renewed calls to arms.
Democrats hope conservatives overplay their hands. Even if tea party activists boost Republican turnout in next year's nonpresidential elections, they could complicate the Republican Party's need to woo a wider audience to win presidential elections in 2016 and beyond. Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections.
A Quinnipiac University poll this spring found that 24% of Americans view the tea party movement favourably, and 43% view it unfavourably.
Scandals
Democrats love to remind Republicans of their partisan excess in 1998, when the House's impeachment of President Bill Clinton for trying to cover up an affair with an intern struck millions of Americans as political overkill.
Republicans lost House seats that year, costing Speaker Newt Gingrich his leadership post. The Senate acquitted the president.
Boehner and other party leaders are keenly aware that Republicans can overdo their attacks, and even build sympathy for Obama, if their criticisms appear nakedly political or not supported by facts, said Cole, the Republican congressman.
Congressman Jack Kingston of Georgia said he hopes the scandals will increase public attention on Congress, enabling Republicans to highlight an agenda he thinks voters will embrace.
"The scandals, they're not your ticket to the dance," said Kingston, who is running for the Senate in a crowded Republican field.
"They are a reason to have people look at your party. And then, if you have good private-sector job ideas, and balancing the budget, then I think people will vote for you."

Israel MP speaks of removing settlers

Finance Minister Yair Lapid, whose new centrist party is the second largest in Israel's government, said on Monday thousands of Jewish settlers would have to be removed from occupied land under any peace deal with the Palestinians.

But, echoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's position, Lapid said Israel intended to hold onto major settlement blocs in the West Bank when final borders are set in the six-decade-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"It's heartbreaking. We will have to remove tens of thousands, not just from their homes, but from their dreams," he said, speaking at a business conference in Tel Aviv. But, he added: "The settlement blocs will remain in Israel."

Lapid did not say which settlements he felt would need to be evacuated. About 80% of 340 000 settlers in the West Bank live in large clusters near Jerusalem and central Israel.

Lapid's Yesh Atid party soared to a surprising second place finish in the January general election and joined the right-wing Netanyahu's coalition.

The former TV news anchor's pre-election promise to partner with Netanyahu only if Israel entered into negotiations with the Palestinians raised hopes among Western powers that Lapid could push the premier into peacemaking concessions.

'Meaningful compromise'

US-brokered peace talks broke down in 2010 in a dispute over continuing Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank. Palestinians have demanded a settlement freeze as a condition for returning to the negotiations.

Netanyahu, speaking in general terms, has said that Israel is prepared for a "meaningful compromise" with the Palestinians, noting that it has withdrawn from occupied territory in the past, such as the Gaza Strip in 2005 and south Lebanon in 2000.

But he has rejected any Israeli return to the lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, calling those boundaries indefensible.

Palestinians seek to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. About 500 000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. About 2.7 million Palestinians live in those areas.

Lapid, speaking just days before US Secretary of State John Kerry returns to the region to try to restart negotiations, questioned Palestinian leaders' commitment to pursuing peace.

"Abu Mazen [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] is one of the founders of the Palestinian victimhood doctrine and at this stage I do not see him taking one step in our direction," Lapid said.

He was referring to the view of some Israelis that Palestinian leaders focus more on highlighting Palestinian suffering at Israel's hands than on making compromises that might hasten the establishment of an independent state.

Kerry is to meet separately with Netanyahu and Abbas in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday and Friday.

Israel cancels Unesco mission to Jerusalem

Israel announced on Monday it was calling off a United Nations investigative mission to the Old City in annexed east Jerusalem because of Palestinian efforts to politicise the visit.

"Israel has cancelled the delegation," which was due to have arrived the same day, a foreign ministry official said.

"The Palestinians were not respecting the understandings. The visit was supposed to be professional, [but] they were taking measures that showed they were politicising the event and not letting the delegation focus on professional sides of it," the official said.

Israel in April agreed that the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) could assess the state of the Old City of Jerusalem, the first such monitoring mission since 2004, following pressure from Jordan and the Palestinians, who became members of the organisation in 2011.

But ahead of the start of the delegation's work, the Palestinians were trying to "politicise" it, Israel said, contrary to understandings reached by the sides, and to change the action plan Unesco decided upon in 2010.

"Palestinian foreign minister Riad Malki recently said they considered the mission a 'commission of inquiry'," the official said, "and said they would discuss political issues with the mission."

