NEWS,31.07. AND 01.08.2013

UK bodies act to bolster consumer safety

Four British consumer and business bodies have taken legal steps that could compel the regulator to take swift action to end scams after years of financial product mis-selling.
In a bid to end the litany of mis-selling which stretches back to the 1980s with pensions and home loans, Britain's finance ministry said on Wednesday that four bodies have applied for "super complainant" status.
This means that if they collate enough documented evidence that consumers of financial services are being ripped off, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulator must say within 90 days what action, if any, it will take.
Banks have paid over £10bn ($15.26bn) in compensation so far for selling unsuitable loan insurance, a mounting bill that forced Barclays on Tuesday to announce plans to replenish its capital buffer.
One of the applicants for super complainant status, the Federation of Small Businesses, is representing companies who believe they were mis-sold interest rate protection by banks.
The FCA replaced the Financial Services Authority in April, which was scrapped partly because of mis-selling scandals. The FCA has a remit to protect consumers with its powers to ban products.
"By giving certain consumer and business groups the ability to make 'super-complaints' to the new regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, we can all help to tackle bad practice more rapidly and robustly than before," UK financial services minister Greg Clark said in a statement.
The other three bodies are the Citizens Advice Bureau, consumers association and Consumer Council Northern Ireland. Others are expected and a decision on who will be granted super complainant status will be taken later this year.
Britain passed a law in 2012 making it possible for consumer bodies to become super complainants and called in March for applicants.

'Obamacare' delay to hit US workers hard

President Barack Obama's decision to delay implementation of part of his healthcare reform law will cost $12bn and leave a million fewer Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance in 2014, congressional researchers said Tuesday.
The report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is the first authoritative estimate of the human and fiscal cost from the administration's unexpected one-year delay announced on  July 2 of the employer mandate - a requirement for larger businesses to provide health coverage for their workers or pay a penalty.
The analysts said the delay will add to the cost of "Obamacare's" insurance-coverage provisions over the next 10 years. Penalties paid by employers would be lower and more individuals who otherwise might have had employer coverage will need federal insurance subsidies.
"Of those who would otherwise have obtained employment-based coverage, roughly half will be uninsured (in 2014)," CBO said in a July 30 letter to Representative Paul Ryan, Republican chairperson of the House of Representatives Budget Committee.
Under Obama's healthcare reform law, employers with 50 or more full-time workers were supposed to provide healthcare coverage or incur penalties beginning on January 1. But the requirement will now begin in 2015.
The delay intensified doubts about the administration's ability to implement Obama's signature domestic policy achievement, and stirred Republican calls for a similar delay in another Obamacare mandate that requires most individuals to have health insurance in 2014.
The Republican-controlled House followed up the administration's decision by voting on July 17 for its own measures to delay the employer and individual mandates. Neither piece of legislation is expected to succeed in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
State and federal officials are racing to set up new online health insurance exchanges, where lower-to-moderate income families that lack health insurance will be able to sign up for federally subsidised coverage beginning on October 1. The poor will also be able to sign up for Medicaid coverage in 23 states that have opted to expand the programme.
Most large employers already offer health insurance and CBO said few are expected to drop coverage because of the delay.
But the change will still result in a $10bn reduction in penalty payments that some employers would have made in 2015 for failing to provide coverage next year, CBO said.
The change also means another $3bn in added costs for exchange subsidies. That is because about half of the one million workers who would have gained employer-sponsored coverage next year will now obtain insurance through the exchanges or via public programmes including Medicaid, CBO said.
Other changes, including an increase in taxable compensation resulting from fewer people enrolling in employment-based coverage, will offset those factors by about $1bn.
CBO now puts the net cost of Obamacare's insurance coverage provisions at around $1.38trn over the next 10 years, versus its May baseline projection of $1.36trn.

Obama offers 'grand jobs bargain'

