Soros: Fannie, Freddie crisis not the last

Soros: Fannie, Freddie crisis not the last
Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:28pm EDT

By Jennifer Ablan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire investor George Soros said on Monday that the crisis over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will not be the last, and noted that the broader credit meltdown will impact an already slowing U.S. economy.

The Treasury Department agreed to raise Fannie and Freddie's credit lines above the existing $2.25 billion apiece and buy shares to strengthen their finances, if needed. The Federal Reserve offered to let the mortgage finance companies borrow at the rate it charges banks for direct loans.

The government's aggressive move on Sunday underscored problems plaguing the markets and the potential for them to send the U.S. economy into a severe recession.

"This incident (with Fannie and Freddie) is not the last one," Soros told Reuters in a phone interview, adding the year-long global financial market turmoil represented "the most serious financial crisis of our lifetime."

"Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have a solvency crisis not a liquidity crisis," said Soros. "There's no problem in their borrowing. And in fact, insofar there is a problem, the Fed is there to provide the liquidity."

That said, both Fannie and Freddie are "extremely leveraged," he said. "The deterioration in the housing market, the foreclosures are going to cause losses which exceed their equity," said Soros, whose famous bet against the British pound earned his Quantum Fund $1 billion in 1992.

Fannie and Freddie shares rose as much as 30 percent in trading before the opening bell on Monday, but was unable to hold those gains throughout the session. At close, Fannie shares ended down 5.07 percent to settle at $9.73 while Freddie shares lost 8.26 percent to settle at $7.11.

U.S. stock indexes also posted losses. The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI> lost 0.41 percent to close at 11,055 points, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX> shed 0.90 percent to end 1,228. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC> slid 1.17 percent to 2,212.

The government's drastic measures could keep the U.S. dollar under pressure, Soros added.

"I think the dollar is vulnerable because the economy is going into a recession and the actions of the authorities do involve the accumulation of debt," he said. "There is various ratios by which the creditworthiness of a country's assurances are deteriorating."

Soros said the credit crisis is having a growing effect on the U.S. economy, not just financial markets. "It is an idle dream to think that you could have this kind of crisis without the real economy being affected," he added.

All told, Soros said Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, is in a bind.

"When he recognized the seriousness of the credit crisis, he acted very radically lowering interest rates and he used the tools that are at his disposal," Soros said.

However, now the "armory" is depleted, he said adding that Bernanke can't lower interest rates because of the effect it would have on the dollar and he can't raise interest rates because of the looming recession.

"Therefore, his options are limited -- he is boxed in," Soros said.

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Fixing Fannie and Freddie

Published: July 14 2008 14:40 | Last updated: July 14 2008 20:11

After nodding and winking itself into exhaustion, Washington has had to make its support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac explicit. The two government-sponsored enterprises are not Bear Stearns. But repeated statements from US officials that the GSEs are adequately capitalised have not worked – hardly surprising when their direct and guaranteed liabilities were almost 65 times their regulatory capital at the end of the first quarter.

Near term, the priority is retaining the confidence of buyers of Fannie’s and Freddie’s debt, many of whom are foreigners. By increasing the GSEs’ credit line and pushing for authority to inject fresh equity if necessary, the Treasury’s plan should allay fears of failure. Freddie seemed to have few problems offloading $3bn of new paper on Monday, although some arm-twisting may have been needed to persuade banks to buy it.

GSE debt spread over US TreasuriesThe bigger problem for Washington is that merely stabilising Fannie and Freddie is not enough. With US banks licking their wounds, the GSEs – which own or guarantee 22 per cent of the $24,300bn borrowed by US households and non-financial businesses – are critical providers of new credit. Yet it is difficult to see how they can keep doing this. What is needed, albeit over a period of years, is for their bloated balance sheets to shrink, pushing up their razor-thin capital ratios and reducing the US government’s role in supporting the housing market. In the near term, Fannie and Freddie may require one or more dilutive capital injections from the Treasury, which is why Monday’s initial rally in the GSEs’ stock was so bizarre.

Despite these ad hoc measures, there is no escaping the fact that credit capacity is disappearing in the US. Foreign capital may help, but every new crisis makes the US a less attractive bet. Pressure on US banks to merge and recapitalise further, in order to give them enough confidence to pick up the slack, will increase. None of this can happen quickly. In the meantime, housing markets will suffocate for lack of the oxygen that is credit and financial assets will continue to sag for want of any real appetite for risk.

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Crisis and coherence: finance remains vulnerable

By Mohamed El-Erian

Published: July 14 2008 17:52 | Last updated: July 14 2008 17:52

In a few years, we shall look back at this time as one that redefined the landscape of the US financial system and, by association, the workings of global capital markets. The process is inevitably chaotic as it is driven by “crisis management” reactions rather than the calm implementation of well formulated medium-term measures. As such, the overall picture will become clear only over time. Yet it is possible to make specific predictions.

The financial system is at a crossroads. At current market prices, the system remains under-capitalised despite some $350bn (€220bn, £176bn) of capital-raising over the past 12 months. More­over, given the collapse in their equity prices, a growing number of institutions, including such behemoths as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the mortgage agencies, are essentially un­able to raise capital without government help. The longer this situation prevails, the higher the risk the financial system will face difficulties in raising other financing critical to day-to-day operations. This would accelerate forced sales of assets into illiquid markets, leading to another downward leg in an already vicious negative spiral.

This realisation drove the recent emergency policy statements from Washington. It is the second time this year that such dramatic announcements were made on a Sunday – a phenomenon historically reserved for developing countries rather than industrial ones. It reflects the understandable eagerness to minimise forced and disorderly deleveraging in a part of the economy that is deeply interlinked with virtually everything else. The financial system is like the oil in your car. Without the oil, it no longer matters whether you have a solid engine, good brakes or fancy safety features. The car will not function.

There will be endless debate as to “who lost the financial system”. Some will blame defective lending practices; others will point to greedy borrowers or regulatory practices that failed to keep up with market developments. The time will come when this debate will shape the specific policy responses. For now, it can govern only the broad outlines; the details are inescapably driven by more immediate considerations, including the understandable desire in Washington to minimise the impact of the financial sector meltdown on the innocent (or, at least, less guilty) segments of society.

Accordingly, look for the official sector to encourage further capital-raising and work even harder to isolate the most vulnerable financial institutions and limit the negative spillover effects. For some institutions, especially the systemically important ones, this is likely to involve “facilitated marriages” similar to what occurred earlier this year in the cases of Bear Stearns and Countrywide. Others face the risk of explicit failure (as occurred this weekend with IndyMac, the California-based bank). In all these cases, equity holders would experience additional pain while mechanisms would be triggered to protect certain deposits.

This is a practical approach aimed at striking that delicate balance between laisser-faire and government control. Yet it has important limitations. It does not work for large institutions such as Freddie and Fannie – thus the need for Sunday’s announcement of contingent equity and debt financing from the authorities. Also it cannot handle a large number of institutions facing difficulties. It is likely that additional steps will be needed, lest these limitations end up transforming the current economic and financial dislocations into something even more sinister.

Over the next few months, look for the Federal Reserve to face additional pressure to strengthen the emergency liquidity windows for systemically important institutions. Look for Congress to be asked to appropriate funds to support Freddie and Fannie more directly. Look for innovative mechanisms to raise additional capital for the financial sector through public-private partnerships. And look for other fiscal stimulus measures to counter the increasingly vicious spiral in housing and, soon, consumer demand.

Many of these steps involve distortions to the efficient functioning of markets over the longer term. Implementation is difficult and, in the absence of strong leadership, may not be timely enough. Yet the cost of doing nothing may be even higher. The key is whether all the ad hoc crisis management steps eventually evolve into a coherent and sustainable policy outcome. The jury is still out on this.

The writer, co-chief executive and co-chief investment officer of Pimco, is author of ‘When Worlds Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change’ (McGraw Hill)

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A decent burial for Fannie Mae

Published: July 15 2008 03:00 | Last updated: July 15 2008 03:00

Several financial institutions are considered too big to fail by US regulators. But most of them are small fractions of the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two -government-sponsored enterprises hold or guarantee $5,300bn in mortgage debts. The moves to shore up the two giants over the weekend are welcome. However, policymakers must decide what they want to do with them in the long term.