"The Palestinians are also pushing for the delegation to visit the Temple Mount," which is revered as Judaism's most sacred place, said the official, using the Israeli term for the complex known to Muslims as Al-Haram Al-Sharif that houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Cultural and religious heritage is a highly politicised issue for Israel and the Palestinians.

In March, the Palestinian Authority confirmed a verbal agreement dating back to 1924 giving Jordan custodianship over Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem, whose eastern sector Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war.

NEWS,21.02.2013

Hope for foreign workers in US

The leading business advocacy group and the largest labor federation say they have a deal on principles for a new visa programme to bring lesser-skilled workers to the US a key component of any immigration overhaul bill. The groups, the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO, announced the breakthrough on Thursday after weeks of closed-doors negotiations at the request of senators involved in crafting an immigration deal in Congress.The principles include agreement to create a mechanism to let businesses more easily hire foreign workers when Americans aren't available to fill jobs. This will require a new kind of worker visa program that does not keep workers in permanent temporary status.But the joint statement from the chamber and AFL-CIO makes clear that more work needs to be done to turn their deal into a bill.

5 big US banks cut mortgage debt

Five of the biggest US banks have cut struggling homeowners' mortgage balances by $19bn, part of a total $45.8bn in relief provided under a landmark settlement over foreclosure abuses. More than 550 000 borrowers received some form of mortgage relief between March 1 and December 31 2012, according to a report issued on Thursday by Joseph Smith, the monitor of the settlement.That translates to about $82 668 per homeowner, according to the report, which is based on the banks' own accounts of their progress.The report says $19.5bn of the $45.8bn in relief was in the form of short sales, in which lenders agree to accept less than what the seller owes on the mortgage.

Horsemeat scandal spreads to Asia

The fallout from Europe's horsemeat scandal has spread far outside the continent, with an imported lasagne brand pulled from shelves in Hong Kong and a new row over the treatment of horses farmed in the Americas.A host of top players have been caught up in the spiralling scandal including Nestle, the world's biggest food company, top beef producer JBS of Brazil and British supermarket chain Tesco.Hong Kong authorities ordered ParknShop, one of the biggest supermarket chains in the city, to remove lasagne made by frozen food giant Findus, one of the firms at the centre of the scandal.The product was imported from Britain and made by French firm Comigel.Hong Kong's Centre for Food Safety said Wednesday that the item "might be adulterated with horsemeat which has not undergone tests for veterinary drugs".The chain, owned by tycoon Li Ka-shing, has about 280 stores in Hong Kong and the neighbouring gaming hub of Macau.In Europe, the Czech Republic became the latest country embroiled in the horsemeat affair, with food inspectors ordering Tesco to withdraw Nowaco brand frozen "beef" lasagne after detecting horsemeat.The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority said it had found horse DNA in two samples of the Nowaco meals manufactured by the Tavola company in Luxembourg.Croatian company Ledo, which imported beef lasagne containing horsemeat into Slovenia, on Wednesday also accused Tavola of being responsible.Supermarkets in Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Ireland, Finland, France, Austria, Norway, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Slovenia have all removed meals from shelves.The Czech authority noted that horsemeat is sold for human consumption in the country, but that if not mentioned on the product label it was misleading to consumers and could lead to a fine of up to three million koruna (€118 000, $159 000).Spanghero, the French firm that sparked the food alert by allegedly passing off 750 tonnes of horsemeat as beef, was on Monday allowed to resume production of minced meat, sausages and ready-to-eat meals.But the company, whose horsemeat found its way into 4.5 million "beef" products sold across Europe, will no longer be allowed to stock frozen meat.The firm's sanitary licence was suspended last Thursday after it was accused of passing off huge quantities of mislabelled meat over a period of six months.Investigators on Wednesday conducted a second day of raids on Spanghero's headquarters in Castelnaudary in southern France, a source close to the probe said, adding they had already seized several documents and copied computer records.About 60 workers from French company Fraisnor, which produces fresh lasagne, demonstrated on Wednesday in the northern town of Feuchy for state financial aid, saying their sales had dived 70% after the scandal.The company, which manufactures about 700 tonnes of fresh lasagne a month, is on the point of laying off some of its employees.Most Swiss supermarkets on Wednesday withdrew horsemeat products from their shelves, not due to the spiralling fake labelling scandal but over allegations of cruel conditions on farms where horses are bred for meat.German discount chain Lidl said it had removed all horsemeat products from its shelves in Switzerland, while the country's second largest supermarket chain, Coop, said it had withdrawn around 20 horsemeat sausage products.The move came amid outcry over an investigative consumer show that aired on Tuesday evening on Swiss public television, featuring images taken by animal protection activists showing starving and visibly sick and suffering horses on farms in a number of countries that provide meat to Swiss stores.The Zurich-based Animal Protection Association had sent investigators to large horsemeat producing countries Canada, the United States, Mexico and Argentina to probe how the animals were kept, transported and slaughtered."Our investigators found that the horses were bred in conditions that did not meet any of the norms in place in Switzerland and the European Union," project leader Sabrina Gurtner said.Coop however said it would continue to sell fresh horsemeat, pointing out that it receives 70% of that meat from France and the remaining 30% from Poland.Switzerland's largest supermarket chain, Migros, meanwhile said it would not withdraw any horsemeat products, saying it trusted its Canadian supplier.Dried horsemeat products are widely consumed in Switzerland.Elsewhere Bolivia's President Evo Morales slammed western fast food as "a threat to humanity" as he accused multinational firms of seeking to block the development of his country's staple food quinoa.The left-wing Bolivian leader slammed capitalist "fast food" for causing cancer and other diseases, in a speech to the UN General Assembly to launch the commemorative year.Morales steered clear of the growing horsemeat scandal which European officials have been keen to stress is a labelling issue not a public health issue.