President Barack Obama proposed a "grand bargain for middle-class jobs" on Tuesday that would cut the US corporate tax rate and use billions of dollars in revenues generated by a business tax overhaul to fund projects aimed at creating jobs.
The goal, as outlined in his speech to an enthusiastic audience at an Amazon.com Inc facility in southeastern Tennessee, was to break through partisan gridlock in Congress with a formula that satisfies Republicans and Democrats alike.
But there was no sign that congressional Republicans who have fought nearly every facet of Obama's domestic agenda would look favourably upon the president's proposal.
The president's plan combined a proposed corporate tax rate cut desired by Republicans with new spending on infrastructure projects like roads and bridges as well as education investment desired by his fellow Democrats.
"I've come here to offer a framework that might help break through the political logjam in Washington and get some of these proven ideas moving," Obama said.
Despite the olive branch, Obama's proposal immediately drew fire from the top Republicans in Congress. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said: "It's just a further-left version of a widely panned plan he already proposed two years ago - this time, with extra goodies for tax-and-spend liberals."
Bickering broke out as the White House said it had tried to tell aides to John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, about the plan on Monday but, according to Obama spokesperson Jay Carney, "never heard back" from them.
The president in his speech also jabbed at Republicans over their support for a proposed oil pipeline from Canada and their continual opposition to his ideas.
The contretemps reflected the hyperpartisan environment that has made negotiations nearly impossible in Washington. Efforts to reach a "grand bargain" between Democrats and Republicans on deficit reduction have been at an impasse for months.
New showdowns over spending are expected in the fall, as Congress confronts an October 1 deadline to pass a bill funding the government and then a White House request to raise the federal borrowing limit, known as the "debt ceiling".
Senior administration officials said Obama is not giving up on a big deficit-cutting package, but since no agreement appears imminent, he is offering a new idea to try to follow through on his 2012 re-election campaign promises to help the middle class.
But his narrow proposal on corporate taxes suggested that Obama had all but abandoned a big deal with Republicans on deficit reduction. He argued the deficit was rapidly declining anyway and no deal seemed near with his political opponents.
'The white flag'
The president cast his latest tax proposal as part of a menu of items he is offering to help the United States pick up its economic game in a competitive world economy.
"If we don't make these investments and reforms, we might as well throw up the white flag while the rest of the world forges ahead in a global economy," he said. "And that does nothing to help the middle class."
Obama wants to cut the corporate tax rate of 35% to 28% and give manufacturers a preferred rate of 25%. He also wants a minimum tax on foreign earnings as a tool against corporate tax evasion and the use of tax havens.
In exchange for his support for a corporate tax reduction, Obama wants the money generated by a tax overhaul to be used to fund such projects as repairing roads and bridges, improving education at community colleges and promoting manufacturing, senior administration officials said.
For his part Obama, who will need Republican backing for any budget deal, had scathing words for Republican proposals on economic growth.
He spoke dismissively of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, which Republicans have urged him to approve because of its economic benefits. The president said it would create only 50 permanent jobs, adding: "That's not a jobs plan."
Obama's plan to cut corporate taxes while also curtail some existing tax benefits would result in a one-time source of revenue. The White House did not say how much money would be raised, but Obama called for $50bn for infrastructure spending in his State of the Union speech in February.
Republicans contended that by spending the revenue, it would violate Obama's previous commitment to a "revenue-neutral" overhaul of corporate taxes.
Administration officials said they recognise that the climate is difficult in Congress, with Republicans adamantly refusing anything that is seen as increasing spending and Democrats in no mood to cut taxes and get nothing for it.
The president, who has failed in several tries to reach a comprehensive fiscal accord with Republicans, accused them of holding a personal grudge against him and called for a good-faith exchange of ideas.
"If folks in Washington really want a grand bargain, how about a grand bargain for middle-class jobs?" Obama said.
"I don't want to go through the same old arguments where I propose an idea and the Republicans just say: 'No,' because it's my idea. So I'm going to try offering something that serious people in both parties should be able to support," he added.
Boehner's spokesperson, Michael Steel, criticised the proposal even before Obama's speech, saying: "Republicans want to help families and small businesses, too.
"This proposal allows President Obama to support President Obama's position on taxes and President Obama's position on spending, while leaving small businesses and American families behind."

Iran sanctions bill to slash oil exports

The House of Representatives easily passed a bill on Wednesday to tighten sanctions on Iran, showing a strong message to Tehran over its disputed nuclear program days before President-elect Hassan Rouhani is sworn in.
The vote also highlighted a growing divide between Congress and the Obama administration on Iran policy ahead of international talks on the nuclear program in coming months. Iran insists the nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes.
The bill, which passed 400 to 20, would cut Iran's oil exports by another 1 million barrels per day over a year to near zero, in an attempt to reduce the flow of funds to the nuclear program. It is the first sanctions bill to put a number on exactly how much Iran's oil exports would be cut.
The legislation provides for heavy penalties for buyers who do not find alternative supplies, limits Iran's access to funds in overseas accounts and penalizes countries trading with Iran in other industrial sectors.
Existing US and EU measures have already reduced Iran's oil exports by more than half from pre-sanction levels of about 2.2m barrels per day (bpd), costing Tehran billions of dollars in lost revenue a month.
Most of the OPEC member's exports head to Asia, where the United States has worked with Iran's top four customers China, India, Japan and South Korea to push them towards alternative suppliers. The four have cut purchases from Iran by more than a fifth in the first half of this year, over and above the reductions made last year.
China
The success of any toughening of the sanctions will depend on China, Iran's top customer, which has repeatedly said it opposes unilateral sanctions outside the purview of the United Nations, such as those imposed by the United States.
The country reduced oil purchases from the Middle Eastern nation by 21% last year, but that was partly on account of differences in the first quarter over the renewal terms of annual contracts and shipping delays.
Chinese officials have said refiners are likely to cut shipments 5% to 10% this year from last. They cut imports 2% in the first six months of the year.
"I don't think the Chinese government will give in to this kind of pressure," said an official with a Chinese refinery that processes Iranian crude. "There is no chance that Iranian supplies would come to a halt."
For now, relatively steady oil prices have allowed the efforts to continue, but analysts say further sanctions risk pushing up prices and damaging the economies of US allies.
"This is almost like an embargo on Iranian oil imports. It is like giving Iran an ultimatum," a Seoul-based refining source said, after the vote. "I think we can find alternatives but we prefer Iranian crude as the economics are better. If very little Iranian crude is available, overall oil prices would rise."
The bill still has to be passed in the Senate and signed by President Barack Obama before becoming law. The Senate Banking Committee is expected to introduce a similar measure in September, though it is uncertain whether the language to cut exports by 1 million barrels a day will survive.
Critics of the bill said it shows an aggressive signal to Iran that last month voted in Rouhani, a cleric many see as more moderate. He will be sworn in on Sunday.
No higher priority
Rep. Ed Royce, a California Republican and Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who introduced the bill with Rep. Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, said the United States has no higher national security priority than preventing a nuclear-armed Iran.
Royce said the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's drive to develop a nuclear arsenal was evident. "New president or not, I am convinced that Iran's Supreme Leader intends to continue on this path," he said.
The vote showed a growing disagreement between the White House and Congress on Iran policy. A senior administration official said on Wednesday the White House is not opposed to new sanctions in principle, but wants to give Rouhani a chance.
The Treasury Department last week partially eased sanctions on Iran by expanding a list of medical devices that can be exported there without special permission.
One of the 20 lawmakers to vote against the bill, Jim McDermott, a Washington-state Democrat, said shortly before the vote that the rush to sanction Iran before Rouhani takes office could hurt efforts to deflate the nuclear issue.
"It's a dangerous sign to send and it limits our ability to find a diplomatic solution to nuclear arms in Iran," McDermott said.
A supporter of harsher sanctions disagreed.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "doesn't see our flexibility and good faith efforts as a sign of good intentions, he sees it as a sign of weakness," said Mark Dubowitz, the head of Foundation of Defense of Democracies, an advocate of sanctions.
"If anything, it's only going to be massively intensified sanctions that get him to blink."
But Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American council, said the House action undermines the US strategy which has long been one of good cop - bad cop.
The White House has taken a softer stance toward Iran's nuclear program and Congress has taken a tougher one. But now there are signs that the good cop cannot control the bad cop, he said.
"The impression on the Iranian side is not that it's good cop bad cop, but complete chaos and mayhem," Parsi said.
'Too much'
The bill also further denies Iran's government access to foreign currency reserves, and targets Iranian efforts to circumvent international sanctions against its shipping business.
"I think it's too much. Asian countries don't have much oil resources and they need to import a lot from the Middle East," said a trader with a North Asian buyer of Iranian crude. "If the United States keeps pushing further, it would be a big burden for Asian refineries."
While the bill has more steps to clear before becoming law, other buyers, apart from China, have already begun voicing their inability to reduce dependence on Iranian oil much further.
"Cuts in our imports from Iran have been the maximum as compared to other Asian countries," an Indian industry executive said. "At this moment there is no scope for further reduction."
India cut its Iranian oil imports by 43% over the first half of the year. That's more than the 27% cut by South Korea and 22.5% by Japan.
Turkey would also struggle to cut its crude oil imports from Iran any further, a Turkish official said. 