Responding to fears about the mortgage behemoths' liquidity and solvency, the Federal Reserve responded on Sunday by allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to borrow from its discount window. They now have access to emergency lending on the same terms as banks and primary dealers. Meanwhile, the US Treasury is seeking permission from Congress to increase its credit lines to the giants and for the right to purchase equity in them.

The Fed and US Treasury had little choice, but it was still the right course of action. Hank Paulson, Treasury secretary, and Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, have therefore staved off short-term liquidity problems.

The Treasury proposals also establish a framework to allow them to insist that the two GSEs are adequately recapitalised. This is also welcome. With an explicit guarantee from the government, the two GSEs can continue to operate indefinitely with inadequate capital.

However, one question that the government must answer as soon as possible is what role the government would like the GSEs to fulfil in the long term.

The current structure for Fannie and Freddie is unsustainable. The GSEs are poorly regulated. They have given successive US governments an incentive to keep the housing market inflated. They socialise their risks and privatise their profits. Having saved the GSEs this weekend, policymakers should aim to bring about a decent burial for Freddie and Fannie.

They could be broken up into small pieces and privatised. A rump could be retained by the Treasury as a small counter-cyclical mortgage liquidity vehicle. The process might involve a period of nationalisation. This could mean the GSEs' vast debts would be moved on to the public balance sheet. However, this is unimportant. It would be a cosmetic change; the government is already backing them; it is absurd that they are not now on the books.

US policymakers will be tempted to put off decisions about the future of the GSEs. However, political will for reform can often be achieved only in a crisis. It is time to correct an anomaly that has long distorted the US housing market.

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Banking on Bailouts: How Many IndyMacs Are Out There?
by: Brett Steenbarger posted on: July 13, 2008 | about stocks: IMB

In what has been billed the third-largest bank failure on record, IndyMac Bank (IMB) has been taken over by federal regulators. According to a weekend Wall St. Journal story, the bank's collapse will cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. between $4 billion and $8 billion. That would exhaust over 10% of the entire deposit insurance fund of the FDIC.

That eye-opening statistic led me to wonder how many more IndyMac banks might be lurking in the wings. We had some alert to the gravity of IndyMac's situation simply by following its stock price, as shares moved from over $10 early in the year to under $2 by May. Perhaps year-to-date stock performance might alert us to other candidates for seizure--and further challenges for the FDIC.

With the help of data from the excellent Barchart site, I tracked the year-to-date performance of every publicly traded bank and savings and loan institution. I particularly focused on two groups of companies: those that have enjoyed a rising stock market performance year-to-date and those that have severely underperformed the market. I measured this latter group in two ways: those that fall into the lowest 20% of year-to-date performers across all NYSE, NASDAQ, and ASE issues and those that fall into the lowest 10%. Mr. Market is alerting us to the possibility of an IndyMac-like demise for this latter group, the majority of which are down more than 60% on the year.

Interestingly, I found 33 banks and savings and loan institutions that are up year-to-date in their stock market performance. They are outperforming the broad stock market, and they are trouncing their sector peers. Many are yielding 3% or more and have enjoyed solid earnings growth. I took it upon myself to look up a few annual reports for these financial institutions. All appear to have conservative lending practices, with no subprime residential loans and no major problem loans to overextended real estate developers.

Many of these high performing banks are located in decidedly unsexy areas where there was no real estate boom. Two of the banks, for example, are located in my former hometowns of Syracuse and Ithaca, NY. More than ten of the banks were located in the Northeast; only one was in the West.

The bank and savings and loan stocks falling into the bottom 20% of all market performers were far more numerous: there were 113 in all. Of these, 45 are severe laggards, falling into the bottom 10% of market performers. Interestingly, about half of these are located in the West and Southeast regions of the country: two of the hotter real estate markets during the boom. And the large regional banks? Seven fall into the underperforming category; two in the lowest group. None are up on the year.

The housing crisis does not appear to be over and yet the market is already warning us of at least 45 banks in straits potentially similar to IndyMac. Many more of the group of 113 may join that list as the housing situation unfolds, particularly among smaller banks. Meanwhile, I notice on the Bankrate site that many of the banks offering the juiciest CD rates are those on my list of stock market basket cases. It's understandable that they want/need to raise capital, but if the banks cannot fund those juicy returns, it will only be a larger call on FDIC funds. That is a demand that the FDIC is ill-prepared to meet, given its historically low reserve ratio, raising the unpleasant prospect of bailing out the regulators.

The Geographic Distribution of Troubled Banks

After reviewing strong and weak bank performers, I decided to look at banks specific to regions of the U.S. and identify the proportion that have shown weak year-to-date performance. My criterion for weakness was that the stocks had to be down at least 50% year-to-date, much weaker than the broad stock market and weaker than the commercial banking stocks as an entire group. Once again, my hat tip of credit to Barchart for the data:

NORTHEAST: 3/72
SOUTHWEST: 2/15
MIDWEST: 14/57
SOUTHEAST: 16/111
WEST: 22/55

TOTAL: 57/310

Overall, about 18% of the bank stocks are displaying pronounced price weakness. The highest concentrations are in the midwest, southeast, and particularly the west. It would not be surprising if lending is most curtailed in these areas, as banks build their capital, making economic recovery more difficult.

It is also not surprising that two-thirds of the troubled banks are in the southeast and west, which had been the hottest real estate markets.

These data don't include the major regional banks, savings and loan banks, and banks that are privately held. I don't have data on the latter, but the first two groups display just as much weakness as the banks summarized above, posing a challenge for regulators and for particular regional economies and municipalities.

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Bush lifts oil exploration ban

By Andrew Ward in Washington

Published: July 14 2008 21:49 | Last updated: July 14 2008 23:08

George W. Bush lifted an executive order banning oil exploration in US waters on Monday, ratcheting up pressure on Congress to give its consent to ending the 28-year moratorium on offshore drilling.

The Republican party has made the push to expand domestic oil production a flagship policy ahead of November’s election, amid mounting public concern at soaring energy prices.

The Democrats have resisted calls to open US waters to drilling, exposing them to Republican attacks for allegedly standing in the way of efforts to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

The president first called for the moratorium to be lifted last month but Monday’s action marked the first concrete step towards ending the ban.

Congress has a separate legislative ban that would have to be scrapped before drilling could start.

“The only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the US Congress,” said Mr Bush. “Now the ball is squarely in Congress’s court.”

The White House estimates that about 18bn barrels of oil exist in the 80 per cent of US coastal waters that are off-limits to drilling – enough to match current US production for 10 years.

Opponents say lifting the ban would threaten thousands of miles of coastline with oil spills and ugly infrastructure.

But Mr Bush argues that modern technology would allow drilling to take place without inflicting damage on the environment.

Opinion polls show that most voters have greater trust in the Democrats to tackle the energy crisis, but two-thirds support an expansion in offshore oil production. That provides an opening for the Republicans to gain ground on the issue.

John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, recently reversed his long-standing support for the ban, bringing him into line with most of his party and drawing a contrast with Barack Obama, his Democratic rival, who remains committed to the moratorium.

The Obama campaign said that lifting the ban would have little impact because it would take years for new ­offshore production to come online and the volumes involved were insufficient to make the US energy ­independent. “It would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for 30 years,” said an Obama spokesman.

The White House argues that lifting the ban would help ease oil prices by sending a signal to the market about the prospects of increased US supplies.

Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have so far resisted pressure for a vote on the drilling issue, because of signs that a significant number of the party’s legislators would side with the Republicans.

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Belgian prime minister resigns

BRUSSELS jULY 15 Belgium plunged back into political crisis on Tuesday after Prime Minister Yves Leterme tendered his resignation, having failed to push through measures to devolve more power to the regions.

Leterme only became prime minister in March, after nine months of deadlock between parties from either side of the country’s linguistic divide that led to speculation Belgium might break apart.

He had set a July 15 deadline for Dutch- and French-speaking parties to agree on a reform of the state and was due to present the plans to parliament on Tuesday.

But late on Monday Leterme suddenly offered his resignation to King Albert. The palace said in a statement early on Tuesday that the king had yet to decide whether to accept the end of Leterme’s government or not.

The king is expected to consult senior Belgian politicians before settling on a next step. He could ask Leterme to stay on or turn to another member of his government, such as French-speaking Finance Minister Didier Reynders.