North Korea top task for new South head

Park Geun-Hye will be sworn in as South Korea's first female president next week - a historic landmark clouded by North Korea's recent nuclear test and threats emanating from Pyongyang. The daughter of the late dictator and vehement anti-communist Park Chung-Hee, Park campaigned on a policy of cautious engagement with Pyongyang in contrast to her hawkish predecessor, Lee Myung-Bak.But her plans are likely to be shelved, at least for the short term, after the 12 February nuclear test angered the public in the South and emboldened hawks in Park's ruling conservative party.The UN Security Council is still debating how to respond, but is almost certain to toughen sanctions on Pyongyang - a move that could trigger a sharp response from the North and possibly even another nuclear test.Kim Jang-Soo, a former defence minister who has been appointed Park's national security adviser, signalled on the same day as the test that the new administration's policy could "not be the same as before".Park strongly condemned the test and warned the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un that it would bring about its own collapse with its complete isolation from the international community.Park's first challenge will be hardliners in her own party who are staunchly opposed to engaging Pyongyang and some of whom have even begun calling in public for South Korea to build its own nuclear deterrent."We urgently need to solve the unbalanced nuclear capability between the two Koreas and may need nuclear arms ourselves for minimum self-defence," said Won Yoo-Chul, a senior member of Park's New Frontier Party.A survey by Gallup Korea published on Wednesday showed more than 60% of South Koreans support the idea of Seoul having its own nuclear weapons capability.At the same time, Park's efforts to mollify her party hawks are being undermined by the increasingly bellicose statements coming from the North.On Tuesday, the North Korean envoy at the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva warned that South Korea faced "final destruction" if Seoul and its allies pushed for tougher UN resolutions over the North's nuclear programme.Kim Yong-Hyun, a professor of North Korea studies at Dongguk University, said Park's hands would be tied after she took office."The UN Security Council will surely impose more sanctions that will be supported by Seoul," Kim said. "In that climate, I see little possibility for substantial cross-border talks for six months at least."Park had promised a package of substantial welfare programmes aimed at the South's rapidly growing elderly population, but the North's test has already resulted in a shift in spending priorities."We are now faced with an unexpected need to increase the defence budget," Park said on Monday.The North has traditionally sought to test the mettle of the South's new leaders as they take office, sometimes with a view to forcing Seoul -and the US - into negotiations.Despite the difficult environment, Moon Chung-In, a politics professor at Yonsei University, said Park needed to move swiftly and "proactively" to position South Korea as the chief international mediator with the North."That way Park will enjoy more diplomatic leverage with China and the US than before... so she needs to take a more open and proactive stance," Moon said.Inter-Korean contacts have been effectively frozen since Seoul accused Pyongyang of torpedoing one of its warships in March 2010, and halted almost all trade and aid to the impoverished North.The North denied involvement, but went on to shell an island on the South Korean side of their disputed maritime border in November 2010, leaving four South Koreans dead and sparking brief fears of a full-scale conflict.Paik Hak-Soon, a North Korean analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank, said the hard-line stance of Park's predecessor, president Lee, had failed to produce any results and should be discarded."If Park takes a confrontational stance, she will end up repeating the same mistake as Lee, who not only failed to curb the North's nuclear ambitions, but also saw inter-Korea relations worsen," Paik said."She needs to act as soon as possible to restart a dialogue, though it won't be politically easy," he said.