Snowden leaves Moscow airport

Fugitive former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden left Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on Thursday after Russia granted him refugee status, ending more than a month in limbo in the transit area.

A lawyer who has been assisting Snowden said the young American, who is wanted in the United States for leaking details of secret government intelligence programmes, had left the airport for a secure location which would remain secret.

"Edward Snowden has successfully acquired refugee status in Russia," the anti-secrecy organisation WikiLeaks, which is also assisting Snowden, confirmed on Twitter.

His lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told state television: "I have just seen him off. He has left for a secure location ... Security is a very serious matter for him."

Snowden, aged 30, arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on 23 June. He had hoped to fly to Latin America, where three countries have offered to shelter him, but was concerned that the United States would prevent him reaching his destination.

Snowden's case has caused new strains in relations between Russia and the United States which wants him extradited to face espionage charges.

According to reports, Snowden, who has left the airport for an undisclosed location, will be allowed to live in Russia for a year.

US dept 'horrified' by WikiLeaks release

Prosecutors in the case of US soldier Bradley Manning are focusing on the damage done by his release through WikiLeaks of more than 250 000 US diplomatic cables.

The first witness on Thursday at Manning's sentencing hearing was former deputy assistant secretary of state Elizabeth Dibble.
She says agency officials reacted with "horror and disbelief" when WikiLeaks began publishing the leaked cables in the autumn of 2010.
The former army intelligence analyst faces up to 136 years in prison for sending the cables and more than 470 000 Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports to the anti-secrecy website.
The government opened its sentencing case on Wednesday with testimony that WikiLeaks' publication of the leaked battlefield reports fractured US military relationships with foreign governments and silenced some friendly Afghan villagers.

NEWS,09.07.2013

UAE agrees to give Egypt $3bn - source

The United Arab Emirates has agreed to grant Egypt $1bn and lend it another $2bn, an Egyptian source close to the talks said on Tuesday.
The source said the amount was expected to be part of a larger financial package from the UAE.
The loan would be in the form of a deposit at Egypt's central bank, although the interest rate and maturity had yet to be finalised.
He also said that Saudi Arabia was expected to lend Egypt $2bn, which he expected to be confirmed within two days.

White House trims GDP forecast

The White House on Monday trimmed its outlook for US economic growth in 2013 and 2014, citing "serious headwinds" from European austerity measures and a slowdown in China, as well as across-the-board budget sequester cuts at home.
The mid-session budget and economic update highlighted the lingering impact of the recession that has stymied President Barack Obama's economic agenda.
In the review, the White House said it expected gross domestic product (GDP) to rise 2.0% this year and 3.1% next year less than the 2.3% and 3.2% forecast in Obama's budget of April 10.
The unemployment rate has fallen somewhat over the past six months but remains stubbornly high - at about 7.5%, because of what the Obama administration says is the lingering impact of the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Ahead of tough negotiations with Congress on spending cuts and raising the US debt limit, the White House slashed its estimate of the current year's fiscal deficit to $759bn, or 4.7% of GDP, from its April forecast of $973bn.
Republicans have been focusing on deficit reduction and spending cuts, while Obama has argued for programmes to spur jobs, financed in part by higher taxes on the wealthy.
White House budget director Sylvia Mathews Burwell said in a statement that the report shows Obama's budget "achieves the core goal of fiscal sustainability by putting federal debt on a declining path as a share of the economy".
Congress, however, is not expected to pass Obama's budget this year.
 

Brazil to probe reports of US spying

Brazil said on Monday it will investigate reports of US electronic spying on its citizens and called for a multilateral agency to govern the global internet.

The pledge came after the daily O Globo reported on Sunday that the US National Security Agency (NSA) spied on Brazilian residents and companies as well as people travelling in Brazil, citing documents leaked by the fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Earlier documents leaked by Snowden had alleged that the US maintained a vast surveillance system over the US territory, as well as EU offices in Washington and New York and some European countries, such as Germany.

The satellite intelligence collection base in Brasilia was jointly operated "at least until 2002 by the NSA and the Central Intelligence Agency", the report said.

"I have absolutely no doubt" about the veracity of the reports, Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo said.