”I think we can talk of a crisis, that’s obvious. When the prime minister resigns, even if it is suspended, then there is a crisis,” Reynders told RTBF radio.

Leterme’s Flemish Christian Democrats, and above all their nationalist NVA allies, had to realise they could not win all their demands for more power for Dutch-speaking Flanders in a constitutional reform that French-speakers could accept, said Reynders, who is to meet all French-speaking parties on Tuesday.

NVA leader Bart de Wever said Leterme’s plan consisted simply of putting the issue of power-sharing between the central government and the regions in a deep freeze.

”There is nothing in it,” the Flemish nationalist said.

”OVER AND OUT”

A new general election is a further option, although few of the parties currently in government would gain, according to opinion polls.

”Over and out,” was the headline in Flemish daily De Morgen.

Political analysts had predicted a short life for Leterme’s five-party coalition.

His Flemish Christian Democrats were the clear winners of last year’s election with a pledge to grant more power to the regions, a move that French-speaking parties vehemently oppose.

Leterme had found agreement on the budget and social and economic plans, but repeatedly failed to break the stalemate over devolution and the thorny issue of the electoral boundaries around the capital Brussels.

He appeared to have won more time on Monday with a plan to draw the premiers of Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia to the negotiating table along with other community chiefs.

However, Leterme’s own Christian Democrats had reservations, while their allies, New Flemish Alliance (NVA), rejected the new plan as simply a further attempt to stall reforms. Leterme could have pressed ahead, but would have broken the alliance.

Leterme’s office said in a statement that he had determined a deal could not be reached and that the views of the different communities on how to share power were irreconcilable.

”This shows that the model of consensus at the federal level has reached its limits,” the statement read.

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Berlin to claw back tax from wealthy

By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin

Published: July 14 2008 18:32 | Last updated: July 14 2008 18:32

Millions of Germans who expect to benefit from an income tax cut in 2010 could come up empty-handed after the finance ministry said on Monday it was seeking to recoup the revenue by raising levies on high earners.

Earlier this year, the constitutional court struck down the current tax treatment of health insurance contributions, saying tax­payers should be allowed to write a bigger chunk of contributions off their tax bill. The move carried an annual cost to the budget of up to €6bn ($9.5bn, £4.8bn).

However, a finance ministry spokesman on Monday told the Financial Times that it was looking for ways to recoup the lost revenue by raising the tax burden on affluent Germans, who stood to benefit most from the court decision.

“The ruling cannot be allowed to endanger our budget consolidation efforts. On the other hand, we cannot accept a situation whereby modest earners will have to finance whatever steps we take to protect our tax revenues while high-earners get all the benefits. This is a political reaction to a technical problem,” the spokesman said.

The decision underlines the dilemma faced by the government as it seeks to balance the federal budget by 2011 without alienating large groups of voters ahead of a general election next year.

Peer Steinbrück, finance minister, is unwilling to jeopardise his goal of balancing the budget by implementing the court’s ruling in full without counter-financing measures. Yet he fears that raising taxes for everyone ahead of a general election could constitute political suicide by alienating the mainly modest to mid-range earners who vote for his Social Democratic party.

Hence the decision to focus higher levies on more affluent Germans, who were to gain most from the ruling since lower-income households can already write off most of their health insurance costs from their tax bills.

Solutions could include the scrapping of tax subsidies that, in the main, benefit high earners, coupled with a reduction in the lowest tax bracket, currently at 15 per cent.

“It is still early days,” the spokesman said. “Do not expect anything concrete for at least the next four weeks, possibly much later.”

Mr Steinbrück hinted at the work under way in a newspaper interview on Monday in which he said: “It cannot be that only high earners benefit from this tax relief. Lower-income groups must also be allowed to participate.”

The move could renew tension in the Christian Democratic Union-led grand coalition of Angela Merkel, the chancellor. Large segments of the CDU are pushing for income tax cuts as early as next year, defying Ms Merkel’s insistence there was no room for relief before 2011.

Ronald Pofalla, CDU secretary general, yesterday accused Mr Steinbrück of trying to circumvent a binding court ruling. “We want to implement this judgment and its message is clear: tax relief.”

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Sudan president charged with genocide

By Barney Jopson in Khartoum and Megan Murphy in London

Published: July 14 2008 12:21 | Last updated: July 14 2008 20:04

Sudan has rejected charges of genocide filed against its president at the International Criminal Court and vowed to capitalise on unease over the indictments around the world to build a coalition of support against them.

The ICC’s prosecutor presented evidence on atrocities in Darfur on Monday that he said showed Omar al­-Bashir was responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.

The indictment, the first filed at the court for a head of state, threatens to trigger political upheaval and further instability in Sudan and has also put the credibility of the ICC on the line.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC’s prosecutor, said he could no longer “stay silent” over the campaign of murder, rape and displacement in Darfur, where 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5m forced from their homes since 2003, according to United Nations estimates.

Ali Osman Taha, one of Sudan’s two vice-presidents, said the allegations were “null and void” and repeated Khartoum’s assertion that the extent of violence in Darfur had been exaggerated and its causes distorted.

But the government did not react with the fury some commentators had predicted. Instead Mr Taha said it was working slowly to build enough diplomatic support – particularly from Africa and the Middle East – to stymie the prosecutor’s move.

In the next few months ICC judges are due to rule on whether there are reasonable grounds to believe Mr Bashir committed the alleged crimes on the prosecutor’s application for an arrest warrant. But the UN Security Council, which gave the ICC a mandate to investigate Darfur, has the power to defer proceedings for 12 months.

The indictment, which had been expected, has split opinion among politicians, diplomats and activists outside the country. Some applaud the ICC for taking the pursuit of justice to the highest level but others fear it could shut off any chance of ending the Darfur conflict through negotiation with the government.

The African Union said it initiated consultations with the UN and others on how to respond. “The search for justice should be pursued in a way that does not impede or jeopardise efforts aimed at promoting lasting peace,” it said in a statement.

There is discomfort inside the AU that the four cases launched by the prosecutor so far have all been in Africa. This month the AU passed a resolution to prevent universal jurisdiction being extended from na-tional courts outside Africa across its member states.

Arab foreign ministers are due to hold an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the ICC indictments.

The UN and aid agencies in Sudan had tightened security ahead of the indictments, fearing reprisals. But Mr Taha said the government did not consider the ICC part of the UN. There were two small demonstrations against the court in Khartoum and a larger one is planned on Tuesday.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo said Mr Bashir had masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy three Darfuri tribes that were seen to be challenging the province’s marginalisation. “His motives were largely political. His alibi was a ‘counterinsurgency’. His intent was genocide,” the prosecutor said in a statement.

A total of 10 charges covering the five years since 2003 have been filed against the president – three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder.

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IMF set to end offshore ‘stigma’

By Vanessa Houlder in London

Published: July 14 2008 17:23 | Last updated: July 14 2008 17:23

The distinction between “offshore” and “onshore” financial centres has been dropped by the International Monetary Fund, in a victory for more than 40 small countries that complained they had been unfairly stigmatised in the fight against financial crime.

The IMF said the distinction between on- and offshore centres “had been blurred by globalisation”, which had increased the range of cross-border transactions in many countries, as well as the launch of new financial centres catering to non-residents in countries such as Botswana, Brunei, Dubai and Uruguay.

The IMF said it still had concerns “in certain key areas” on combating money laundering and terrorist financing in OFCs, although it judged that compliance was “generally comparable” to that of non-OFC jurisdictions. It also reported progress on banking supervision, cross-border co-operation and data exchange.

A desire to “eliminate the need to maintain a potentially discriminatory list of OFC jurisdictions” was one justification for its decision to merge its monitoring of OFCs and the financial sector, it said in a public information notice last week.

It reported concern “about the stigma that attaches to the OFC label” and said “adopting a unified approach would blunt concerns that jurisdictions are being unduly targeted”.

The IMF said it would now adopt a more uniform and risk-based approach to financial sector surveillance. It will focus on a small number of jurisdictions – Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Panama, Labuan (Malaysia), the Bahamas, and possibly the British Virgin Islands – which account for the large majority of offshore activity.

The IMF said the absence of objective criteria for defining an OFC “makes it difficult to draw the line in a credible manner”. Past criteria have included orienting business primarily to non-residents and low or zero tax rates. The difficulties were underlined by an IMF paper last year in which the UK was classified as an OFC using a definition based on the ratio of net financial services exports to gross domestic product.

The Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, which represents many advisors operating in OFCs, said it welcomed the end of “discriminatory stigmatisation” of OFCs.

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Roaming charges set to drop in Europe

By Andrew Parker in London

Published: July 14 2008 18:59 | Last updated: July 14 2008 19:06

European mobile phone users look set to enjoy steep reductions in the charges they pay for sending text messages during their foreign holidays.

Viviane Reding, European commissioner for telecommunications, will on Tuesday confirm she plans to cut the price of sending cross-border text messages. She will also keep open the possibility of intervening to cut the cost of web surfing on handsets while abroad.

The commissioner enraged the mobile industry by forcing the network operators last year to make steep reductions in the price of making phone calls – so-called roaming charges – when European Union citizens are outside their home country but inside the 27-country bloc.

In February, Ms Reding called on operators to cut the price of sending a cross border text message – also known as SMS – from the then average of 29 euro cents to 12 euro cents, on the grounds the charges were well above the cost of providing the service.

On Tuesday she will highlight how the average price has fallen only to 28.5 euro cents, according to figures from the European Regulators Group, which consists of national telecoms watchdogs.

Ms Reding told the Financial Times last night: “I am disappointed with the lack of response of the mobile industry to my call for self-regulation of SMS roaming charges. I am not impressed by this bunker mentality of the mobile industry.”

The European Commission will propose legislation to cap the price of sending cross-border text messages, and Ms Reding will study the case by the ERG for a retail price ceiling of somewhere between 11 and 15 euro cents.

She will also look to cap the wholesale charges that mobile operators impose on each other for sending text messages between their networks. The ERG has recommended a wholesale price ceiling of 4 to 8 euro cents.

The Commission will unveil legislation on text messages in the autumn and – subject to approval by the European parliament and EU member states – it could come into force on July 1 next year.

As part of preparations for the legislation, Ms Reding will also study the case for introducing a cap on the wholesale charges that mobile operators impose on each other for providing cross-border data activities on handsets.

She is concerned that mobile phone users, when abroad, are paying high charges while web surfing or reading e-mail on handsets.

Last, Ms Reding is to propose an extension of the legislation covering the cost of making calls while abroad from 2010 to 2013.

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The pressing logic of Anglo-French defence

By Philip Stephens

Published: July 14 2008 17:38 | Last updated: July 14 2008 19:04

Britain’s armed forces are badly overstretched. Iraq and Afghanistan have extracted a heavy toll. The army needs more infantry and new equipment. Morale across the services is low. A pressing task for the next government, whatever its political stripe, will be to realign capabilities with commitments. Or vice versa.

That much should be common ground at Westminster. A strategic review must ask deeper questions than whether the army can, or should, be expected to sustain two medium-sized operations such as those in Basra and Helmand. The order for two new aircraft carriers, and the consequential cutbacks elsewhere, raises fundamental issues about the configuration of the three services.

For all the deserved admiration for the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq – and justified disquiet about the speed of troop rotations, equipment and living conditions – no one is proposing a big increase in the defence budget. Recognising courage is one thing; raising taxes or spending less on schools and hospitals another.

There is broad agreement that the army, close to breaking point after several years of these high-intensity conflicts, should be better resourced. Rising casualties in Afghanistan have shown the need for more helicopters, for better armoured vehicles and for more frontline soldiers.

Missing, however, has been anything resembling a consensus on where savings should fall. The Royal Air Force, taking delivery of hugely expensive warplanes designed for the cold war, also needs new transport planes and in-flight refuelling tankers. Billions are earmarked to modernise the Trident submarine nuclear force.

Britain is not alone in these dilemmas. Nicolas Sarkozy has lately been lambasted by his generals for proposing to re-engineer France’s armed forces. Planned base closures at home and in France’s former African colonies have seen the president accused of surrendering Europe’s military leadership to Britain. There could be no more heinous crime.

Those responsible for the French defence review deny such charges: in spite of lower numbers overall, they insist that the army’s operational capacity will be enhanced. France will retain its independent nuclear capability and will invest in space-based intelligence gathering. But the Paris government’s admission that it can afford to order only one new aircraft carrier testifies to the squeeze.

Gordon Brown had hoped the immediate pressure on the British army would have been eased by now by withdrawal from Iraq. Running down 4,000 troops still in Basra would provide room to build up forces in Afghanistan. But pressure from Washington, and assessments on the ground, have delayed their departure.

John McCain, the Republican candidate in November’s US presidential election, has made it plain that, like George W. Bush, he would be dismayed if Britain left Iraq now. Curiously, given his plan to pull out US troops, Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, is said to be fearful that Mr Brown will announce a precipitate withdrawal.

Britain and France confront the same problem – they want to retain the capacity to project military power well beyond Europe’s borders, but to do so within present budgetary constraints. Part of the answer lies in working more closely together.

The US agrees. Until quite recently Washington had opposed France’s efforts to build a more coherent European defence identity. Mindful of the special relationship, Britain took the same tack. But the mood in the US has shifted.

Mr Sarkozy’s willingness to bring France back into Nato’s military structure has soothed American fears that a distinctly European capability would be an excuse to undermine the alliance. US overstretch in the Middle East leads it to expect Europe to do more to provide security in its own backyard, notably the Balkans. And, of course, politicians on both sides of the aisle in Washington want Europeans do do more in Afghanistan.

Mr Sarkozy seems serious in his pragmatism. In Paris the other day, at a conference organised by the foreign ministry and the Institute for Security Studies, I heard French official after French official elevate practical politics above Gaullist ideology. More Europe, they insisted, did not mean less Nato. Quite the contrary.

Here lies the opportunity for Mr Brown. The shift in US policy has stranded David Cameron’s Conservatives on the wrong side of the argument: hard to argue that closer European defence co-operation would undercut Nato when Britain’s most important ally, and the linchpin of the alliance, says otherwise. Would Mr Cameron raise taxes to pay for tanker and transport aircraft rather than buy them jointly with France?

The prime minister, as I understand it, is still cautious. He fears tabloid headlines about plans for a “European army”. On the other hand, Paris has backed away from grand gestures to duplicate Nato’s planning capabilities in favour of incremental co-operation between Europeans. The talk now is of efficiency and burden sharing,

Britain and France want to remain global security actors. But they do not want to spend more on their armed forces. In short, they need each other. The time has come to do the deal.

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Turkey indicts 86 over alleged coup plot

By Vincent Boland in Ankara

Published: July 14 2008 10:00 | Last updated: July 14 2008 17:28

Prosecutors in Turkey charged 86 people on Monday with plotting to overthrow the government, in a widening investigation into a shadowy far-right organisation with alleged links to retired military officers.

The investigation into Ergenekon is widely viewed as part of a long-running power struggle between the government, with its Islamic leanings, and the secular elite, including the military. It is also being linked to a judicial process against the government that could see the ruling AK party shut down and its leaders, including Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, banished from public life.

The coincidence of the two cases has unsettled the Istanbul financial markets and raised fears of prolonged instability. Markets were relatively steady on Monday, but analysts said the uncertainty surrounding the two cases, and the bitterness of the debate surrounding them, were undermining sentiment in Turkish assets.

The indictments against the accused were handed down by Aykut Cengiz Engin, chief prosecutor of Istanbul. Among the charges levelled at them were “being members of an armed terrorist organisation”, “attempting to overthrow the Turkish government by force” and attacks on state institutions and their representatives.

The 86 were not officially named. But they are known to include the head of a fringe political party, disaffected ex-army officers and adherents of an uncompromising interpretation of secularism, the key founding principle of this Muslim country. Mr Engin said a 2,455-page indictment would be placed before the Istanbul criminal court, which has two weeks to decide whether to hear the case.

Those charged do not include two senior retired generals detained along with 19 others on July 1 and also implicated in the plot. A separate indictment was being prepared against these men, Mr Engin said.

It is virtually unprecedented for such senior generals to be detained in Turkey, and so far the army has maintained a studied silence on the issue.

Defenders of the accused, including their lawyers, claim the Ergenekon investigation is an attempt to silence critics of the government.