Mexico vigilantes kill criminal - claim

Armed vigilantes in southern Mexico engaged in a shootout on Wednesday with a group of men they described as criminals, killing one in what appeared to be the first death related to the month-and-a-half-old "self-defence" movement.The confrontation near the town of Ayutla raised the stakes in a growing movement that has seen residents of several towns arm themselves with a motley assortment of old hunting rifles, shotguns and pistols while conducting patrols and manning checkpoints to fight crime spawned by drug cartels.Bruno Placido, leader of the vigilante movement in the southern state of Guerrero, said one of the civilian patrols caught sight of a group of armed men, who opened fire on the patrol"There was one killed on the side of the criminals," he said.The masked vigilantes frequently stop passing motorists to search for weapons or people whose names are on hand-written lists of "suspects" wanted for crimes like theft and extortion.The vigilantes have opened fire before on motorists who refused to stop, slightly wounding a pair of tourists from Mexico City visiting a local beach in early February. The shootout on Wednesday came one day after the vigilantes freed the last of 42 people detained on suspicion of crimes ranging from theft to extortion and murder, a move that authorities had hoped spelled the beginning of a new, more regulated phase for the "self-defence" groups.The Guerrero state government said the vigilantes turned 20 of the final detainees over to police. It said the other 22 had been suspected of lesser offenses and were released on Tuesday because the vigilantes considered they had been sufficiently punished."The state government foresees that the release of these detainees closes a chapter, and sets things on the road to institutionalising and regulating community police forces," the state government said in a statement.Placido, the vigilantes' leader, confirmed that some prisoners had been turned over.State officials hope the vigilantes can be persuaded to join already-established "community police" forces that operate in some Guerrero towns, where unmasked residents with some training and minimal uniforms, usually printed T-shirts, perform routine patrols and turn over suspects to town assemblies. Following local custom, those assemblies try the suspects and can impose some sentences.The recently formed "self-defence" groups, however, have none of those trappings. They consist of men wearing ski masks and bandanas over their faces while manning the improvised highway checkpoints and patrolling rural areas.Residents tired of rampant crime set up the roadblocks in early January and detained about 53 people. They held the detainees at improvised jails in villages around Ayutla, in some cases for more than 1 month. They released the first 11 detainees in early February.While local media have reported that self-defence groups have spread to 36 communities in eight states, that may exaggerate their numbers. For example, assistants to the mayors of two towns in the State of Mexico, next to Mexico City, where self-defence groups had reportedly formed, denied that any vigilante committees existed in their towns.But "self-defence" represents an attractive option for some rural towns in Guerrero and neighbouring states like Michoacan and Morelos. Because official forces are woefully inadequate and often corrupt, vigilante groups can press to have their members hired by local governments as backup security forcesEven in some of the rougher neighbourhoods on Mexico City's eastern outskirts, improvised block committees have formed to fight crimes like burglaries and muggings."No More Robberies! If We Catch You, We Will Lynch You!" reads one banner that a local block committee hung across the street in the town of Texcoco, east of the capital. A local resident who works at a car wash said residents organized the block committee, called "Vigilant Neighbour Committee", about two years ago in the face of frequent home robberies.Residents ring local church bells to alert each other if they see a crime in progress. The man said they had caught thieves but hadn't lynched any. "The police usually come to pick them up before anything can happen," said the car-wash employee, who did not give his name for fear of reprisals."Before, they would just come into your house to steal, and you would say, 'Sure, take whatever you want,'" said the man. "But nowadays, they beat your family, they start attacking your family."Eduardo Gallo, a prominent anti-crime activist, said the armed community groups pose the danger of becoming vengeful mobs, "but that is what the citizenry is being forced into when they don't have any public safety".Gallo said the "self-defence" groups are likely to hang on, and perhaps grow, if authorities don't guarantee public safety in the wave of drug cartel violence and common crime.Police reform has a long way to go in Mexico, with only about half of the country's police officers vetted and subjected to background checks."I think we are going to see the self-defence phenomenon grow a bit more, and even see them turn into revenge groups, until this hits bottom and the government begins to change its attitude," Gallo said.