"Now the circumstances in which this was carried out, the exact form and date, this we must verify," he added.

No confirmation

Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota welcomed Washington's readiness to discuss the issue describing the spying allegations as "extremely serious".

State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki confirmed the US had "spoken with Brazilian officials regarding these allegations".

But she refused to deny or confirm any details, saying simply "we plan to continue our dialogue with the Brazilians through normal diplomatic channels, but those are conversations that of course we would keep private".

President Dilma Rousseff, who is due to visit the United States later this year, "was very concerned. I would even say outraged", Bernardo said.

The communications minister said Brasilia planned to use the case to seek international support for the creation of a multilateral agency to govern the global internet.

"We need a change in the governance of the internet. It cannot be governed by a private US entity when we know that this entity is controlled by the US government," he added.

Not enough evidence

Bernardo also said he did not believe the NSA monitoring of Brazilians' telephone and email data was done with the collusion of Brazilian firms.

He met on Monday with the head of the National Telecommunications Agency Anatel, Joo Rezende, ordering him to check whether domestic companies were involved

O Globo said the US facility in Brasilia was part of a network of 16 "Primary Fornsat Collection Operations" maintained by the NSA around the world to intercept transmissions from foreign satellites.

Brazil leases eight satellites.

The daily said it did not have enough evidence to say whether the US operation continued after 2002.

It also published an NSA document dated September 2010 which seemed to indicate the Brazilian embassy in Washington and the Brazilian mission to the UN in New York were targeted by the agency.

In limbo

Psaki refused to comment on the allegations saying "we're not going to comment publicly on every specific alleged intelligence activity".

The new reports came as the former CIA contractor Snowden, aged 30, remained in limbo in a Moscow airport as he seeks a safe haven in Latin America having fled the US where he faces three felony charges.

The leftist leaders of Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua, who have strained ties with Washington, have all offered him asylum.

But he cannot leave the airport without a travel document after the US revoked his passport.

Washington has urged Russia to hand him over as a gesture of good will because the two sides have no extradition agreement.

The US has warned "any country where he may be moving in transit, where he could end up and certainly any country that were to grant asylum, that could have an impact, of course, on our bilateral relationship", Psaki said.

Manning was 'upset' over Iraq, witness

Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of espionage, was "upset" about the plight of Iraqi civilians before he handed over a trove of secret files to WikiLeaks, a witness testified on Monday.

The Army private was dismayed over an incident in which 15 Iraqi civilians had been jailed - with US backing for handing out pamphlets criticising the government, said Sergeant David Sadtler, who helped oversee Manning's work as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad.

Manning "was concerned that this was happening," said Sadtler, who was called as a witness for the defence.

"He was upset at the situation."

Manning's lawyers focused on the episode as they began to present the case for the defence, painting a picture of a conscientious young man bothered by injustice and eager to shed light on US foreign policy.

In an earlier statement to the court, Manning said the Iraqis who were arrested had no ties to militants and their pamphlets were only a "scholarly critique" of government corruption.

Sadtler said Manning was up on international events and that other troops in his unit would come to him "if they needed to know what was going on in the world".

‘Delightful blood lust’

Manning, aged 25, has admitted to giving WikiLeaks more than 700 000 secret military intelligence files and diplomatic cables in the worst leak of classified information in American history.

He has pleaded guilty to lesser offenses that could carry a 20-year prison sentence.

But he is contesting 21 other charges, including the most serious count that he knew he was "aiding the enemy" by funnelling the files to the website. That charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Manning's lawyers earlier filed motions asking the military judge to dismiss several counts against their client, including the most serious charge that he "aided" al-Qaeda by spilling secrets.

The defence lawyers argued prosecutors lack evidence to back allegations he broke rules for using military computers, stole government "property", disclosed email addresses and assisted the enemy when he gave classified files to the anti-secrecy website.

The defence opened the proceedings by playing a 39min video of a 2007 US helicopter attack in Baghdad that went viral in 2010 after Manning passed the footage to WikiLeaks, which released the clip under the title "Collateral Murder".

The disturbing video, from a cockpit gunsight, shows two Apache helicopters firing at a group of Iraqi men whom the crew mistakenly believed were carrying weapons.

Two of those killed in the assault were Iraqis working for the Reuters news agency.

Manning has told the court the video troubled him, particularly jokes made by the air crew that showed what he called "seemingly delightful blood lust".

Talented

The prosecution rested its case last week but suffered an embarrassing setback after acknowledging the military had lost the contract Manning signed laying out the terms of his access to classified information.

As the trial entered its sixth week at Fort Meade in Maryland, north of Washington, the first defence witness told the court Manning had been one of the most talented members of an intelligence analysis unit, excelling at "data mining".

"He was our best analyst by far when it came to developing products," said Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Ehresman, who oversaw intelligence work produced by Manning and other enlisted soldiers.

Unlike other troops who often needed assignments to be spelled out in detail, Manning was the "go-to guy" and "would come up with exactly what you were looking for," he said.

Ehresman and two other witnesses said there were no rules in Manning's unit barring soldiers from running an executable file or program off of a CD.

The testimony was meant to bolster the defence’s argument that Manning did not exceed his authorised access to government databases or violate computer regulations.

The defence also called a former chief prosecutor of terror suspects at the US prison at its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Morris Davis, to try to cast doubt on the importance of documents leaked by Manning about detainees at the jail.

The "detainee assessment briefs" on Guantanamo inmates, which were leaked by Manning, were superficial biographical information that "were so wildly inaccurate as not to be useful" to prosecutors, Davis told the court.

The case has taken on added weight in the aftermath of another round of leaks from a former contractor for the National Security Agency.

Edward Snowden fled to Hong Kong and later to Moscow after handing over documents to the media revealing far-reaching US electronic surveillance of phone records and Internet traffic.