Ergenekon has been likened to the Gladio organisation that allegedly fomented internal subversion in Italy in the decades after the second world war. Those accused of being members have made no secret of their hatred for the AK party, which has its roots in political Islam but denies that it poses any threat to secularism.

Ergenekon’s modus operandi was allegedly to cause such mayhem that the Turkish army, which sees itself as the ultimate defender of the secular republic, would intervene, overthrow the government and restore order. This is effectively what happened in the military coups of 1960 and 1980.

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Darling groups to bolster City’s edge

By John Willman, Business Editor

Published: July 13 2008 19:47 | Last updated: July 14 2008 09:16

Sir Win Bischoff, Citigroup chairman, is jointly to head one of five working groups to be established by Alistair Darling to strengthen the Treasury’s links with the City and ensure London remains a leading international financial centre.

The chancellor will chair a financial services global competitiveness group with Sir Win. It will meet monthly to analyse trends in the international financial services industry, such as the impact of the subprime crisis and the rise of financial centres such as Shanghai, Mumbai and Dubai.

The five working groups will bring together financial services executives with ministers, regulators and civil servants to focus on issues such as competitiveness, professional services and capital-raising. The aim will be to identify changes needed to preserve London’s position, in regulation, legislation and the working practices of the financial services industry.

It is hoped that the working groups will reassure City leaders that the government remains committed to dialogue. They will report back to the High-Level Group set up by Gordon Brown in 2006 to promote London, which holds two summit meetings a year.

Members of the competitiveness group include Dame Clara Furse, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange; Lord Levene, Lloyd’s chairman; Richard Lambert of the CBI employers’ group; and Stuart Fraser, chairman of the City’s policy and resources committee. Among the other 17 members are the chief executives of leading banks, insurance organisations and professional services firms.

“The financial services sector provides more than a million jobs in the UK and accounts for over 10 per cent of GDP,” Mr Darling said. “It is vital it can respond to the rapidly changing nature of international financial markets, with major shifts in financial flows and players to growing centres of influence and new sources of profit.”

A second working group will review the efficiency of the UK’s capital-raising process, at a time when the rights issue procedure has been under stress in the aftermath of the subprime crisis. Its members include representatives of the City’s trade bodies and large investment banks, and it will be chaired jointly by Kitty Ussher, City minister, and Hector Sants, chief executive of the Financial Services Authority.

The chancellor has also announced details of a third working group to look at the challenges facing the professional services industry, covering legal services, accountancy, management consultancy. It will be chaired jointly by Ms Ussher and Sir Michael Snyder, who was until earlier this year chairman of the City’s policy and resources committee.

Details of two other working parties to focus on the wholesale financial services industry and the insurance sector, have yet to be announced.

The Islamic Finance and Carbon Markets Experts groups will continue under the auspices of the High-Level Group.

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Etihad places $20bn order for new fleet

By Kevin Done in Farnborough and Andrew England and Roula Khalaf in Abu Dhabi

Published: July 14 2008 23:01 | Last updated: July 14 2008 23:01

Etihad, the Abu Dhabi airline, on Monday placed orders for 100 aircraft with Airbus and Boeing worth about $20bn at list prices before discounts. It is one of the biggest orders in the history of commercial aviation.

With options and purchase rights for a further 105 aircraft, the order could eventually be worth $43bn at list prices and covers five-year-old Etihad’s plan to build a fleet of 150 aircraft by 2020 from less than 40 on Tuesday.

The Middle East has become the strongest region for aircraft makers in securing new orders, as airlines elsewhere reel from the record fuel costs and weakening economies.

James Hogan, Etihad chief executive, said the long-term orders were geared to Abu Dhabi’s growth plans and the development of the Gulf region as an aviation hub for the world.

The Etihad order is expected to be followed by an announcement on Tuesday that Abu Dhabi is also moving more deeply into commercial aerospace through a deal between Mubadala, an Abu Dhabi state investment company, and Airbus to produce parts for future Airbus jets.

The oil-rich emirate, the capital of the UAE, has identified aviation and aerospace as sectors it wants to utilise to diversify its hydrocarbons-dependent economy, and it has ambitious plans to develop both its national airline, Etihad, and related aviation services and manufacturing.

Mubadala hopes to start producing aero structures in 2011 and expects to invest around $500m in the new manufacturing facility.

The deals announced at Farnborough International Airshow underline the growing rivalry between Abu Dhabi and the neighbouring emirate of Dubai, which has led the surging growth of aviation and more recently aerospace in the Gulf region.

Dubai on Monday also underlined its determination to stay ahead in the aviation race in the Gulf by placing orders for 54 aircraft for its new low-cost carrier FlyDubai, which is due to begin operations in mid-2009 from the first runway at the Dubai World Central airport.

FlyDubai is acquiring 54 Boeing 737-800 short-haul jets valued at $4bn at list prices before discounts. It is buying 50 from Boeing and four through a leasing deal with Babcock and Brown Aircraft Management in order to secure early delivery slots.

Etihad split firm orders between Airbus and Boeing. It is buying 55 jets from Airbus, 25 A350s, 20 A320s and 10 A380s (replacing a previous order for four A380s). From Boeing it is buying 35 787s and 10 777s.

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Kazakhmys and Metalloinvest in merger talks

By Rebecca Bream and Isabel Gorst in London

Published: July 14 2008 19:30 | Last updated: July 14 2008 19:30

Kazakhmys, the UK-listed Kazakh copper producer, and Metalloinvest, the Russian iron ore and steel group, have held early-stage talks about combining to form a metals group that could be worth more than $40bn.

Analysts said there was considerable industrial logic for the consolidation of assets across the former Soviet Union into larger companies resembling western diversified mining houses such as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, but there would be political obstacles.

Shares in Kazakhmys closed up 6.2 per cent on Monday after the group confirmed it was in “very preliminary discussions about a possible combination of its business with a third party”, which several people close to the company said was Metalloinvest, a metals conglomerate controlled by billionaire Alisher Usmanov.

The statement followed a report on the FT’s Alphaville website saying talks had taken place, and that the deal was being structured as a reverse takeover of Kazakhmys that could leave Mr Usmanov as the biggest shareholder in the combined group. Kazakhmys, in which founder and chairman Vladimir Kim owns 45 per cent and the Kazakh government 15 per cent, has a market valuation of about £6.5bn ($12.9bn). Privately-owned Metalloinvest is harder to value, with reports suggesting it is worth about $30bn.

Mr Usmanov has been working on floating Metalloinvest on the Moscow and London stock exchanges later this year or early in 2009. He has also explored a tie-up with Vladimir Potanin, a big shareholder in Russian metals giant Norilsk Nickel.

His talks with Kazakhmys suggest he is keeping his options open and looking for another way to get a stock market listing. Metalloinvest declined to comment on Monday. Kazakhmys has designs on a combination with Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, its larger Kazakh rival, and has built up a 22.2 per cent stake in the group.

A person close to Kazakhmys said although it was too small to buy ENRC on its own, teaming up with Metalloinvest could be the first step in a three-way combination with the Kazakh ferrochrome, iron ore and aluminium producer. Any deal between Metalloinvest and Kazakhmys would need to have the backing of the Kazakh government.

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ONGC of India in takeover approach for Russian oil group Imperial
Robin Pagnamenta, Energy and Environment Editor

ONGC, the Indian state-owned oil group, today sought to tap into the vast oil reserves of the former Soviet Union by launching a takeover offer for Imperial Energy.

Shares in London-listed Imperial surged 23 per cent after the Russia-focused oil company confirmed it had received a takeover approach.

Imperial declined to name the bidder but it is thought that ONGC Videsh, the overseas arm of the Indian state oil and gas producer, submitted a preliminary proposal to buy the company.

Banking sources said today that discussions were ongoing.
Related Links

* Imperial shares down on $600m rights issue

* Gazprom revealed as mystery Imperial Energy suitor

Shares in Imperial rose to 951p on the news, giving it a value of around £990 million. The group’s closing share price on Friday was 772p.

“The board of Imperial confirms that it has received an approach, which may or may not lead to an offer being made for the company,” said a brief statement from Imperial, which has an estimated 920 million barrels of oil and gas reserves in the Tomsk region of western Siberia and in northern Kazakstan.

India’s government has given ONGC responsibility for securing access to energy resources abroad to help fuel India’s booming economy but the company has struggled to pull off deals.

It was thwarted in an earlier effort to buy PetroKazakhstan by CNPC of China.

ONGC declined to comment but Imperial is thought to be unlikely to accept an offer of below £12 per share. Some experts believe Imperial’s range of assets are significantly undervalued.

Merrill Lynch, for example, has estimated Imperial’s net asset value to be as much as £17 per share.

ABN Amro also recently issued a "buy" recommendation on Imperial’s stock, pointing out that it was undervalued, largely because the group was forced to launch a heavily discounted rights issue earlier this year to raise £306.7 million of much-needed funds.

ONGC’s approach is believed to have been significantly lower than this.

Nathan Piper, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said in a note to clients that the approach could draw out further bidders.

Last autumn, Imperial rejected efforts by Gazprombank, an arm of Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom, to gain a 25 per cent share of the company.

Mr Piper said that Gazprom, Lukoil, another Russian oil and gas group, as well as Petronas of Malaysia and ENI of Italy could all emerge as potential bidders.

Gazprom and Lukoil both declined to comment yesterday. Petronas and ENI could not be reached for comment.

Western Siberia is the most prolific oil-producing region in Russia and includes some of the world's largest oil fields.

Imperial's assets are typically underdeveloped discoveries from the Soviet era, when drilling technology and techniques were limited.

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A Germany seeking skills warms up its welcome

By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin

Published: July 15 2008 03:00 | Last updated: July 15 2008 03:00

Alexandra Pohl is one of only five women in Germany to hold the coveted "patent", the document delivered after years of training that entitles its holder to command the world's largest vessels as captain.

Yet although she could be steering mighty container ships through exotic sea routes, she spends most of the year travelling the country on behalf of the German shipowners' federation to recruit officers and engineers for a rapidly growing commercial fleet.

"No one calls me captain," she says with a laugh. For her employer, she is more useful on land, addressing schoolchildren and attending job fairs, than at the helm of a ship. That is because shipping has become the latest sector to be hit by the new German disease: a rapidly worsening skills shortage. Shipping is only a small facet of a far bigger problem - one that the government is responding to with a package of measures due to go before the cabinet tomorrow.

Engineers, in particular, are in increasingly short supply and finding them has become a serious bottleneck for the country's large industrial sector. Business federations reckon German companies fail to fill 400,000 positions for university graduates every year, at a cost to them of €20bn ($32bn, £16bn).

These figures are controversial and rough estimates at best. Yet no one is contesting the data for engineering alone, for which solid statistics are plentiful. According to data extrapolated from Federal Labour Agency statistics, the IW economic institute in Cologne estimates there are 75,000 to 95,000 positions for engineers that are not being filled for lack of suitable candidates, up to 30 per cent higher than last year.

Even taking the lower estimate, "we have come up with a €7bn yearly loss for the German economy as a whole due to the shortage of engineering skills", says Oliver Koppel, a labour market expert at the IW institute. The ZEW institute in Mannheim meanwhile estimates that there will be 160,000 vacant positions for engineers by 2014.

Rainer Lattek, plant head of personnel at SMS Demag, a crane manufacturer, says: "We have 400 open positions right now and it is a struggle to fill them. There are many companies competing for a shrinking pool of people. We talk to students at an ever earlier age and offer them internships, even scholarships, as a way to bind them [to us]."

Ms Pohl says shipowners are also "recruiting younger and younger people as 'technical officers' [marine engineers] in positions that frankly would require a lot more experience".

The government has seen the writing on the wall. Tomorrowthe cabinet is expected to endorse a series of measures to open up Germany's closed labour market to foreign graduates in an attempt to tackle what experts predict could become Germany's economic problem number one. Economists and business representatives have welcomed the move, even though they see it as a timid step that will leave many hurdles in place for foreign graduates eager to settle in Germany.

Yet the measures, negotiated between the interior and labour ministries and outlined in an internal document obtained by the Financial Times, are proving controversial. Trade unionists, in particular, see them as further steps towards the creation of a global market for labour and therefore a threat to the country's comparatively high wages.

Today, only graduates who earn more than €86,400 a year can obtain a work permit for Germany. The government's plan would lower this to €64,000. Foreign graduates of German universities would be allowed to look for work in the country, as would high-school students seeking vocational training. Asylum seekers should receive a permanent work permit once they have worked in the same job for two years.

"It will give medium-sized companies new opportunities to secure highly qualified employees outside Germany," says Ludwig Georg Braun, head of the country's federation of chambers of commerce. Yet some economists call it insufficient. Non-EU citizens, for instance, would still be subject to considerable restrictions, such as the requirement for their prospective employers to prove that they cannot find suitable applicants in Germany.

The most criticised aspect of the package is the decision - no more than a footnote in the government's draft - to extend by two years a temporary ban on most nationals from eastern and central member states of the European Union from working in Germany unless they are engineers or highly qualified. The ban will now expire in 2011, the final deadline for old EU member states to lift all labour market barriers against the new members.

"We are certainly facing a serious skills shortage in the future," says Franziska Schreyer, an economist at the IAB. "But right now we have 20,000 unemployed engineers, not to mention the large number of women who leave engineering for other careers every year." Polls of young graduates show entry salaries for engineers have fallen since 2001, suggesting today's skills shortage could perhaps be solved by higher salaries and better working conditions, she says - not by courting cheaper labour.

Whatever their views of the government's package, most economists agree that the skills shortage cannot be solved by migration alone. One problem is German students' lack of interest in engineering. Even though the number of university graduates has increased from 214,000 a year to 254,000 since 1995, engineering graduates have fallen by 10,000 to 39,000. This means there are just enough to fill the 38,000 engineering positions vacated every year as older engineers retire.

"Immigration is clearly a good thing," says Mr Koppel. "We should go much further and open up the labour market to all foreign university graduates. But this can only be a short-term fix. In the longer term, we need to re-equip our entire education system so that it starts producing technicians again. Germany is known as the country of thinkers and poets - but we must become the country of technical experts."

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金融相、格付け会社の規制検討

　渡辺喜美金融担当相は15日の閣議後の記者会見で、米住宅金融公社の経営難に関連し、「（関連債券は）日中の官民でかなり持っている。対岸の火事ではない」と強調した。米国の信用力の低い個人向け住宅融資（サブプライムローン）問題で批判を浴びた格付け会社には登録制などの公的規制の検討を始めることも明らかにした。

　米政府などが、公的資金注入を含めた支援策を打ち出したことについては、「迅速な決定で、大変結構なこと」と評価。日本の金融機関の関連債券の保有額については聞き取りや情報交換を進め、全体像の正確な把握に努めるといい、「警戒水準を高め注視していく」と述べた。

　一方、サブプライムローン問題が拡大する過程で、格付け会社による格付けが大きく変動したことが「（市場の）疑心暗鬼を生んだ」と指摘。こうした事態の再発を防ぐため、欧米の規制と整合性を維持しながら、公的規制の枠組みの検討を始めるように金融庁に指示を出した。

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国交省内に保育所　中央官庁で初　周辺利用者も受け入れ

　国土交通省は来年度中に同省内に保育所を開設する方針を決めた。東京都が独自に運営費などを補助する「認証保育所」の認定をめざす。中央官庁が集中する東京・霞が関の周辺には現在、国の基準による認可保育所や都の認証保育所がない。省内外の公務員だけでなく、周辺の民間企業などからも利用者を受け入れ、女性が働きやすい環境を整える考えだ。

　冬柴鉄三国交相が15日にも表明する。中央官庁で認証保育所を設けるのは初めて。文部科学省に保育施設があるが、公的な補助は受けていない無認可保育所だ。

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加ボンバル、中型機市場に参入　まず60機受注

　【ファンボロー（英南部）＝菅原透】カナダの航空機メーカー、ボンバルディアは座席数が100席を超える中型機市場に参入すると発表した。まず独航空大手のルフトハンザ航空から60機を受注した。三菱航空機（名古屋市）の国産初の小型ジェット旅客機「ＭＲＪ」も使用する予定の新型エンジンを搭載。燃費性能の高さを売り物に、米ボーイングや欧エアバスに対抗する。

　事業化を決めたのは座席数110―130の「Ｃシリーズ」。中国企業にも部品生産を任せ、コスト競争力を高めた。エンジンには米プラット・アンド・ホイットニー（Ｐ＆Ｗ）が開発する新型エンジンを搭載。二酸化炭素（ＣＯ2）の排出量を20％削減、燃料消費効率も既存機より20％高める。2013年の就航を目指す。