NEWS,04.10.2012

Spain central bank undercuts budget as rescue looms

Spain's central bank chief undercut the government's proposed 2013 budget today, saying it was based on over-rosy forecasts for economic growth and tax revenue.Speaking to a parliamentary budget committee, newly-appointed Central Bank Governor Luis Maria Linde delivered a blunt message as Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy weighs when to seek an international bailout."This outlook ... is certainly optimistic in comparison with the outlook shared by the majority of international organisations and analysts," he said.Linde said the government, which has already hiked taxes and cut tens of billions of euros in costs, should consider further steps this year to meet next year's deficit target of 4.5% of gross domestic product agreed with the European Union.Expectations that Rajoy will request a euro zone rescue package before the end of the year lowered Spain's borrowing costs at a Treasury auction on Thursday of 4 billion euros in government bonds.The yield on bonds due in 2014 dropped significantly to 3.282% from 5.204% when it was last sold in July.But market pressure could return if Rajoy drags his feet on seeking a bailout or is held back by German reluctance to put more assistance for Spain to its parliament.The European Central Bank has pledged to support Spain by buying its short-term debt on the open market, but only once Madrid signs up to the conditions attached to European aid."Markets are giving Spain the benefit of the doubt in anticipation of a rescue. Foreign investors need to see some sort of conditional backstop in place before seriously thinking about buying Spanish debt again," said Sassan Ghahramani, head of New York-based hedge fund consultancy SGH Macro.The euro zone is considering aiding Spain by providing insurance for investors who buy government bonds in a move designed to maintain Spanish access to capital markets, shaping a rescue differently than the previous full bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal.The bond gaurantee scheme, which is under consideration and has not been decided yet, would achieve two important aims. Spain would be rescued without draining Europe's entire bailout fund and there would be no contagion to Italy.ECB head Mario Draghi praised Spain's fiscal consolidation and economic reforms but reiterated that countries would have to make a formal application and sign up to strict conditions to benefit from the bank's bond-buying programme.Central banker warns A rescue looks increasingly on the cards, as a prolonged recession complicates efforts to cut government spending.Tens of thousands of protesters gathered near parliament in Madrid on three nights last week, demonstrating against the austerity measures and demanding changes in government.Anger over costly rescue plans for banks has increased with one in four workers jobless. The shrinking economy has eaten into tax revenue and also pushed up unemployment benefit costs.Much of the savings from aggressive cost-cutting have gone to servicing debt due to high borrowing costs.Linde said most independent forecasters expect a 1.5% economic contraction in Spain next year, rather than the 0.5% fall on which the government based its calculations.Rajoy sent a tough budget to parliament on Saturday with 13 billion euros in savings from spending cuts and tax increases.The budget included a 1% increase in state pensions next year but Rajoy has not yet said whether he will maintain an inflation-pegged rise in pension payments as well.Linde said an inflation adjustment to pensions would be so costly as to endanger budget execution.The government is also taking on additional debt - some of it from European rescue funds - to bail out troubled banks and cash-strapped regional governments.The central bank chief also urged ministers to make a prudent forecast for revenue next year, saying the tax-take outlook in the 2013 budget was subject to downside risks.Fitch ratings agency also flagged the budget as unrealistic but said it would not downgrade Spanish bonds to junk status if the country sought a bailout and unlocked ECB bond-buying."Some of the assumptions certainly are optimistic in terms of the Spanish budget, nonetheless we do think that they're putting in place a programme which is consistent with giving support. And we'll give some tine to see how that will evolve," Fitch's head of sovereign ratings David Riley said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday.Fellow credit watchdog Moody's is due to decide this month whether to downgrade Spain's sovereign rating to junk.The yield on Spain's benchmark 10-year bond traded slightly higher on Thursday at 5.8% . In July, before Draghi announced the ECB's bond-buying programme, the Spanish 10-year yield spiked above 7%, a level seen as unsustainable.

Russia dismisses talk of new spy scandal with US

Russia said today that the Kremlin had nothing to do with a network alleged by the United States to be smuggling military technology to Moscow.The US Justice Department said on Wednesday it had broken up an elaborate network aimed at illegally acquiring US-made microelectronic components for Russian military and spy agencies.It charged 11 people with taking part.The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed surprise at the allegations."The charges are of a criminal nature and have nothing to do with intelligence activity," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agencies.The situation had caused deep concern in Russia, whose relations with its former Cold War enemy are difficult despite President Barack Obama's call for a new start.Authorities were questioning the Russian nationals who were among the accused, Ryabkov said.Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Washington had informed Moscow that the charges were criminal and unrelated to espionage."We will look into this situation and what really happened, and what charges are being imposed on our citizens," he said.US authorities had "not properly informed" Russia of the arrest of its citizens and Russian diplomats were seeking access to them, he added. A consul had met one in a courtroom, he said.Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview this week that Moscow and Washington must do more to strengthen relations because the "reset" called for by Obama could not last forever.Republican candidate Mitt Romney has accused Obama of being soft on Moscow during his four-year term and described Russia as the United States' "number one geopolitical foe".In a case in 2010 that harked back to the Cold War, the United States arrested 10 suspected Russian agents who were later sent back to Russia in the biggest spy swap since the Soviet era.Security experts puzzled The US Justice Department said 11 people, and companies based in Houston, Texas and Moscow, had been accused on Wednesday of illegally exporting high-tech components to Russian security agencies.The US companies from whom the components were bought were not identified.A US official said Alexander Fishenko, a Kazakhstan native who immigrated to the United States in 1994 and has frequently travelled to Russia, had been charged with operating in the United States as an unregistered agent of the Russian government.He was being held in custody with seven others in Houston.The Justice Department said the three others were in Russia including Sergei Klinov, identified as CEO of Apex System, which it said served as a certified supplier of military equipment to Russia's government, working through subsidiaries.Klinov, reached by telephone in his office in Moscow, said he had learned about the accusations from media reports."Honestly, I am very upset. I just don't know what to say. Everyone has his own truth and it is somewhere in the middle,".Asked whether he worked either for the security services or for the Defence Ministry, he said: "I am floored by this. I don't know what I'm supposed to say."Russia's Federal Security Service, successor of the KGB, and the Defence Ministry denied immediate comment.Another person facing accusations was named as Yuri Savin and described as the marketing director of Russia-based company Atrilor. The company denied having an employee of that name.Asked about the allegations, a Russian security expert said such practices has not been unusual in Soviet times.