Obama still to decide on Afghan troops

US President Barack Obama has not yet decided how many troops to keep in Afghanistan after 2014, but a total pullout is one of the options under consideration, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

Pentagon spokesperson George Little, in a news briefing, declined comment on whether Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel supported keeping US forces in Afghanistan after 2014, saying he would not disclose Hagel's private recommendations to Obama.

NEWS,17.06.2013

Poll shows confidence in Obama slipping

Confidence in President Barack Obama has dropped below 50% to its lowest level in 19 months as Americans worry over broad government surveillance and other controversies, a poll showed Monday.
The tumbling approval numbers come as the White House faces criticism about a domestic program that gathers data on millions of Americans, the US tax agency's targeting of conservative groups which applied for tax-exempt status, and secret collection of journalists' phone records.
Obama's approval rating has now dropped to 45%, an eight-point slide since mid-May, according to CNN which conducted the survey.
Some 54% of the public say they disapprove of how the president is handling his job, marking the first time since November 2011 that a CNN poll showed a majority of Americans with a negative view of Obama.
It shows that for the first time in Obama's presidency, half of Americans do not believe he is honest and trustworthy.
"The drop in Obama's support is fueled by a dramatic 17-point decline over the past month among people under 30, who, along with black Americans, had been the most loyal part of the Obama coalition," CNN polling director Keating Holland said.
Fifty-one percent of respondents say that the existing National Security Agency program that scoops up a billion phone records per day - a programme leaked by a former defense contractor - is appropriate as part of counter-terrorism efforts.
But 43% say Obama has crossed the line in restricting civil liberties in order to fight terrorism, according to the telephone poll of 1 014 people 11-13 June.
"It is clear that revelations about NSA surveillance programs have damaged Obama's standing with the public, although older controversies like the IRS matter may have begun to take their toll as well," Holland said.
Obama opponents have seized on an inspector's damning May report which concluded that Internal Revenue Service agents inappropriately targeted tea party groups, to highlight abuse of power by the administration.
They also pointed to the White House's handling of a deadly attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya last 11 September, and revelations that the Justice Department ordered the seizure of reporters' phone records as part of a leak probe.
Number two House Republican Eric Cantor told CNN that the poll sends a "troubling" message to Obama in that the public is witnessing "a government that has abused its power, and, frankly, has lost focus on the issue that most Americans care about, which is getting people back to work".
But he held fire on the surveillance programmes themselves, saying he believed they strike a balance between civil liberties and national security.

Obama: Make peace permanent in N Ireland

US President Barack Obama on Monday urged young people in Northern Ireland to finish making "permanent peace" and set an example to other parts of the world stricken by religious conflict, violence and war.

Obama, accompanied by his wife Michelle, stopped in Belfast before leaving for the G8 summit, which is being held at a secluded lakeside hotel not far from the site of one of the worst killings in the province's conflict.

A 1998 peace agreement largely ended more than three decades of violence in the British-controlled province between mainly Catholic Irish nationalists seeking union with Ireland and predominantly Protestant unionists who want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

But militant nationalists, who include former operatives who split from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) after it declared a ceasefire, still stage sporadic gun and bomb attacks.

‘A courageous path toward permanent peace’

US leaders have a long history of promoting peace in Northern Ireland and Obama was eager to put his stamp on the issue.

"If you continue your courageous path toward a permanent peace...that won't just be good for you. It will be good for this entire island, for the United Kingdom, for Europe, and it will be good for the world," he told an amphitheatre packed with students.

Obama said people experiencing ethnic, religious, and tribal conflict elsewhere in the world were watching what was happening in Northern Ireland.

"You are their blueprint to follow," he said. "You are their proof of what's possible. Hope is contagious. They're watching to see what you do next."

He did not specifically mention the war in Syria, which is expected to dominate part of the discussions among leaders at the G8.

The summit site is 8km from Enniskillen, where an IRA bomb tore through a mainly Protestant crowd at a memorial service for Britain's war dead in 1987, killing 11 and wounding 63.

The deaths rocked support among Irish Catholics for the IRA and pushed its leaders towards dialogue with Unionists, which lead to a ceasefire and the peace deal.

‘Your choice’

The summit host, British Prime Minister David Cameron, is gambling that the remnants of the IRA are too weak to trouble the visiting leaders.

Obama said there was a time when no one could imagine that such a summit could be held in Northern Ireland.

He encouraged the students to move forward with the progress made by their political leaders and parents who helped achieve peace.

"Ultimately, whether your communities deal with the past and face the future united, together, isn't something you have to wait for somebody else to do that's a choice you have to make right now," he said.

Snowden dismisses claim he is Chinese spy

The young intelligence technician who leaked details of the vast US programme to monitor private internet traffic on Monday dismissed claims that he was working as a Chinese agent.
"This is a predictable smear that I anticipated before going public," Edward Snowden said in an online interview hosted by the Guardian newspaper in which he was asked why he had gone to Hong Kong before making his revelations.
Earlier, AP reported that Snowden defended his disclosure of top-secret US spying programs in an online chat and attacked US officials for calling him a traitor.

He adds the government will not silence him by jailing or, in his words, murdering him.

The Guardian said that its website hosted an online chat with Snowden, in hiding in Hong Kong, with reporter Glenn Greenwald receiving and posting his questions.

Snowden says he did not reveal any US operations against what he called legitimate military targets, but instead showed the NSA is hacking civilian infrastructure like universities and private businesses.

US officials say the data-gathering programmess were legal and operated under court supervision.

An e-mail to the NSA for comment was not immediately returned.

Merkel: US helped foil terror plot

Germany's chancellor says US intelligence was key to foiling a large-scale terror plot, acknowledging her country is "dependent" on co-operating with American spy services.