　ボンバルディアは座席数が百席以下の小型機を得意としている。今回の中型機はボーイングでは「７３７」、エアバスでは「Ａ３２０」がライバルとなる。

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６月の発受電電力量、冷房需要少なく1.6％減　電事連

　電気事業連合会（森詳介会長）が15日発表した6月の発受電電力量（電力10社合計、速報値）は、前年同月に比べ1.6％減の778億4000万キロワット時だった。昨年より気温の低い日が多かったため、冷房用の需要が減り、東北、中国、沖縄を除く7社で前年実績を下回った。産業用は堅調だった。

　内訳は、原子力が10.1％減の187億8000万キロワット時だった。設備利用率は53.6％で、前年を8.8ポイント下回った。

　火力は1.7％減の395億4000万キロワット時。水力は13.5％増え、64億5000万キロワット時となった。

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三宅島全島で一時滞在可能に　８年ぶり

　火山ガスの放出が続く伊豆諸島・三宅島で、東京都三宅村は15日までに、高濃度のガスのため現在も居住禁止となっている島東部の坪田地区で9月から2カ月間、島民の一時滞在を認める方針を決めた。22日の村議会に条例改正案を提出する。

　2000年9月の避難指示から8年ぶりに全島で一時滞在が実現する。

　都によると、過去2年間のガスの放出状況を分析し、坪田地区では北東から南西への風のため9月と10月はガスの影響が少ないことが判明。村が実施する健康診断で問題がないとされた19歳以上の島民に対し、村長が許可する。

　島は坪田と阿古の2地区が居住禁止。阿古地区は昨年、既に2カ月間、一時滞在を実施し、今年は3月から8月までの半年間に滞在期間を延長している。

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フィリピン残留日系人15人来日　戸籍取得目指す

　【マニラ＝共同】太平洋戦争前や戦時中にフィリピンに渡った日本人男性と現地女性の間に生まれ、父親が死亡したり強制送還されたりするなどして現地に取り残された日系人15人が15日、日本へ出発、日本戸籍を作る「就籍」のための審査を受ける。身元が判明した南部ダバオの女性（64）も同行し、鹿児島市で親族と対面する。

　15人は66―83歳の男女で、21日まで滞在。戸籍を作るには、家庭裁判所が日本国籍を認め就籍の許可を決定することなどが必要で、15人は東京家裁の調査員と面接する。

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朝日新聞社が「論座」を休刊

　朝日新聞社は15日、月刊誌「論座」を9月発売の10月号で休刊すると発表した。メディアの多様化の中で「言論発信誌としての一定の役割は果たしたと判断した」と理由を説明している。

　オピニオン総合誌として1995年創刊。公称部数は当初、3万7000部だったが、昨年段階で2万部に落ち込んでいた。

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ジェンキンスさん、永住許可

　拉致被害者曽我ひとみさん（49）の夫ジェンキンスさん（68）は15日、東京入国管理局新潟出張所（新潟市東区）を訪れ、永住許可を取得した。法務省が11日に許可を出すことを決めていた。

　先月24日に申請したばかりのジェンキンスさんは、記者団に許可の証明シールが張られた旅券を見せながら「とても幸せ。こんなに早く許可を出してもらえて感謝している」とうれしそうに話した。

　ジェンキンスさんは2004年7月、ジャカルタで再会した曽我さんらとともに来日し、曽我さんの配偶者として3年ごとに更新が必要な在留資格を得ていた。今後は更新の必要がなくなることから「更新のたびに佐渡から入管に来るのは大変だったので助かる」と話した。

　現在、ジェンキンスさんは曽我さんのふるさと、新潟県佐渡市に住み、土産物店で働いている。

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真犯人は別にいる…和歌山ヒ素カレー事件林健治氏語る

　急性ヒ素中毒で４人が死亡し、６３人が重軽症となった和歌山の毒物カレー事件は発生から２５日で丸１０年を迎える。この事件で殺人などの罪に問われ、１、２審で死刑判決を受けた林真須美被告（４６）＝上告中＝の夫、健治氏（６３）が夕刊フジの単独取材に応じ、「真須美は保険金詐欺のプロ」としたうえで、「金にならんカレー事件は別の性質の人間が起こす事件。自白もなく決定的証拠もない」と改めて弁護。「真犯人は別にいるはず。告発に向け、行動を起こしたい」と怪気炎をあげた。

　「ヒ素で筋力を失ったから歩いて遠出はできん。外出はたまに友人の車で買い物に連れていってもらうぐらいで、ほとんど家の中で過ごしている」

　健治氏は、真須美被告と共謀した３件の詐欺罪で起訴され、２０００年に和歌山地裁で懲役６年の実刑判決を受けて服役。０５年６月に出所し、和歌山市内のアパートに１人で暮らす。

　現在は障害者３級となり、生活保護で暮らしているが、長男（２１）、長女（２５）、二女（２４）はすでに独立。施設から中学校に通う三女（１５）が「夏休みなどで、ここに帰ってくるのが楽しみ」という。

　「（真須美被告には）大阪拘置所に数カ月置きに面会に行くが、最近は一方的に話しかけてくるなど、長い拘置所生活の疲れが出ていると思った」と妻の近況に触れつつ、「１０年経っても自供がない。ホンマに自分がやってたら、言動がおかしくなる前に自供するんとちがうやろか」という。

　当時、真須美被告は健治氏に「アンタばっかり辛い目にあってるから、私がヒ素を飲む」と、５億円の保険に加入し、新たな保険金詐欺の準備に入っていたことを自ら明らかにした。

　また逮捕直前、長女に「やったのか」と問いつめられた真須美被告が「アホか」と一蹴したことや、二女も「カレー当番の際は一緒にいた。母に１人になる時間はなく、怒ってもいなかった」と、検察の主張する「激高説」を完全否定した。

　さらに、「ヒ素は、シロアリ駆除のためにまいた家ならどこでも入手可能。一度まけば固まっていつまでも残る」「耳かき一杯で瀕死の状態になるヒ素を、それつかって保険金詐欺をやってきたプロが、紙コップ３分の１も入れるなどありえない」と持論を展開した。

　健治氏によると、こうした主張に対し、最近は地元の被害者家族の中にも耳を傾ける人がでてきたとしている。娘がヒ素中毒で倒れたという「カレー事件被害者の会」のメンバーの１人は「確かに林一家が引っ越してくる前から、あの近辺では新聞配達の女の子が殺される事件があった」と証言しているという。

　地元住民は「疑問は山積みのまま。このままでは納得できない。真須美がやっていないなら、真犯人は誰なのか。ただ、ただ真相が知りたい」と話した。

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農相「直接補てん困難」　漁船の一斉休漁

　若林正俊農相は15日の閣議後の記者会見で、全国的に漁船が一斉休漁し、燃料価格の高騰分の直接的な補てんなどを国に求めていることに対し、「ストレートな直接補てんの実行には困難が伴う」と述べた。

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財務相、15日夜から中東など訪問へ　原油高抑制へ協力要請

　額賀福志郎財務相は15日の閣議後の記者会見で、同日夜から21日にかけて、アラブ首長国連邦（ＵＡＥ）とクウェート、ウズベキスタンを訪問すると発表した。原油など資源価格の高騰が世界経済の先行きに与える影響が懸念される中、各国の閣僚などと会談し、価格抑制に向けて生産拡大や情報開示の向上などの協力を要請する。

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額賀財務相：ＵＡＥ、クウェート、ウズベキスタン訪問へ

　額賀福志郎財務相は１５日夜に外遊に出発し、２１日まで、アラブ首長国連邦（ＵＡＥ）、クウェート、ウズベキスタンを訪問する。三菱東京ＵＦＪ銀行など大手３行や野村証券系の投資運用会社の役員らが同行。官民一体で、原油高、資源高で膨れる中東・新興国マネーの呼び込みを狙う。財務相の外遊に民間人が同行するのは異例。