US: Secret chemical tests raise concerns

Doris Spates was a baby when her father died inexplicably in 1955. She has watched four siblings die of cancer, and she survived cervical cancer.After learning that the US army conducted secret chemical testing in her impoverished St Louis neighbourhood at the height of the Cold War, she wonders if her own government is to blame.In the mid-1950s, and again a decade later, the army used motorised blowers atop a low-income housing high-rise, at schools and from the backs of vehicles to send a potentially dangerous compound into the already-hazy air in predominantly black areas of St Louis.Local officials were told at the time that the government was testing a smoke screen that could shield St Louis from aerial observation in case the Russians attacked.But in 1994, the government said the tests were part of a biological weapons programme and St Louis was chosen because it bore some resemblance to Russian cities that the US might attack. The material being sprayed was zinc cadmium sulfide, a fine fluorescent powder.Now, new research is raising greater concern about the implications of those tests. St Louis Community College-Meramec sociology professor Lisa Martino-Taylor's research has raised the possibility that the army performed radiation testing by mixing radioactive particles with the zinc cadmium sulfide, though she concedes there is no direct proof.But her report, released late last month, was troubling enough that both US senators from Missouri wrote to army Secretary John McHugh demanding answers.Aides to Senators Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt said they have received no response. Army spokesperson Dave Foster declined an interview request from The Associated Press, saying the army would first respond to the senators.The area of the secret testing is described by the army in documents obtained by Martino-Taylor through a Freedom of Information Act request as "a densely populated slum district". About three-quarters of the residents were black.Spates, now 57 and retired, was born in 1955, delivered inside her family's apartment on the top floor of the since-demolished Pruitt-Igoe housing development in north St Louis. Her family didn't know that on the roof, the army was intentionally spewing hundreds of pounds of zinc cadmium sulfide into the air.Three months after her birth, her father died. Four of her 11 siblings succumbed to cancer at relatively young ages."I'm wondering if it got into our system," Spates said. "When I heard about the testing, I thought, 'Oh my God. If they did that, there's no telling what else they're hiding.'"Mary Helen Brindell wonders, too. Now 68, her family lived in a working-class mixed-race neighbourhood where spraying occurred.The army has admitted only to using blowers to spread the chemical, but Brindell recalled a summer day playing baseball with other kids in the street when a squadron of green army planes flew close to the ground and dropped a powdery substance. She went inside, washed it off her face and arms, then went back out to play.Over the years, Brindell has battled four types of cancer - breast, thyroid, skin and uterine."I feel betrayed," said Brindell, who is white. "How could they do this? We pointed our fingers during the Holocaust, and we do something like this?"Martino-Taylor said she wasn't aware of any lawsuits filed by anyone affected by the military tests. She also said there have been no payouts "or even an apology" from the government to those affected.The secret testing in St Louis was exposed to Congress in 1994, prompting a demand for a health study. A committee of the National Research Council determined in 1997 that the testing did not expose residents to harmful levels of the chemical. But the committee said research was sparse and the finding relied on limited data from animal testing.It also noted that high doses of cadmium over long periods of exposure could cause bone and kidney problems and lung cancer. The committee recommended that the army conduct follow-up studies "to determine whether inhaled zinc cadmium sulfide breaks down into toxic cadmium compounds, which can be absorbed into the blood to produce toxicity in the lungs and other organs".But it isn't clear if follow-up studies were ever performed. Martino-Taylor said she has gotten no answer from the army and her research has turned up no additional studies. Foster, the army spokesperson, declined comment.Martino-Taylor became involved years ago when a colleague who grew up in the targeted area wondered if the testing was the cause of her cancer. That same day, a second colleague confided to Martino-Taylor that she, too, lived in the test area and had cancer.Martino-Taylor decided to research the testing for her doctoral thesis at the University of Missouri. She believes the St Louis study was linked to the Manhattan Atomic Bomb Project and a small group of scientists from that project who were developing radiological weapons. A congressional study in 1993 confirmed radiological testing in Tennessee and parts of the West during the Cold War."There are strong lines of evidence that there was a radiological component to the St Louis study," Martino-Taylor said.Blunt, in his letter to the army secretary, questioned whether radioactive testing was performed."The idea that thousands of Missourians were unwillingly exposed to harmful materials in order to determine their health effects is absolutely shocking," the senator wrote.McCaskill agreed. "Given the nature of these experiments, it's not surprising that Missouri citizens still have questions and concerns about what exactly occurred and if there may have been any negative health effects," she said in a statement.Martino-Taylor said a follow-up health study should be performed in St Louis, but it must involve direct input from people who lived in the targeted areas."Their voices have not been heard," Martino-Taylor said.

NEWS,01.05.2012

Nuclear waste to be stored in Sydney suburbs

A plan to store radioactive waste in Sydney's suburbs has the backing of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) because it will not be dumped in the outback.Thirteen cubic metres of the waste - enough to fill one third of a shipping container - will be returned to Australia by 2015 and stored for five years at the Lucas Heights nuclear facility.The waste, which will remain toxic for centuries, was generated in Australia through the production of nuclear medicine and during scientific research.It was taken to France for reprocessing but will be returned under and Australian-Franco government agreement and kept in a newly built storage unit.ACF nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney said he would rather have the waste at Lucas Heights than placed near outback communities."It puts it into an area where there's established and proven security and monitoring," Sweeney said."And where there's the greatest number of experts in Australia."Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) CEO Dr Adi Paterson said most people would be surprised how small the volume of waste was."The store would hold around 13.2 metres cubed of waste from spent fuel - equal to a third of one shipping container - from the old HIFAR reactor at Lucas Heights," he said.Dr Paterson said the waste will be moved to an as yet unbuilt National Radioactive Waste Management Facility by 2020.The Australian newspaper reported it will be shipped from France in a custom-built 6.5 metre cask with walls more than 20 centimetres thick.ANSTO said it will formally apply for a licence to create the new storage building at Lucas Heights, with work already underway on its design.Lucas Heights is located in the Sutherland Shire, about 20 kilometres southwest of Sydney's CBD.

Scandal talk clouds French campaign before TV debate

Allegations of scandal and dirty tricks, and a presidential lawsuit, clouded France's election race as it entered the final week with both sides preparing for rival May Day rallies and a crucial television debate.The developments, along with a new opinion poll showing Socialist challenger Francois Hollande's lead over Conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy has narrowed slightly, raised the temperature on the eve of the rallies and Wednesday's sole TV debate before Sunday's decisive runoff.Sarkozy filed a lawsuit against investigative news website Mediapart for publishing a document it says shows the government of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi sought to fund his 2007 election campaign.The Paris prosecutor's office opened a police inquiry in response to Sarkozy's complaint against Mediapart for allegedly publishing false information and using forged documents.Sarkozy also tried to embarrass his opponent Hollande by turning the spotlight on former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was favourite for the Socialist nomination until he was arrested on rape allegations last year.Sarkozy, in a direct challenge to Hollande, who is staying away from May Day events, said he expected a big crowd to attend a political rally he will hold in Paris to rival trade union marches to defend worker rights."Tomorrow I will draw tens of thousands of people. I will talk to them about work," Sarkozy declared during a campaign trip in the southern city of Avignon.An Ipsos-Logica poll for France Inter showed the Socialist down one point on 53 percent and Sarkozy up one point on 47. A Reuters survey of polls published since the April 22 first round of voting gives Hollande an average score of 54 percent.Waging an uphill battle for re-election, Sarkozy dismissed a purported 2006 letter from Libya's former secret service chief, published by Mediapart, that discussed an "agreement in principle" to pay 50 million euros ($NZ80.9 million) for Sarkozy's campaign.The case seems unlikely to sway the election at such a late stage in a country where voters are inured to regular sleaze allegations, but it could stain the last week of the race."Do you really think that with what I did to him Mr Gaddafi would have made me a bank transfer? Why not a signed cheque - it's grotesque," Sarkozy told France 2 television before filing his suit.Sarkozy hosted Gaddafi on an official visit to Paris in 2007 but spearheaded Western military intervention that helped drive the Libyan from power after a 2011 popular uprising.The president called the document an "obvious fake", saying that the two Libyans who were supposed to have sent the letter and received it had both denied any involvement.Sarkozy will make a last attempt to turn the tide against Hollande when they face off on TV on Wednesday evening for a sole head-to-head debate expected to draw millions of viewers.Sarkozy plans a meeting in Paris's Trocadero square as a rival to traditional union marches to defend workers' rights that some senior Socialist Party members will attend. The president said last week his event would showcase "real work" - a term he has since said he regretted."This sort of rhetoric, which divides people, has become unbearable," Francois Chereque, head of the CFDT union, told Liberation. The CFDT has not endorsed a candidate, while the CGT union has urged its members to "vote against Sarkozy".Alongside union-led marches, the far-right National Front party will be holding its annual "Joan of Arc Day" rally, at which party leader Marine Le Pen has said she will spell out voting advice for her supporters ahead of the runoff.Hollande will attend a ceremony in memory of late Socialist Prime Minister Pierre Beregovoy who took his life on May 1, 1993.A more direct contest comes the following day when the two candidates meet for a television debate which could be decisive.In 2007, commentators said a heated exchange between Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal helped widen the centre-right leader's margin of victory after Royal - Hollande's former partner - lost her cool when talking about handicapped children.Sarkozy was ahead in polls one week before the deciding round in 2007. This time he faces more difficult odds.Surveys show voters are most concerned about resolving France's economic woes and restoring growth as jobless claims have risen to their highest level since September 1999.Yet it seemed scandals and mudslinging could dominate the last days of the race.On Monday, Sarkozy drew attention to a Socialist lawmaker's birthday party at which some of Hollande's campaign staff rubbed shoulders with Strauss-Kahn, who has become a political pariah over his alleged sexual misconduct."When you see the circus around this birthday dinner... with Mr Strauss-Kahn on rue Saint Denis - you couldn't make this stuff up - you wonder whether the Socialists are thinking," Sarkozy said, highlighting the fact that the party took place in a Paris street renowned for prostitution.Hollande told Europe 1 radio: "I have already said that Dominique Strauss-Kahn has not been involved in this election campaign and it is not his place to show up now."