But Angela Merkel also told broadcaster RTL on Monday that she was "surprised" to learn of the scope of recently leaked US spying programmes.
Merkel said the US must clarify what information on people's communications is monitored and how, reiterating that she will raise the issue in talks with President Barack Obama in Berlin on Wednesday.
However, Merkel said security services could have not foiled a 2007 terror plot without "tips from American sources".
Four Islamic extremists were then arrested while preparing an explosive device with power equivalent to more than 400kg of TNT that authorities said was meant to attack American soldiers and citizens in Germany.

NEWS,10 AND 11.06.2013

New London finance jobs rise 20%

The number of job vacancies in London's financial services sector rose 20% between April and May as employers took comfort from more stable financial markets, a recruiter said on Monday.
Job vacancies in one of the world's top financial centres rose to 6 426 last month, up from 5 355 in April, according to Morgan McKinley's London Employment Monitor.
London's banks and financial services companies have slashed thousands of jobs in recent years following a wave of banking scandals and a protracted period of economic weakness. However, the sector still employs over 1 million people in Britain and contributes almost 10% of gross domestic product, according to TheCityUK, which promotes UK financial services.
The May employment monitor results showed confidence about the potential for business growth was steadily returning, Hakan Enver, operations director at Morgan McKinley Financial Services, said in a statement.
"As we approach the mid-year point, we have seen less volatility both in the financial markets and also in the wider global economy. Although the market remains highly sensitive to macroeconomic issues, sentiment has slowly been improving since the start of the year," Enver said.
However, the number of job opportunities appearing in May was almost 60 percent lower than in May 2012. Enver said this reflected the impact of the large scale redundancies made last year, which have outweighed the number of roles becoming available, and a trend for filling vacancies internally.
The survey, based on Morgan McKinley's weekly records of new permanent and temporary job vacancies and new candidates registering with the firm for employment, also found that the number of job seekers rose by 7% month-on-month in May as job security became less of a concern.
On average, workers moving to new roles last month pocketed an 8% pay rise versus a 12% gain in April.
The smaller pay rise was down to firms having spent some of their hiring budgets earlier in the year, feeling less pressure to snap up top candidates as markets calmed and people returning to work after a period of redundancy.

Saudi prince sues Forbes - report

Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has sued Forbes magazine for libel in a British court, alleging its valuation of his wealth at $20bn was short of the mark by $9.6bn, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on Friday.
The prince, a grandson of Saudi Arabia's founder and nephew of King Abdullah, had attacked the US magazine's ranking of world billionaires as flawed and biased against Middle Eastern businesses after he was ranked number 26 in this year's list.
An official at the High Court in London confirmed that Prince Alwaleed had filed a defamation suit against Forbes, its editor Randall Lane, and two of its journalists on April 30. Details of the claim were not immediately available.
Through his Kingdom Holding Company, Prince Alwaleed owns large stakes in Citigroup, News Corp and Apple Inc, among other companies. He is also owner or part-owner of luxury hotels including the Plaza in New York, the Savoy in London and the George V in Paris.
This year's Forbes World Billionaires list was published on March 4, and the following day Kingdom Holding said the valuation process used "incorrect data" and "seemed designed to disadvantage Middle Eastern investors and institutions".
The public spat attracted a lot of comment, but Forbes stuck by its estimate of Prince Alwaleed's wealth and published an in-depth article in its March 25 issue entitled "Prince Alwaleed and the curious case of Kingdom Holding stock".
The article gave details about how Forbes had arrived at the figure of $20 billion and criticised what it described as a lack of transparency by Kingdom Holding in detailing its assets.
The article also described Prince Alwaleed's marble-filled, 420-room Riyadh palace, his private Boeing 747 equipped with a throne, and his 120-acre resort on the edge of the Saudi capital with five homes, five artificial lakes and a mini-Grand Canyon.
The High Court official in London said the two journalists named in the defamation claim were Kerry Dolan, the author of the article, and Francine McKenna, who was credited with additional reporting.
No date has been set for a court hearing in the case, which is in its very early stages, the official said.
The law firm Kobre & Kim, which the Guardian said was acting for Prince Alwaleed in the suit, declined to comment. New York-based Forbes could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Guardian article quoted the magazine as saying: "We're very surprised at claims that Prince Alwaleed has decided to sue Forbes, particularly if he has done so in the United Kingdom, a jurisdiction that has nothing whatsoever to do with our recent story which raised questions about his claims about his wealth."
Media lawyer Jonathan Coad, of the London firm Lewis Silkin, said London was seen as a more attractive place than New York to bring defamation suits because US libel law made higher requirements of claimants.
"In the US, a high-profile claimant has to prove firstly that the article was untrue and secondly that the publisher knew that the article was untrue, which is what we call malice. Those are two hurdles that a UK libel action does not present," said Coad, who is not involved in the Prince Alwaleed case.
Under British libel law, a claimant has only to prove that a publication was defamatory. Then the burden of proof passes to the defendant, who has several possible defences, including that the publication was true.

Obama to name Furman as chief economist

President Barack Obama on Monday will nominate longtime adviser Jason Furman to be his new chief White House economist, an administration official said.
Furman, who will replace economist Alan Krueger as chair of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), has a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and has advised Obama since his 2008 election campaign.
"Furman has been a key adviser to the president and has contributed to most every major proposal on jobs and the economy," said the White House official who declined to be identified. Obama will announce the appointment at 14:10.
Krueger, who was confirmed as CEA chair in November 2011, is returning to his professor post at Princeton University, from which he has been on leave. He had to return to the school by this fall in order to maintain his tenure, according to one source.
Furman is currently assistant to the president for economic policy and principal deputy director of the White House National Economic Council (NEC), which is run by Gene Sperling, and was an economist in the Clinton administration.
The CEA advises the president on domestic and international economic policy based on data and economic research. The chairman is a cabinet member and requires Senate confirmation.
Former colleagues said Furman would be effective because of his good relationship with the president and White House staff.
The appointment is likely a sign that budget and tax fights with Congress will continue to play a high-profile role in White House economic policy. It could also raise the profile of the CEA within the White House itself.