　ＵＡＥでは政府系ファンドを運営するアブダビ投資庁を訪問、クウェートでは石油相と会談する。天然ガスの産出量が豊富なウズベキスタンでは、カリモフ大統領と会談する。

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大分教員汚職、教育長が合否事前連絡

　大分県の教員採用試験をめぐる汚職事件に絡み、県教育委員会の小矢文則教育長（60）が昨年の試験の際、口利きのあった受験者の合否を、関係した県議数人に正式発表の直前に連絡していたことが15日、分かった。

　小矢教育長は「良くないという認識はあったが、自分で判断した」としている。地方公務員法の守秘義務違反にあたる可能性もあり、一連の問題はさらに拡大する可能性が出てきた。

　小矢教育長は15日午前、報道陣に事前連絡の事実を認め「不正とまでは思わないが、誤解を与えるようなことをした。今後はやめるべきだと思う」とした上で「点数の操作や金品授受などの不正にはかかわっていない」と釈明した。

　今後の進退については明言せず「以前から『わたしの責任が1番大きい』と申し上げてきた」と述べるにとどまった。

　小矢教育長の説明によると、昨年の最終合格発表の前に、県議数人から受験生の受験番号を示された上で「結果を少し早く教えてほしい」と頼まれ、発表予定時間の約30分前に電話で合否を連絡したという。

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大分教員汚職　現職審議監が強く合格要求　江藤容疑者供述

　大分県の教員採用汚職事件で、採用の実務担当だった県教委義務教育課参事、江藤勝由容疑者（52）＝収賄容疑で再逮捕＝が、富松哲博教育審議監（60）からも特定の受験者を合格させるよう指示があったと話していることが14日、関係者の話で分かった。不正に合格させた十数人の中には、二次試験の成績が極端に低い受験者も2人いたが、富松審議監が「どうしても入れてくれ」と強く要求していたという。

　江藤容疑者は、富松審議監や、元審議監二宮政人容疑者（61）＝収賄容疑で逮捕＝からの指示について「口利きは審議監に一本化され、頼んだのが誰かまでは自分には伝えられなかった」と話しているという。

　県警は、県教委ナンバー２の審議監ポストが、以前から口利きの窓口になっていた可能性があるとみて調べている。

　関係者によると、2007年の試験で江藤容疑者は富松審議監から、約20人の欄に口利きがあったことを示す丸印を付けた一次試験結果を渡され、合格を指示された。

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大分教員汚職、不正合格者どうする？　県教委が対応に苦慮

　大分県の教員採用汚職事件をめぐり、点数操作や口利きなど相次いで発覚した不正によって採用された教員や、そのあおりで実際は合格だったのに不合格とされた受験者について、過去の試験の合否を見直すことができるかどうか県教育委員会が対応に苦慮している。

　収賄容疑で再逮捕された県教委義務教育課参事の江藤勝由容疑者（52）の供述などから、2007年だけでも15人前後が点数水増しで不正に合格する一方、減点などで約10人が不当に不合格となったことが判明。

　県教委の三浦徹夫義務教育課長は「不正合格は取り消すのが当然だし、不合格となった人には一生の問題でもあり、できるだけ早く救済したい」とするが、ここ数年の試験の答案は10年間と定められた文書保存期限を守らず既に破棄されていたことが判明。得点の不正操作のデータや資料なども警察に押収された。

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村岡兼造被告：日歯連の１億円裏献金で有罪確定へ　最高裁

　日本歯科医師連盟（日歯連）から自民党旧橋本派への１億円裏献金事件で、政治資金規正法違反（不記載）に問われた元官房長官、村岡兼造被告（７６）に対し、最高裁第１小法廷（泉徳治裁判長）は１４日付で上告を棄却する決定を出した。禁固１０月、執行猶予３年の逆転有罪とした２審・東京高裁判決（０７年５月）が確定する。

　同派会長代理だった村岡元長官が１億円献金の政治資金収支報告書への不記載を決めたとする滝川俊行・同派元会計責任者（５９）＝有罪確定＝の証言の信用性が、１、２審を通じて争点になった。１審は信用性を否定して村岡元長官を無罪としたが、２審は「極めて信用性が高い」と覆していた。

　弁護側は「２審は争点に関する実質的な証拠調べを何ら行わず、事実認定に矛盾が多数ある」と上告したが、小法廷は「争点の核心部分について事実の取り調べをしている」と退け、「被告の共謀を認めた２審の判断は正当」と結論付けた。

　滝川証言について１審・東京地裁は０６年３月、重要部分で不合理に変遷しているなどとして「派閥会長だった橋本龍太郎元首相（故人）らに累が及ぶのを阻止するため、虚偽の供述をした可能性がある」と指摘した。これに対し、２審は「客観的な事実経過に照らし自然、合理的で、根幹部分は一貫している」と判断し、「誰かをかばい、ことさら派閥幹部に刑事責任を負わせる恐れの高い虚偽供述をする理由はない」と述べていた。【北村和巳】

　【ことば】１億円裏献金事件

　橋本元首相らは０１年７月、日歯連側との会食で１億円の小切手を受け取りながら、旧橋本派の０１年分政治資金収支報告書には記載されなかった。東京地検特捜部は、０２年３月の派閥幹部会で当時入院中だった橋本元首相に代わり村岡元長官が、意見を取りまとめ不記載と領収書の不発行を決めたとして在宅起訴した。滝川元会計責任者は逮捕、起訴されたが、野中広務・元自民党幹事長は起訴猶予、青木幹雄・前自民党参院議員会長と橋本元首相は不起訴になった。

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23:21 GMT, Friday, 11 July 2008 00:21 UK
Russian ice camp in rapid shrink
By David Shukman
BBC science and environment correspondent

Arctic ice (BBC)

Twenty Russian scientists are to be evacuated from their camp on a drifting ice-floe in the Arctic after it started disintegrating sooner than expected.

The Russians had set up research station "North Pole 35" on the floe last September when it measured a safe five kilometres long and three kilometres wide, and their original plan was to stay on it until this September.

But after enduring the permanent night of the Arctic winter and surviving the threat of polar bears, the scientists now find that their temporary home has shrunk to just 600m by 300m and faces complete break-up as it drifts towards a current known to contain relatively warm waters.

NP35 (J.GRAESER/AWI) An icebreaker and another vessel are on their way to the scene, about 30-40km from the Spitsbergen islands, to begin the evacuation in the next few days and return the scientists to the Russian Arctic port of Murmansk.

The expedition's organisers, Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute based in St Petersburg, told the BBC that the scientists were safe and well, and that they had completed their studies.

This evacuation comes as Canadian researchers report that the melting of the Arctic ice this year started at least four weeks ahead of the long-term average.

Separate teams of scientists in Canada and the US have forecast that this year's seasonal melt of Arctic sea-ice may well reach or exceed last year's record thaw in which the ice retreated to an extent not predicted for several decades.

NP35 (J.GRAESER/AWI) Russian researchers have a long history of setting up camps on drifting ice-floes, the first being undertaken in 1937. When this latest expedition was launched last year at the time of the record melt, it took the team three weeks to find a suitable piece of ice on which to establish a base.

According to Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, a veteran of Arctic research, the Russians usually prefer to set up their camps on ice at least three metres thick but the thaw was so extensive that they had to settle for a floe that was only around 1.5m thick.

He said that given the floe's thin ice and the fact that it is approaching the East Spitsbergen Current, which is known to be warmer than surrounding waters, the Russians "have got to get off pretty fast - that current would be very dangerous for them".

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全国初、築地市場に暴力団対策協議会
2008.7.15 17:04

　東京・築地市場は１５日、暴力団の介入を防ぐため、水産物や青果物の卸業者や仲卸業者、関連事業者ら約２０００団体でつくる「築地市場暴力団等対策協議会」を発足させた。警視庁によると、市場関係者の協議会設立は全国で初めて。

　築地市場の講堂で開かれた発足式には約１７０人が参加。協議会長の大朏秀次・築地市場長は「築地市場は都民の台所。市場関係者が安心して働ける市場づくりに努めたい」とあいさつ。築地市場で昨年１０月、経営が悪化した水産仲卸業者の代表取締役に、指定暴力団住吉会系組長が一時就任していたことが発覚。築地市場を管理運営している都は今年４月、この業者の営業許可を取り消した。

　これを機に、協議会設立が決まり、都は今月２日、都内に１１ある中央卸売市場から暴力団を排除する改正条例を施行。都は各市場に同協議会を順次設ける。