 

Opec keeps oil demand forecast steady

Opec kept its world oil demand forecast for 2013 virtually unchanged in its latest update on Tuesday, but tipped downward revisions given the deteriorating economic climate.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) said it expected world demand this year to reach 89.65 million barrels per day (mbpd), a slight drop from the forecast of 89.66 mbpd in its previous monthly report.
This would represent a rise of 780,000 bpd from 2012 oil demand, said the cartel which pumps about 35% of the world's crude.
Most of the increased demand is due to China and other countries not in the OECD club of advanced economies.
But Opec warned "the current forecast is subject to downward revisions not only in the OECD but also in emerging economies."
The latest Chinese manufacturing and export data raised concerns about a slowdown in Chinese growth, while growth in advanced economies is also expected to be lower than initially expected.
The Opec report noted that oil demand from debt crisis-wracked Europe declined for the 20th straight month in April.
"General expectations for the region's oil consumption during 2013 have once more weakened since last month's projections," said Opec.
Despite concerns about weakening global demand for oil, the cartel decided at its latest ministerial meeting at the end of last month to keep its output ceiling unchanged at 30 mbpd as the price per barrel of crude has hovered around $100.
However it warned it stood ready to act to support the price of oil.
The report, citing non-Opec sources, noted that international sanctions were having an impact on Iran's oil output, which fell to 2.64 mbpd in May, down from a level of 3.63 mbpd in 2011.
The International Energy Agency, the energy analysis arm of the 34-nation Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), releases its updated oil market forecasts on Wednesday.

US approves a nearly $1trn farm bill

The US Senate approved a sweeping, $955bn farm bill late Monday that sets out agriculture policy for the next five years, including expansion of crop insurance and reduction of food stamps.
The bill, which allocates some $955bn on nutrition and conservation programs, commodities and other agriculture spending, passed 66-27 with broad bipartisan support, and goes to the House of Representatives for consideration.
It slashes some $24bn from the federal deficit compared with the previous farm bill, a consideration Democrats hope will beef up the likelihood of passage in the Republican-led House where members have expressed intent to cut even more.
Agriculture is among the biggest US industries, accounting for at least 16 million jobs, and Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, chair of the Agriculture Committee, has called passing the farm bill this year a top priority.
"It's been a long road," she said on the Senate floor, referring to how last year's farm bill passed by the Senate was not taken up by the Republican-controlled House, causing the Senate version to expire at the end of 2012.
"I'm very optimistic we will get this done" and on to President Barack Obama's desk for his signature.
Stabenow accused House Republicans of having "walked away from rural America last year," but "this year it looks like it's going to be different."
House Speaker John Boehner suggested as much Monday in a statement saying the House will begin "vigorous and open debate" on its version of the farm bill later this month.
But Boehner hinted at a potential showdown, particularly over dairy provisions from last year that Boehner opposes, but that were kept in the 2013 bill.
"I oppose those provisions and will support efforts on the House floor to change them appropriately," he said, but he urged House members to come forward with possible solutions.
"Let's have the debate, and let's vote," he said.
By far the largest part of the bill, some $760.5bn over 10 years - the chunk of time over which the costs are calculated - addresses nutritional programs including food stamps, which the legislation cuts by some $4bn.
House lawmakers have called for even deeper cuts in the food stamp program as part of their goal of slashing a further $15bn from the overall bill.
It also marks a major transition from direct payments to farmers, a decades-old policy that helps shield growers from risk, to a market-based crop insurance system.
The new crop insurance plan would cost $89bn over 10 years.

Snowden: Russia will consider asylum

Russia would consider granting asylum to the American who has exposed top-secret US surveillance programmes, if he were to ask for it, President Vladimir Putin's spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stopped short of saying Moscow would accept Edward Snowden, but pro-Kremlin lawmakers spoke out in favour of the idea, tapping into a lingering Cold War rivalry with the United States and a vein of anti-American sentiment Putin has often encouraged.
"Promising Snowden asylum, Moscow takes upon itself the defence of people persecuted for political reasons," Alexei Pushkov, chairperson of the international affairs committee in the lower house of parliament, said on Twitter.
"There will be hysteria in the United States. They recognise this as their right alone," he said.
Putin and other Russian officials have often accused the United States of hypocrisy, saying it tries to impose standards of human rights, freedom and democracy on other nations while falling far short of them itself.
Snowden, who provided the information for reports that revealed broad monitoring of phone call and Internet data by the US government, fled to Hong Kong and has said he hopes that Iceland might grant him asylum.
He is not known to have mentioned the possibility of asylum in Russia, but Peskov was quoted in Russian daily Kommersant as saying Moscow was open to such an approach.
Asked whether Russia would be inclined to grant an asylum request, the spokesperson said: "It is impossible [to say] now. No one has applied yet. If he says: I request [political asylum], then we will consider it".

US assesses damage after NSA leak

The Obama administration has launched an internal review to assess damage to US national security from last week's leak of top-secret details of National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programmes, a senior US intelligence official said.

The review is separate from an initial criminal investigation into the leak opened by the justice department, the official told.
The administration's review will examine the extent of damage to national security programs from the disclosures by Edward Snowden, of details of NSA's collection of phone call and e-mail data, the official said.
It will be co-ordinated by the National Counter-intelligence Executive (NCIX), a branch of the director of national intelligence's office, the official said.
Snowden, who had been working at the NSA as an employee of contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, went public in a video released on Sunday by Britain's Guardian newspaper.
In the interview, he described being disturbed by the NSA's broad monitoring of phone call and internet data from large companies such as Google and Facebook.
The company said on Tuesday that it had terminated Snowden's employment on Monday for violations of its code of ethics and policies.
It said he had been an employee for less than three months and had a salary of $122 000.
Snowden's revelations have prompted a broad national debate about the balance of American's privacy rights and national security measures, especially as they have developed since the 11 September 2001, attacks in the United States.
A team of national security, law enforcement and intelligence officials was scheduled to brief House of Representatives members later on Tuesday about the NSA's surveillance programmes. The Senate will be briefed on Thursday.
Snowden "a traitor"
House Speaker John Boehner defended the NSA programmes and their congressional oversight, saying he had been briefed on the programmes and that Americans were not "snooped on", unless they communicated with a terrorist in another country.
"He's a traitor," Boehner said of Snowden in an interview.
"The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk, it shows our adversaries what our capabilities are, and it's a giant violation of the law."
Many other lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, have also called for swift punishment.
But Senator Rand Paul, a Republican popular with the Tea Party movement that campaigns against intrusive government, said he was reserving judgment on Snowden.
He said such civil disobedience happened when people felt like they had no other options.
"I think most Americans don't want this surveillance," Paul said

Cyber-snooping backlash builds in Berlin

German outrage over a secret US internet spying programme is building before a visit by Barack Obama next week, with senior members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's government demanding a full explanation from the president when he lands in Berlin.

Merkel's spokesperson has said she will raise the issue with Obama in talks next Wednesday. That could cast a cloud over the visit, designed to celebrate US-German ties on the 50th anniversary of a famous speech in which President John F Kennedy declared: "Ich bin ein Berliner".

Government surveillance is an extremely sensitive topic in Germany, where memories of East Germany's feared Stasi secret police and its extensive network of informants are still fresh in the minds of many citizens.

In a guest editorial for Spiegel Online on Tuesday, Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said reports the United States could access and track virtually all forms of internet communication were "deeply disconcerting" and potentially "dangerous".

"The more a society monitors, controls and observes its citizens, the less free it is," she said.

"The suspicion of excessive surveillance of communication is so alarming that it cannot be ignored. For that reason, openness and clarification by the US administration itself is paramount at this point. All facts must be put on the table."

Germans still enamoured of Obama

Opposition parties have jumped on the issue, keen to put a dampener on the Merkel-Obama talks and prevent them from boosting the chancellor as she gears up for a September parliamentary election in which she is seeking a third term.

"This looks to me like it could become one of the biggest data privacy scandals ever," Greens leader Renate Kuenast told.

Obama is due to land in Berlin on Tuesday night, hold talks and a news conference with Merkel on Wednesday and then give a speech in front of thousands at the Brandenburg Gate.

It is his first trip to the German capital since he passed through in 2008 during his first campaign for the presidency, giving a speech at the Victory Column in the Tiergarten park that attracted 200 000 adoring fans.

Five years on, Germans are still enamoured of Obama: A poll last week showed 82% view him favourably.

But his failure to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison, extensive use of drones to kill suspected al-Qaeda militants and the latest revelations about the secret surveillance programme, codenamed Prism, have tempered enthusiasm.

Grounds for 'massive concern'

According to documents leaked to the Washington Post and Guardian newspapers, the programme gave US officials access to e-mails, web chats and other communications from companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Skype.

Obama has defended it as a "modest encroachment" on privacy and reassured Americans that no one is listening to their phone calls.

But US law puts virtually no eavesdropping restrictions on the communications of foreigners, meaning in theory that Washington could be delving into the private Internet communications of Germans and other Europeans.

Peter Schaar, the German official with responsibility for data privacy, said this was grounds for "massive concern" in Europe.

"The problem is that we Europeans are not protected from what appears to be a very comprehensive surveillance programme," he told the Handelsblatt newspaper. "Neither European nor German rules apply here, and American laws only protect Americans."

Swiss want answers on US spy claims

Switzerland on Tuesday revealed that it has asked the United States to explain an alleged CIA blackmail operation to spy on the Alpine country's banks, exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The Swiss foreign ministry told AFP that it was aware of media reports about the issue and that it had sent the US embassy in the capital Berne a diplomatic note seeking "clarification".
The ministry also confirmed that Snowden was accredited as a diplomatic attaché at the US permanent mission to the United Nations in Geneva from March 2007 to February 2009.
"The role of members of permanent missions in Geneva is to represent their country at international organisations based in Switzerland," the ministry said.
"In line with the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, Switzerland expects members of diplomatic missions in Berne and permanent missions in Geneva to respect the laws and rules of the country," it added.
Snowden, a 29-year-old technology expert and US government contractor, has turned whistleblower to reveal Washington's so-called PRISM programme.
The programme enables the National Security Agency to issue directives to internet firms such as Google or Facebook to gain access to emails, online chats, pictures, files and videos uploaded by foreign users.
Snowden has said that it was in Geneva - where his diplomatic role was a cover for his work for the US intelligence agency, the CIA - that he first considered going public.
Disillusioned
"Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world," he told the British newspaper The Guardian.
"I realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good," he added.
Snowden claimed there was an operation in which an agent made friends with a banker, got him drunk so he was stopped for driving while intoxicated, and then helped him escape legal action.
In exchange, the man allegedly spied on Swiss banks to garner data for US tax authorities on money stashed abroad by Americans.
Speculation is raging in Switzerland's media over the banker's identity, amid a debate over a take-it-or-leave-it deal proposed by Washington to fine Swiss banks that allegedly abetted such tax evasion.
Discharged from the army after an accident in 2003 just before he could deploy to Iraq, Snowden worked at the National Security Agency for various outside contractors, including Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton.