Greece faces treasury bills auction test
By Kerin Hope in Athens
Published: January 12 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 12 2009 02:00
The Greek government this week faces a critical test of its efforts to prevent a sharp economic downturn when it holds an auction of treasury bills aimed at financing its already swollen public debt.
On Friday Standard & Poor's, the ratings agency, warned it may downgrade Greece's single A sovereign rating, the lowest in the eurozone.
The cost of financing the public debt - already the second-highest in the eurozone at 94 per cent of gross domestic product - is set to reach a record 4.6 per cent of gross domestic product this year, according to budget projections.
Unlike many of its European partners, Greece is not expected to fall into recession this year. But gloom is setting in with the economy expected to expand by only 2 per cent this year, after a decade of annual growth about 4 per cent.
Tourism and shipping, the pillars of the Greek economy, both look shaky. Tourist numbers are set to shrink by 5-10 per cent this year, led by a sharp fall in US bookings.
Shipping has been hit hard by the global slowdown, with freight rates for dry cargoes slumping more than 70 per cent at the end of last year.
Yiannis Papathanassiou, the new finance minister, has the difficult task in his first full week in the job of advancing plans to improve revenue collection and holding down spending.
A former finance under-secretary, he replaces George Alogoskoufis, who took the blame for the country's weakening economic prospects in a cabinet reshuffle last week.
Spreads on Greek 10-year bonds over German bunds widened to 230 basis points after Friday's downgrade warning, approaching levels reached during last month's rioting in Athens.
The debt management agency hopes to use the auction tomorrow to attract buyers by offering T-bills with maturities of up to 12 months and a higher coupon, rather than its usual issues of medium and long-term bonds.
The 2008 budget deficit is already set to exceed 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product - well above the limit for eurozone members - against a target of 2.7 per cent, following a second-half collapse in tax revenues.
Analysts said this year's target of increasing revenues by 10 per cent, equivalent to two percentage points of GDP, looks increasingly hard to achieve.
"The fiscal situation is going to be difficult. In times of crisis, tax evasion is seen as a tool for survival," said Michael Masourakis, chief economist at Alpha Bank.
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Air France-KLM buys into Alitalia
By Vincent Boland, Guy Dinmore and Kevin Done
Published: January 13 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 13 2009 02:00
After once describing Italy's state-controlled Alitalia as in need of an exorcist, Air France-KLM yesterday bought a 25 per cent stake from the airline's new private owners for €322m ($432m).
Disgruntled workers at Rome's Fiumicino airport held a mock funeral for Alitalia, which, however, keeps its name and logo when it merges tomorrow with Air One, its smaller rival. A few protesters yelled abuse outside the gates of Alitalia's ministry-like headquarters as its board, representing 21 Italian industrialists and financiers, approved the sale of the minority stake.
For many Italians, especially those whose winter travel plans were wrecked by yet another round of Alitalia's industrial action, last month's sale of the government's 49.9 per cent stake and the link with Europe's biggest airline is a relief, albeit a very expensive one.
The deal allows Air France-KLM to make an offer for a controlling stake after January 2013 under certain conditions.
Air France-KLM walked away in April from talks on buying Alitalia outright, including its €1.2bn debt, after opposition from unions and Silvio Berlusconi, who was set to win general elections with a promise to keep the 61-year-old flag carrier Italian.
In a sense Mr Berlusconi proved to be the exorcist. In a far worse deal for Italians, much of the debt will be written off under a special bankruptcy law; some 8,000 workers face an uncertain future - many on quite generous state aid; and private shareholders receive nothing. Air France-KLM gets a stake in Air One.
Sources close to the deal said Air France-KLM was paying a 40 per cent premium to what CAI, the private consortium, paid for the rump of Alitalia last month.
The new Alitalia, merged with Air One, will have 148 aircraft and fly to 70 destinations. Before drastic restructuring began a year ago, the old Alitalia had 186 planes and flew to 90 locations. Air One had about 60 aircraft and flew to over 40 cities.
Under the deal, business sources said, Air France-KLM and Alitalia expect synergies of €720m over three years. Air France-KLM can sell its stake at "fair value" if less than half of the savings are made.
The deal secures another piece of the European aviation jigsaw, as the industry fast consolidates and many smaller airlines are taken over by the big three, Air France-KLM, Lufthansa and British Airways.
The agreement for Air France-KLM to become the strategic industrial partner for the restructured Alitalia was crucial for the French carrier to maintain its momentum as Europe's biggest airline and strengthen its Italian market position.
It has fought to deter the rival interest of Lufthansa and the agreement to take a minority stake in the new Alitalia is a reward for its long pursuit of an anchor role in Italian aviation.
It has a joint venture with Alitalia supported by antitrust immunity granted previously by the European competition authorities on the main trunk routes between France and Italy. Alitalia is also a member of the SkyTeam global airline marketing alliance led by Air-France-KLM and Delta Air Lines of the US.
Jean-Cyril Spinetta, Air France-KLM chairman, pioneered consolidation with his acquisition of the Dutch national carrier in 2004, the first takeover of a European flag carrier.
In Italy, the deal has exposed north-south rifts within Mr Berlusconi's ruling coalition. Prominent allies in the north wanted Lufthansa as partner, believing the German airline would help fill slots abandoned by Alitalia last year.
Letizia Moratti, mayor of Milan, said on Monday that Lufthansa had made "an offer" to become Alitalia's partner and she urged CAI to examine it. However, one person with knowledge of the issue said the German airline had only written to CAI outlining its willingness to make an offer and seeking access to Alitalia's business plans - a condition that was unacceptable to CAI.
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Acciona and Enel negotiate a friendly Spanish divorce
By Paul Betts
Published: January 13 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 13 2009 02:00
The global financial crisis is not all doom and gloom. Some situations in the corporate landscape that were deadlocked during the good times are loosening up as the financial system becomes more discerning about counterparties and risk. One such example can be seen in the long-running stand-off at Spain's leading energy utility Endesa, between Enel of Italy and its Spanish partner, the construction company Acciona.
This marriage of convenience that allowed the odd Italo-Spanish couple to pip Germany's Eon to the post in the 2006 bid battle for Endesa has long lived under a cloud. Acciona's disproportionate management influence - a concession Enel was obliged to make - and the feudal style with which its maverick head José Manuel Entrecanales has exercised that power sit awkwardly with majority shareholder Enel's vision and general corporate approach.
As a result, the two parties were expected to seek a not-so-amicable divorce as soon as possible. And Acciona has an option to put its 25 per cent Endesa stake on Enel from 2010. But the global banking crisis combined with the abrupt end to the Spanish property and construction boom seem to be speeding up the separation in a far friendlier way.
Spain's two largest banks, Santander and BBVA, are heavily exposed to Acciona which, as an unrated business, has financed its growth largely with loans. Suddenly the choice between an edgy Acciona and a boring, part state-owned Enel as a medium to long-term counterparty at Endesa has become pretty obvious for the banks.
Enel would presumably not be averse to a swift resolution to the domestic spats at Endesa. Even though Endesa's operational management has proved its calibre by producing solid results despite its rowing parents, Enel's chief executive Fulvio Conti is nothing if not a realist. The challenges of the economic environment and the need to plan for a much more complex energy future call for maximum concentration on the business. Bringing forward an Acciona exit would also offer Enel the chance to refinance a slug of debt with two Spanish banks, keen to strike a deal that also resolves their Acciona concerns.
Not that Enel will sign up under any circumstances. If the additional debt the deal implies were to put the Italian company's A+ credit rating at risk, the cautious Mr Conti would be likely to call the whole thing off. Yet the approximately €11bn cost of taking on Acciona's stake would not all need to be satisfied in cash. Acciona is keen to be part-paid with some of Endesa's renewable assets.
Mr Conti can also look to his own planned asset sales - he recently sold a vestigial gas network to Terna in Italy - reduced capital expenditure and the additional synergies and cash flow that Endesa will generate. He also has the comfort of knowing Enel has an exemption from buying out Endesa's other minorities.
The various branches of the Entrecanales family will probably be hoping the ratings agencies give the thumbs up. The prospect of exiting with a capital gain from a high- risk escapade is clearly appealing.
Meanwhile Enel, although understandably cautious about the financial fine print of any deal, would equally be more than pleased were Acciona to exit on acceptable terms. After all, the Italians will have taken near full control of one of Europe's leading generators well ahead of time.
Clinical Switzerland
Private banking has long been a mainstay of the Swiss economy. But if the financial crisis has put pressure on the banking system, the Swiss can still rely on another pillar of their economy: private medicine.
Clinics once sprouted all over the Swiss Alps to cure victims of tuberculosis from around the world. The TB clinics of yesteryear have since been replaced by private institutions devoted to modern-day ailments, not least stress from work.
A psychiatric clinic at Nyon, halfway between Geneva and Lausanne, has gone one step further. It has just opened a unit for managers suffering from depression, addictions and potentially suicidal inclinations. The director says about half of them come from the financial sector.
The irony is that Swiss managers as a whole seem to have escaped better than most the impact of the crisis. In part this is because the Swiss economy has been more resilient than others and there has so far been no property crisis.
So why has Nyon chosen to open a special unit for desperate executives now? After all, even the big Zurich banks, especially UBS, early casualties of the subprime collapse, have already had to cope with the crisis for the past 18 months. Not so, however, the Geneva area. As the European home of the now embattled fund of funds industry and UBP, the private Geneva bank with the biggest Swiss exposure in the disgraced Madoff affair, the number of depressed managers must be growing on the banks of Lake Geneva.
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Cost of protecting Glencore's debt falls back below 1,000bp
By Paul J Davies
Published: January 13 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 13 2009 02:00
Glencore saw the cost of protecting its debt against default drop back below 1,000 basis points in credit derivatives markets yesterday - a decline of more than two-thirds from its peak a month ago.
The privately held, Switzerland-based commodities trading and investment firm saw credit default swaps on its bonds put under huge pressure as oil and minerals prices tumbled as the gathering global recession became apparent late last year.
However, the way spreads on Glencore's CDS - which provide a kind of insurance against non-payment of corporate debt - rocketed to a peak of 3,124.6bp in mid-December from less than 200bp in September far outweighed moves among other companies in the sector.
Glencore's CDS was quoted at about 995bp yesterday, a still elevated level that equates to an annual premium of about $995,000 to protect $10m worth of debt over five years.
The heightened levels of its CDS last year led to talk in the markets that Glencore had liquidity problems, prompting an unprecedented series of public statements from the firm about its debt position and culminating in an announcement in midDecember that it would buy back some bonds.
However, some traders said that the extreme volatility was instead due to a lack of liquidity in Glencore CDS rather than any financial difficulty it was facing.
Mining stock prices took a nosedive last year. Glencore holds a stake of roughly 35 per cent in Xstrata, which lost more than 85 per cent of its value from its May peak to the end of the year.
This led to talk that some hedge funds were constructing a trade that involved taking a negative view on both Glencore CDS and Xstrata stock in a way that would put pressure on both.
Xstrata stock has outperformed the broader FTSE 350 mining index since Glencore's statement on debt buybacks, with the former rising 14 per cent, or 100p by yesterday's close of 813p, while the latter fell 3 per cent, or 315.5 points, to 1,0468.3.
But analysts at Bernstein Research believe the link between the two is "less fundamental than the market fears".
"Glencore's creditworthiness and Xstrata's equity are both highly leveraged to the commodity cycle," they said.
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UK to own 43% of Lloyds/HBOS
By Jane Croft
Published: January 10 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 10 2009 02:00
The government is expected to end up with about 43 per cent of the combined Lloyds TSB/HBOS after shares in both banks remained below their offer prices yesterday, as their government-backed capital raising closed.
Lloyds agreed to raise £5.5bn in capital and HBOS agreed to raise £11.5bn as part of the UK government bank bail-out in October.
HBOS had offered 7.5bn new shares priced at 113.6p but its shares were trading at just 79p when the offer closed at 11am yesterday. They ended the day up 5.8p at 79.1p.
The share price makes it unlikely that any institutional shareholders will have participated in the offer, forcing the government to take up the unwanted shares and giving it about 58 per cent of HBOS before it is taken over by Lloyds.
Lloyds had offered 2.6bn shares priced at 173.3p but its shares were trading at 133½p a share before the offer closed and at 131½p last night, a rise of 3.1p on the day.
That will leave the government holding about 30 per cent of Lloyds before it takes over HBOS.
An announcement on the government's shareholding is expected from the two banks before the market opens on Monday. The state is expected to hold 43.5 per cent of the combined bank when the deal is completed on January 16.
The transaction faces its last significant hurdle on Monday when the deal will go before the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
The government is now a significant shareholder in a number of UK banks. It owns Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley outright and holds a 58 per cent stake in Royal Bank of Scotland.
There has been speculation that the new Lloyds Banking Group may need to raise more capital given the potential writedowns from HBOS and the deepening recession. More capital may also be needed if the banking sector were to start lending again.
HBOS announced in December that it would take writedowns of £8bn in 2008, eating into the £15.5bn of capital that it has raised since April.
However, Tom Rayner, an analyst at Citigroup, said in a note yesterday that he believed fears were overdone of another round of bank recapitalisations and further nationalisations.
"Rather than forcing banks to attempt the impossible, we believe that ultimately the government will take a more pragmatic approach to rehabilitating the sector such as extending the funding guarantee, that does not necessarily lead to an increase in the level of public ownership," Mr Rayner wrote.
Finance director to leave Northern Rock
The finance director of Northern Rock, the nationalised mortgage lender, is to leave the Newcastle-based bank next month.
Ann Godbehere, who took over as chief financial officer when the bank was nationalised almost a year ago, was only brought in for the initial period of public ownership.
The 53-year-old accountant, who was the first woman to join the executive board of insurer Swiss Re, was being paid about £75,000 a month and has been commuting to Newcastle for the past year from her home in Zurich, Switzerland.
Canadian-born Ms Godbehere was well respected and has been grappling with the bank's shrinking balance sheet.
She has been heavily involved in key decisions such as bolstering Northern Rock's capital ratios through a £3.4bn debt-for-equity swap and putting Granite, the bank's securitisation vehicle, into run-off. Northern Rock, which is making losses, has also been steadily repaying its government loan, which stands at about £11.5bn.
Northern Rock is searching for a new finance director although the process has not yet been completed.
Ms Godbehere will step down from the board at the end of the month and leave the bank at the end of February. She will not receive any compensation.
Gary Hoffman, a former Barclays director who became Northern Rock's chief executive last year, said Ms Godbehere was stepping down to focus on other business interests, after staying on beyond the initial period of public ownership.
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Medvedev rebukes Putin over anti-crisis measures
By Isabel Gorst in Moscow
Published: January 12 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 12 2009 02:00
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, yesterday took another apparent swipe at predecessor Vladimir Putin, rebuking the prime minister's government for moving too slowly to alleviate the country's economic crisis.
Mr Medvedev said only 30 per cent of the government's anticrisis programme drafted last October had been fulfilled.
"We have to acknowledge that at the present moment planned measures are being fulfilled more slowly than expected and, most important, more slowly than the current situation demands," the president told a meeting at the Salyut engine plant outside Moscow.
Most Russians had believed Mr Medvedev would play second fiddle to Mr Putin, who named him as his chosen successor ahead of presidential elections last year.
Although several attempts by Mr Medvedev to pursue independent policies have been thwarted, Kremlin watchers have noted a new assertiveness in the president of late.
In comments last month seen as a signal to Mr Putin, the president declared that he had "final responsibility for what happens in the country".
Mr Medvedev used yesterday's meeting to cite a series of dismal economic indicators including a 6 per cent drop in Russian industrial output in the final quarter of last year and a sharp drop in global commodities prices that have hit the economy hard.
Mr Medvedev was speaking after Russia's central bank allowed the rouble to depreciate against the dollar/euro basket and published data revealing it had almost doubled currency market interventions last month to stem a slide in the currency.
The rouble fell 1.1 per cent to 30.5 to the dollar at the start of trading, in the 13th mini-depreciation since November 11, although it rose against the euro.
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Monitors begin work at main pipeline junctions
By Isabel Gorst in Moscow, Roman Olearchyk in Kiev and,Nikki Tait in Brussels
Published: January 12 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 12 2009 02:00
European Union monitors began work yesterday at main gas pipeline intersections on the western and eastern Ukrainian borders, in spite of new setbacks to efforts at the weekend to end disruptions to gas supplies that have hit millions of people in 18 countries in Europe.
Russia, Ukraine and the European Union signed an agreement allowing the monitors to start work, and aimed at restoring Russian gas deliveries to Europe. But in last-minute hitches, Gazprom said it had not received documents from Ukraine it needed before re-opening gas flows shut off last week. Ukraine also presented a fresh obstacle late yesterday, drafting a reinterpretation of the agreement earlier signed.
Monitors were also deployed at the main gas dispatch centre controlled by Naftogaz, the Ukrainian state gas company. Another team would be stationed at Gazprom's main dispatching centre in Moscow, officials said.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, witnessed the signing after five hours of talks with his Czech counterpart, Mirek Topolanek, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency. Mr Topolanek then flew to Kiev to oversee the signature by Ukraine of the same agreement. Mr Putin said: "As soon as we see the mechanism of control starts working, we will send the gas to the system."
However, he warned that supplies would be cut off again if Ukraine resumed the alleged stealing of gas.
Speaking in Kiev, Mr Topolanek said Ukraine had done "everything necessary" to allow Russia to resume gas deliveries.
In an apparent repeat of bilateral battles last week over the gas crisis, Ukraine accused Gazprom of delaying deployment of the monitoring mission. Bohdan Sokolovsky, an energy adviser to Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's president, dismissed Gazprom's claim that it had not received documentation as "silly".
"As a result Europe is not getting the gas. We are fully fulfilling our obligations," he said.
Even when supplies across Ukraine resume, it would take about 36 hours for deliveries to reach all Gazprom's customers in the EU, experts said. The EU relies on Russia to supply about a quarter of its gas needs with 80 per cent of that amount delivered through Ukrainian pipelines.
Gas will first reach countries in the Balkans, which have carried the brunt of the dispute. Consumers further west in Germany, Gazprom's biggest European buyer, will see a full resumption of supplies later.
The EU said the reinterpretation submitted by Ukraine did not negate the monitoring agreement signed on Saturday night. "The Commission takes the view that nothing in Ukraine's declaration adds to, or subtracts from, the terms of reference signed by the parties."
The monitors group, comprising up to 75 officials, will include representatives from Gazprom's main European gas buyers including Germany, Italy, France, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Greece and Moldova, as well as Russia and Ukraine. StatoilHydro, the Scandinavian energy group, and Société Générale de Surveillance, the Geneva-based trade inspection company, will also participate.
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Putin to Europe: stop dithering
By Tony Barber
Published: January 13 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 13 2009 02:00
Brussels Blog (Tony Barber): Negotiating with Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister and former president, is hard enough even when Europe's relations with the Kremlin are going well - which they haven't been for some while. For an insight into Putin's brutal, hard-as-nails character, have a look at the official Russian government transcript of a conversation he had with Moscow- based western reporters last week.
The discussion, which centres on the shut-off of Russian gas deliveries to the European Union via Ukraine, turns at one point to the possible deployment of EU monitors along the pipeline route through Ukrainian territory. "We hope that the issue will be resolved expeditiously. We don't want a group of men and women to come to Kiev and just sit in a hotel and sip horilka [Ukrainian vodka]," Putin says.
Expressing impatience with what he sees as the European Commission's slow, bureaucratic procedures, he warns: "You should get cracking. In such conditions, two hours would be enough. Instead, they are quibbling over details. They have no mandate? Let them get it."
He directs even heavier fire at Ukraine's leaders: "We are witnessing a political collapse inside Ukraine. I regret to say that it indicates a high level of corruption in Ukrainian government structures, which today are fighting not over the gas price but for the possibility to keep certain mediators in the game, in order to use the dividends for personal enrichment and to raise the necessary funds for future political campaigns."
Answering a question on how anyone can know who is telling the truth about the gas crisis, Putin once again uses Ukrainian food imagery. "If you are not sure, send your own observers to the border between Russia and Ukraine, and to the border between Ukraine and western Europe. Go ahead. Sit there and watch from morning to night, eat salo [pig fat] and chase it down with horilka . They have excellent pig fat in Ukraine. My friends send it to me from Ukraine."
Only at one point is there a hint of Putin's KGB background, and of the personal world view that such a background helps to shape. He admonishes the reporters: "I don't know what you're going to write and what directions you will get from your bosses. Everything points to the fact that there are some directions, because the picture being presented is absolutely biased . . . "
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Putin, Topolanek discuss possible EU loan to Ukraine
12.01.2009, 19.44
MOSCOW, January 12 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek of the Czech Republic, which is the current president in the European Union, had a telephone conversation on Monday to discuss a possible EU loan to Ukraine and Russia’s participation in it.
During the conversation initiated by the Czech prime minister, Putin thanked Topolanek for effective and prompt cooperation in order to create necessary conditions for unhindered transit of Russian natural gas to Europe through Ukraine.
The two prime ministers also discussed “the possibility of a European Union loan to Ukraine and a partial participation in it by the Russian Federation”, the government press service said.
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Kiev signs new version of gas transit control protocol
12.01.2009, 14.16
MOSCOW, January 12 (Itar-Tass) - Kiev has signed a new version of the protocol on control over gas transit, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at a session of the government presidium on Monday.
“This was done earlier today. The deputy chairman of Gazprom’s board flew to Kiev and coordinated this document with Ukrainian partners, and they signed it,” Putin said.
“Now this document is on its way to Brussels, where representatives of the European Commission must sign it,” Putin added. According to the prime minister, “after that, independent observers must go to the sites specified in the document. After they arrive at the control sites and we make sure that they can monitor the transit of natural gas, Gazprom will feed gas to the Ukrainian gas-transmission system for its transit to Europe.”
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Gazprom ready to increase capacities of Nord Stream, South Stream
09.01.2009, 15.16
SOCHI, January 9 (Itar-Tass) - Gazprom is ready to speed up the work on the construction of Nord Stream and South Stream and increase their capacities if it gets such applications from partners, the company’s chief executive officer Alexei Miller said at the meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday.
“If our western partners address us with a request to increase designed capacities of Nord Stream and South Stream as well as to speed up the launch of these pipelines, Gazprom, of course, will give a positive reaction to this,” he said.
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The Sources of Arabs’ Shame: Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia
12.01.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru URL: http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/106932-arab_shame-0
By Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar
“Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.” (Arthur Miller)
It is now over two weeks since Israel started its vicious assault on Gaza resulting, so far, in close to 600 dead and thousands of injuries mostly civilians. Israel true to its nature is once again ignoring all international laws and conventions. With its usual thirst for blood of the civilians, Israel is continuing its bombing of workshops, administrative buildings, roads, bridges, fuel depots, prisons, schools and mosques; killing and injuring large number of civilians in one of the world’s most impoverished and densely populated areas of the world. The Israelis are following their old method of destroying everything that makes a society a society, the infrastructure. The collective punishment of the Palestinians for what Hamas or Islamic Jihad is supposed to be doing or has done, reminds one of the collective punishments that Nazis meted out in the occupied areas in Eastern Europe during the WWII.
International Red Cross just issued a statement [[1]] condemning Israel for its brutality against civilians. There are several things that seem to have shocked the Red Cross. In one episode after several days of heavy pressure from the Red Cross, several ambulances were allowed to enter a neighbourhood to evacuate the injured civilians. In one house they found 12 bodies all civilians and mostly women and children. They also found four very young children still alive next to their dead mothers, too weak to stand. They have been holed-up in the same house for close to 4 days.
Apparently the whole neighbourhood was full of dead and injured civilians with Israeli forces only 80 meters away. According to the Red Cross the Israeli forces knew of the situation and not only didn’t do anything to help the civilians, but also were stopping Red Cross from providing assistance. Representative of the Norwegian Red Cross’ People’s Action calls this a war crime.
But this is only the tip of the ice berg. The Israeli forces have begun to use civilians as human shields. According to Amnesty International Israeli forces occupy civilian houses and keep the civilians as hostages on the first floor, while they position their soldiers on the second floor; ensuring that any fire on the house (especially with anti-tank or RPG missiles) kills the civilians as well.
In yet another report, the United Nations condemned Israel for targeting civilians. The head of the UN agency in Gaza running the school that was attacked by Israel forces categorically rejected the claim by Israel that Hamas fighters were in or even near the school. Israel bombed the UN run school, killing 43 children and injuring 100. [[2]]
Israel also targets ambulances and humanitarian relief convoys in Gaza. According to UN, at least one Palestinian was killed when UN relief convoy came under fire from Israeli forces. “The attack took place on Thursday as the lorries travelled to the Erez crossing to pick up supplies that were to have been allowed in during a three-hour ceasefire.” [[3]]
The atrocities committed by Israel is a genocide of a conquered people. Gaza is a concentration camp and no amount of PR can reduce the magnitude of this horrible crime against humanity and decency.
But Israel is Israel. She has shown that cruelty is in her nature. Here I am talking about the successive Israeli governments and not Israeli people in general. I am sure there are many in Israel that if became aware of what really is happening would not approve of it. This of course excludes the settlers and the Zionist movement. These groups like the South African white supremacists consider others to be inferior to them; or that they have the god given right to do as they please.
But states seldom are representative of their people. It is the elite and/or the governing class that makes the decisions. The state of Israel is determined to never allow the Palestinians to have a viable state. The maximum that they are willing to allow is some form of Bantustan (South African) or North American reservation (for Native Americans). With carte blanche from US and most of the European powers, Israel has been implementing this policy. Setting-up such a system takes many years. People’s spirit has to be crushed through collective punishment, economic strangulation and above all excessive and continuing violence. This has to continue for many years so the people lose hope of ever achieving anything more than what is on offer.
This of course cannot be done without the approval of other countries. Israel has the approval of the world’s most powerful nation, the United States. In addition, because of her US connections, she has managed to get a nod and a wink from the Europeans as well. So with this carte blanche in hand she has set forth to change the “reality” on the ground in her favour. By systematically settling extremists in the middle of populated Palestinian areas, she has made the creation of a viable Palestinian state almost impossible. A simple look at the map of the Palestinian territories resembles a Swiss cheese, with pockets of densely populated Palestinian areas surrounded by settlements and their protective military garrisons.
The violence both official (state sponsored) and unofficial (settlers) has been incessant. Couple this violence with economic strangulation and you will see the reasons behind the Palestinians’ anger and frustration. Any resistance is automatically branded as an act of terrorism and punished with even more violence, with US and Europeans cheering the Israelis on the side lines.
If you recall when Georgia invaded the Russian protected enclave of Abkhazia, and met Russian counter attack, the whole Western world with US at its head condemned Russia. Pushing for UN action and even sending warships with “humanitarian” supplies. Russians did not commit one thousandth of the Israeli atrocities and we had the Georgian president and other politician talking day and night about the horrible things the Russians were doing. Yet today we have US and European governments sitting silently watching this genocide taking place without doing anything. US even vetoes resolutions condemning Israeli actions, forgetting that no peace is ever made possible by killing so many innocent women and children.
But whenever a power tries to relocate a group of people by force, the Newton’s Third Law of Motion comes into effect. Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that if you try to imprison a person that person will try to break out. If you try to subjugate a people they will resist. This is the underlying causes of most liberation movements. The same applies to the Palestinians. They are resisting. We can agree or disagree with their methods, but theirs is a reaction to actions taken against them; we call this self-defence.
Israel is trying to push Palestinians into submission and in the process forcing many to leave the occupied territories. They are trying to show the Palestinians that they are alone and resistance in the face of an overwhelming force is suicide. Israel has tried this tactics before and has failed. The children that had to stay with their dead mothers for four days will not forget. The starved people of Gaza are not going to forget this barbarity; and neither shall the people of honour and conscious, regardless of their nationality, Israelis included.
But as for one of those who have followed the Israel ’s actions for the past 30 years, I can say that I didn’t expect anything different from Israel. The lies and deceits are all too familiar to fall for again. The current Israeli action in Gaza was not a reaction to the recent event, but planned a year ago. Just read the New York Times article in which among others they interview a senior Israeli military officer [[4]].
Israel is now trying to portray herself as a nation that is defending itself, while the truth is that Israel is a cruel occupying power trying to force a people out of their land. And this is being done with the help of some Arab nations; the very same nations that constantly talk about Arab and Muslim solidarity. These nations are: Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan .
The Arab Collaborators
The often asked question, when it comes to the Palestinians, is about the role of Arab countries in the Palestinian struggle for freedom. The people not familiar with the political landscape of the area often see the Middle East as two camps, Arab countries on one side and Israel on the other. The reality is totally different. Israel has seldom been alone. Beside its usual American, French, British and other staunch allies, she has had the hidden backing of several Arab countries.
For close to 30 years now, many Arab countries have been collaborating with Israel; some like Egypt (gained independence: 1922) and Jordan (gained independence: 1946) openly while others like Saudi Arabia (founded: 1932), UAE (founded: 1972) and Kuwait (founded: 1961) from behind the scenes. The reasons for this collaboration vary from country to country but they all have one thing in common: the rulers of these countries are all dictators and need foreign protection from their own people. Some such as Saudi Arabia , Jordan , Kuwait and UAE were put in power by the British. The founder of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz bin Saud (the kingdom is name after him) was put in power by the British. The same goes for the others, except Egypt which experienced a coup by the army officers in 1952 resulting in the ousting of the monarchy and the accompanying British influence. But the Western influence returned with Anwar Sadat. All these countries are dictatorships and all are under pressure from their people. What they cannot accept is any democratically elected form of government in their mist. They fear that if an Arab government becomes democratic they may have to become one themselves, hence losing power. One of the things that they love about Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is that he won the election not by popular vote but by popular method of rigging the election; something that these Arab leaders understand and respect.
In contrast Hamas really represented the aspiration of the people. Soon, Mahmood Abbas term as president is over and he had to stand for re-election something that he would surely lose. In contrast Hamas really won the municipal elections in 2005 and the Parliamentary election in 2006. The elections were supervised by international observers, many from Europe, and US.
Palestinians were fed-up with the corrupt regime of Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah. They wanted to clean house. But as soon as Hamas took over, the US and the Europeans put an embargo on Hamas, calling it a terrorist organisation and not a peace partner. Israel closed the borders and refused to let anything into Gaza. Egypt also did the same.
What is not mentioned much in the media is that this was done with the complete approval of the Saudi Arabia , Egypt and Jordan . After all, Egypt could have opened its border for transfer of food and fuel. The reasons behind this hostility were and are that Hamas is a truly elected government and worst of all, Hamas is a branch or an off-shoot of Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.
Muslim Brotherhood has a branch or related organisation in Jordan as well. Egypt and Jordan are worried that should Hamas survive and show its resistance, their people may get the idea that they can also resist the tyrannical rule of these despots. One must not forget that Muslim Brotherhood represents the only serious challenge to the Mubarak’s rule in Egypt.
Egypt
The 81 year old Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has been “president” since 1981 (28 years). He has won every election with a comfortable majority. He is much loved by his secret services. Prior to every election he arrests and imprisons all the opposition, ensuring a “clean” election. Torture is so widely used and accepted in Egypt that US outsources torturing of some its prisoners to Egypt . This alone should tell you volumes about the nature of Mubarak’s rule. He is now trying hard to crown his playboy son as his successor. But the Americans are not so sure if the son is capable of keeping the 80 million Egyptians in line and is therefore looking for alternative candidates. The head of the feared main secret service is one of the prime candidates along with some of the top generals. Challenging him is the Muslim Brotherhood organisation, enjoying grass root support from all sections of the Egyptian society including Lawyers, doctors, judges and student associations. Not surprisingly, US and Israel call Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation.
By all accounts, the Muslim Brotherhood be it in Jordan, Egypt or the occupied territories such as Gaza runs a clean operation, running many charity organisations and providing services to the poor and the needy. As such wherever they are, they pose a threat to the corrupt regimes, since they provide an alternative to the people of that area.
Jordan
King Abdullah II of Jordan, born of a British mother, educated in the West, including the Jesuit Center of Georgetown University, was brought to power by the CIA. His Uncle was a long time crown price, yet after his father died in a US hospital, Madeline Albright, Clinton ’s Secretary of Estate flew to Jordan to inform the Jordanians that the King on his death bed had changed his will and named his son Abdullah as his successor. The new king Abdullah II married the Princeton graduate Lisa Halaby, the daughter of the former head of Pan American Airlines. She is now called Queen Noor; Noor meaning Light in Arabic.
The majority of this Kingdom of 5 million people are Palestinians who are not very friendly to this King. In 1967 there was a Palestinian uprising (led by PLO) against King Hussein (ruled: 1952-1999, the father of the current king), which resulted in heavy casualties among Palestinians. In addition, the Kingdom is currently full of Iraqi refugees who resent the King’s help to the Americans in invasion of their country. On top of all this, we have the Muslim Brotherhood which tries hard to abolish the monarchy. King Abdullah relies heavily on the US support and backing for staying in power. King Abdullah also sees a natural ally in Israel , a country that can come to its aid in case of another uprising.
Saudi Arabia (House of Saud)
I don’t have to tell you much about Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom is run by the 84 year old, ailing Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud. His personal wealth is estimated at $21 billion USD. He rules a clan of 8000 princes who in turn rule the country. Saudi Arabia is the centre of corruption in the Arab world. The Saudi rulers corrupt everything with their money. Lacking the necessary mental power or physical courage, they try to stay in power by subterfuge, lies, and deception. They fund the real extremists on the one hand while portraying themselves as the protectors of the Western interest on the other. They preach intolerance and xenophobia to their people decrying the Western decadence, while spending a lot of time enjoying the life in the West. They pay the West for protection against their own people and they pay the extremists to do their fighting elsewhere. Saudi rulers are indeed the worst of them all.
House of Saud is also the financier of the so called “Arab Moderates” and extremism that they cause. House of Saud financed the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. They later financed the Taliban. They also paid the Saddam Hussein to fight Iran . Then they paid the Americans and Egyptians to fight Saddam Hussein. They are the financiers of death and misery. They finance anything, anywhere, as long as this reduces the threat to their illegitimate rule. They are currently financing the civil war in Somalia, bandits in Baluchistan ( Pakistan and Iran ) and god knows what else. They are detested by their own people and neighbours yet loved by Bush, Cheney and the oil companies. As long as they provide the money and oil the US is willing to tolerate them. And guess what? Muslim Brotherhood hates the House of Saud too. This makes them a threat and hence has to be dealt with.
The Collaboration
As can be seen each country has a good reason to eliminate Hamas, but each is restrained by its population. Israel has no such a restrain imposed on it. She not only can wage a terrible war, but also get assistance from Arab countries. Indeed it is the second time (the first was the Lebanon invasion of 2006) that Israel is getting open and solid support from these Arab countries. The invasion of Gaza was discussed in Egypt before its implementation. Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are Israel’s active partners.
Egypt is actively involved in stopping all aids from getting to Palestinians in Gaza save a token few trucks. These few trucks are allowed to go through so they can be filmed and shown to Egyptian people. All demonstrations are banned and all Egyptian volunteers for Gaza are either arrested or sent back.
There are hundreds of thousands of volunteers across the Muslim world that are willing to go to the aid of the Palestinians, but the Egyptian authorities don’t allow them passage. Egyptians even stop medical aid from passing through their territories. This is part of a report from Associated Press:
“RAFAH, Egypt : Frustration is mounting at Egypt 's border with the Gaza Strip, where many local and foreign doctors are stuck after Egyptian authorities denied them entry into the coastal area now under an Israeli ground invasion.
Anesthesiologist Dimitrios Mognie from Greece idles his time at a cafe near the border, drinking tea and chatting with other doctors, aid workers and curious Egyptians.
"This is a shame," said Mognie, who decided to use his vacation time to try help Gazans. He thought entering through Egypt , which has a narrow border with the Hamas-ruled strip, was his best bet.
"That in 2009 they have people in need of help from a doctor and we can go to help and they won't let us. This is crazy," he added.” [[5]].
In addition there are many Iranian cargo planes full of food and medicine which have been sitting on the tarmacs in Egypt for days waiting for permission to deliver their cargo. Egyptians even denied the medical aid sent by the son of the Libyan President Qaddafi to land in Egypt [[6]].
One thing is clear: these three countries do not want the Israelis to fail in their mission of totally destroying Gaza. Hosni Mubarak said so himself. The daily Haaretz reported that Hosni Mubarak had told European ministers on a peace mission that Hamas must not be allowed to win the ongoing war in Gaza.
As Egypt physically aids the Israeli military by denying food, fuel and medicine to the civilians, The House of Saud helps Israel by giving her time and diplomatic cover. When Israel started its invasion there was an immediate call for an Arab summit. Saudi Arabia and Jordan (along with Egypt of course) delayed the summit. The Saudis along with the UAE said that they had another meeting to attend to and therefore Palestinian issue had to wait. After a few days when the summit was eventually held, they issued the same old statements. Yet this time same as the Israel ’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006, they blamed the victims. In a statement Saudi Arabia blamed Hamas for Israel 's continuing offensive in the Gaza Strip. Saudi Arabia , after blaming Hamas, declared that it will not even consider an oil embargo on Israel ’s supporters. She then again blamed Hamas.
By this time, the three Arab countries along with Kuwait and UAE began singing the old song: international community is not doing anything about the catastrophe that is taking place in Gaza. It seems that these Arab tyrants have no shame at all. This reminds me of a quote from Marquis De Sade (1740-1814): “One is never so dangerous when one has no shame, than when one has grown too old to blush.”
These Arab leaders (many are indeed too old to blush) are complicit in the murder of so many civilians, especially young children. According to Agence France-Presse, quoting the medics on the ground, fully one third of all people killed have been children [[7]]. How can these Arab leaders justify this to their people?
The answer is that they cannot. Israel knows this and for the second time can show the Arab street that their leaders are nothing but a bunch of old hypocrites. These Arab leaders are now exposed and can do nothing but to cooperate fully with Israel and US. What stand between them and their people’s rage is their army and secret services; which in turn are supported by US.
Israel has cleverly exposed these leaders for what they are: collaborators of the worst kind. These Arab leaders have brought an unimaginable shame to their people. To quote Lucien Bouchard: I have never known a more vulgar expression of betrayal and deceit. Our hope is now with the people of these countries to clean this stain from their honour.
Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar
Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar lives in Norway. He is a management consultant and a contributing writer for many online journals. He can be contacted at : Bakhtiarspace-articles@yahoo.no
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Russian nuclear-powered warship calls at Cape Town
17:59 | 12/ 01/ 2009
MOSCOW, January 12 (RIA Novosti) - The Pyotr Veliky nuclear-powered missile cruiser has sailed into the port of Cape Town, a Russian Navy spokesman said on Monday.
Six Russian warships, led by the Northern Fleet's Pyotr Veliky, will participate in a joint naval exercise with the Indian navy this month.
"The ship received special permission from the Pretoria authorities to make the call," Capt. 1st Rank Igor Dygalo said, adding that the visit would last through January 14.
He said that the ship was to have docked in port on January 9 to replenish supplies, but South Africa's nuclear energy administration refused to grant permission.
A naval task force led by the cruiser recently participated in joint exercises with the Venezuelan Navy in the Caribbean.
The Pyotr Veliky will join up with warships from the Pacific Fleet for the INDRA-2009 exercise. The Admiral Vinogradov, an Udaloy class destroyer, a salvage tug and two fuel tankers are already in the Indian Ocean, having left Russia's Far East a month ago.
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Ukraine ready for government-level gas talks with Russia
17:08 | 12/ 01/ 2009
YEVPATORIYA, January 12 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine is ready to continue gas talks with Russia at a governmental level, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on Monday.
Russia cutoff shipments to Ukraine after talks on outstanding debt and a gas price for 2009 broke down on New Year's Eve. The gas conflict led to a complete break in Russian gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine, which transits around 80% of Russia's gas exports to EU countries.
"We will arrange negotiations between governments," she told journalists.
"The Russian prime minister and I signed a memorandum on October 2, 2008, which outlined the entire pricing formula process for the transit of Russian gas to Europe and a price for gas to be supplied to Ukraine... I am sure the memo will be observed as a result of the negotiations, and Russia and Ukraine will sign a contract for gas deliveries," the Ukrainian premier said.
Tymoshenko assured reporters that Ukraine has sufficient gas stored in underground depots for a year despite the current gas dispute with Russia.
"Gas is not reaching Ukraine at the moment, but we have pumped such a quantity of gas for the first time into our storage facilities. This gas belongs to a public organization. It will suffice for a year," Yulia Tymoshenko said.
Tymoshenko also dismissed speculation on the privatization of the country's gas transit system.
Her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia would participate in any privatization if Kiev decided to go ahead with it. Ukrainian Ambassador to Russia Konstantyn Gryshchenko has also ruled out the move.
"The national gas transit system will not be privatized," the Ukrainian government's press service quoted Tymoshenko as saying.
She also said she was confident that the gas conflict would not hamper Ukraine's integration into the European Union.
Ukraine has long been seeking admission to the EU. Paris hosted an EU-Ukraine summit in September 2008, where an announcement was made that a new Association Agreement would soon be signed but without any membership prospects for Kiev.
Russia, the EU and Ukraine signed last weekend a protocol to establish an independent commission to monitor the transit of Russian gas via Ukraine to Europe as a way out of the gas row. However, Kiev added its own declaration to the document after it had been signed by Moscow.
The European Commission signed on Monday a new version of a document on monitoring Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine.
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EU signs new monitoring agreement on gas transits via Ukraine
18:58 | 12/ 01/ 2009
BRUSSELS, January 12 (RIA Novosti) - The European Commission signed on Monday a new version of an agreement on monitoring the flow of Russian gas to Europe via Ukraine, Russia's envoy to the EU said.
"The document has been signed," Vladimir Chizhov said.
Russia earlier said it was ready to restore gas supplies to Ukraine once the new transit control deal had been signed.
European Union energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, in charge of Russia's fuel and energy sector, and energy giant Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller participated in the signing ceremony.
Gazprom deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev said Sunday Russian gas supplies to Europe, halted last Wednesday over a gas dispute with Ukraine, could resume early Tuesday.
"Deliveries of Russian transit gas [to Europe through Ukraine] could start at 8 o'clock in the morning CET [07:00 GMT] on Tuesday," Medvedev said.
Russia cutoff shipments to Ukraine after talks on outstanding debt and a gas price for 2009 broke down on New Year's Eve. The gas conflict led to a complete break in Russian gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine, which transits around 80% of Russia's gas exports to EU countries.
The European Commission said earlier some 20 countries had been affected by the Russia-Ukraine gas row, especially in the Balkan region, "where the crisis has left tens of thousands of households in the cold and forced schools, hospitals and factories to close."
A gas pricing row between the former Soviet neighbors in 2006 also led to disruptions in shipments to some European consumers, and the latest spat has reawakened concerns about the reliability of Russia as a supplier.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday that Gazprom would resume the flow of gas to Europe via Ukraine once it was sure that international monitors were in place to fully supervise the process.
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Kiev signs gas transit deal, drops earlier conditions-Gazprom-2
14:22 | 12/ 01/ 2009
(Recasts throughout, adds quotes, background in paras 7-14)
MOSCOW, January 12 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine has signed a deal on monitoring Russian natural gas transits to Europe removing its earlier conditions, Russian energy giant Gazprom said on Monday.
"A Gazprom delegation held talks in Kiev this morning," the company said in a statement. "Ukraine signed the regulations for the monitoring of natural gas transits via Ukraine without any conditions."
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday that a three-party deal to resume Russian gas supplies to the EU via Ukraine was invalid as Kiev had added its own declaration to the document after it had been signed by Moscow. Medvedev described the declaration as "mockery of common sense."
A Russian government official said on Monday that Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and other officials were going to Brussels for talks on the gas dispute.
Energy ministers from the 27 EU member-states will hold an emergency meeting later on Monday to discuss the crisis over disrupted Russian gas shipments.
Supplies have been cut off for almost a week as Russia accused Ukraine of siphoning off gas bound for Europe. Moscow said it would restore supplies when the monitoring deal was signed by all the sides and monitors were in place.
International monitors began arriving at gas transit points in both Ukraine and Russia on Sunday.
The gas conflict escalated early this month, when Russia ended shipments to Ukraine after talks on debt and a gas price for 2009 broke down, leading to a complete break in Russian gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine. The country transits around 80% of Russia's Europe-bound gas.
In Brussels, Sechin and Miller will discuss the resumption of supplies to Europe "within days or hours," the Russian prime minister's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov said.
Peskov said Russia was ready to restore gas supplies to Europe after assurances that the transit control deal signed by Ukraine was legal. "If it is an appropriate document, Miller and Sechin will complete all the formalities."
A Ukrainian delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister Hryhoriy Nemyria and including oil and gas company CEO Oleh Dubyna has also left for gas talks in Brussels, the vice premier's press service said.
Peskov said supplies to Ukraine should be discussed at bilateral talks.
The European Commission said earlier some 20 countries had been affected by the Russia-Ukraine gas row, especially in the Balkan region, "where the crisis has left tens of thousands of households in the cold and forced schools, hospitals and factories to close."
The gas pricing row between the former Soviet neighbors in 2006 also led to disruptions in shipments to some European consumers, raising concerns about the reliability of the suppliers.
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Countering piracy: maintaining the status quo
22:38 | 12/ 01/ 2009
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) - The U.S. Navy is finally joining international forces in the fight against the Somali piracy. The U.S. Fifth Fleet is going to deploy its forces specifically for this purpose, teaming up with the Combined Task Force 151.
Supposedly, it will be composed of U.S. allies' ships and units, hence its name, the Combined Task Force. Thus, the world's most powerful fleet will embark on ensuring navigation security off the Somali coast, where the ships of the European Union's Naval Task Force, as well as the Russian, Indian and Chinese navies, have been carrying out this mission.
Navigation security is ensured by caravans of two to five ships, which convoy civil vessels through the dangerous area and patrol the coast to detect and search waterborne vehicles suspected of being piratical. The patrolling is performed also by shipborne helicopters and patrol jets, which aim battleships at detected targets.
Apart from crews, there are also marine units which land on escorted ships periodically to protect them in case of a pirate attack. Marines also examine vessels detained under suspicion of piracy.
Unfortunately, excesses occur sometimes: For example, on November 19 the Indian frigate Tabar sank a Thai trawler which it mistook for a pirate vessel.
One cannot say yet that the counter-piracy efforts have had any effect; at any rate, pirates have not hijacked any new ships recently. At the same time, they have released several ships seized earlier, including the Iranian vessel Delight, which was hijacked on November 20, and the Turkish ship M/V Yasa Neslihan, captured in late December.
The Saudi supertanker Sirius Star, ransomed recently, has also been released, according to pirates. However, other data suggest that it is still near the Somali coast: Pirates cannot leave the ship because of the rough sea. The five pirates who tried to reach the coast by boat died after the boat turned over hit by a huge wave. Local residents found one of the bodies on the shore, with $153,000 in his pockets.
The Ukrainian dry-cargo ship Faina remains in captivity; negotiations for ransoming its crew and cargo have been unsuccessful so far. Unfortunately, given the present economic situation in Ukraine, one can hardly expect the vessel to be ransomed soon, or any other method to be used to release the hostages.
In any case, through high costs, the world's leading military powers will most likely manage to keep the trouble at bay - it will simply become too dangerous to attack the ships going past the Somali coast, and pirates will become less active. Only best-prepared and well organized groups capable of hijacking a ship several hundred miles off the coast, taking its crew hostage and bringing the booty to a port will continue operating, as was in the case of the Sirius Star tanker. International forces cannot guarantee that such a capture is impossible.
Experts have repeatedly pointed out that in order to eradicate the Somali piracy it is necessary to normalize the situation in Somalia, including a ground operation to destroy pirates' bases; but it is an absolutely different task, with absolutely different forces required for its implementation.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
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Ireland blames UK for sterling’s slump
By Peter Garnham
Published: January 12 2009 10:45 | Last updated: January 12 2009 21:19
The pound retreated on Monday as traders took profits following a strong run last week and as Ireland accused the UK of engineering sterling’s recent slump.
The pound was undermined by figures released over the weekend from the UK National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which estimated UK economic output fell 1.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, its fastest contraction since 1980.
Late in New York, the pound had dropped 2.2 per cent to $1.4831 against the dollar and lost 3.7 per cent to Y132.04 against the yen.
The pound’s losses against the euro were less acute however, as it fell 1.6 per cent to £0.9017 amid continued concerns that the slowdown in the eurozone was gathering pace.
Analysts said negative sentiment against the euro was heightened by worries that the European Central Bank – which so far has failed to cut interest rates as aggressively as other global central banks in the face of the economic slowdown – was in danger of underestimating the pace of economic contraction in the eurozone.
This has raised concerns that the ECB, which makes it decision on interest rates this Thursday, will keep eurozone interest rates too high, exacerbating the negative effects of the financial crisis. Indeed, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, highlighted the inadequate policy response by European policy makers, suggesting Europe was “underestimating the needs” for stimulus.
The pound’s losses came as Brian Lenihan, the Irish finance minister, accused the UK authorities of, in effect, devaluing the pound by expanding the UK money supply, action that was causing “immense difficulties” in the Irish economy. “It is a question for all of us in the EU as to the extent to which a competitive devaluation can be used as any kind of weapon,” he said.
Derek Halpenny said the Irish government’s anger should be directed at the European Central Bank and not the UK authorities.
He said markets remained too optimistic over the ability of the eurozone authorities to manage the current downturn: “Lack of co-ordination on fiscal policy and evidence of strains within the EMU will undermine the euro.”
The euro dropped 0.8 per cent to $1.3375 against the dollar and lost 2.3 per cent to Y119.06 against the yen.
The yen was in demand as weakness in global stocks boosted haven demand for the Japanese currency.
The yen rose 1.5 per cent to Y89.02 against the dollar, 4.9 per cent to Y60.49 against the Australian dollar and 1.6 per cent to Y79.91 against the Swiss franc.
The South African rand slid 3 per cent to R10.0580 after a court reinstated 16 counts of corruption against Jacob Zuma, leader of South Africa’s ruling party.
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‘Some of my rhetoric has been a mistake’
By Edward Luce in Washington
Published: January 12 2009 17:40 | Last updated: January 12 2009 17:40
George W. Bush was asked in a recent interview what had been his biggest mistake in office. America’s 43rd president said he couldn’t think of any and that he wished he had been given advance notice.
On Monday, in his final and 47th press conference as president - somewhat less than Franklin Roosevelt, who clocked up an insurmountable 998 - Mr Bush had obviously anticipated the question.
The departing president, who has long made known his dislike of “this self-analysis thing”, cheerfully supplied a long list of mistakes.
In a 50-minute press conference that included much of the trademark “Dubya” self-deprecation and banter, Mr Bush just kept adding and adding to it. The first was his notorious “Mission Accomplished” event aboard the USS Lincoln in May 2003 a few weeks after the invasion of Iraq.
“It sent the wrong message,” said Mr Bush, before adding cryptically: “We were trying to say something differently, but nevertheless it conveyed a different message.”
Abu Ghraib and the absence of Iraqi WMD
“I don’t know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were... Things didn’t go according to plan, let’s put it that way,” said Mr Bush on Abu Ghraib and the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
Next he moved on to his wartime language. In a veiled reference to his notorious “bring it on” remark about the Iraqi insurgency, he said: “Obviously some of my rhetoric has been a mistake.”
Next on the list was his rapidly torpedoed decision to push for private social security accounts following his re-election in 2004.
Here, he obligingly threw in a Bushism: “One of the lessons I learned as governor of Texas is legislative branches tend to be risk-adverse [sic],” he said. “The crisis was not imminent with social security as far as Congress was concerned.”
Then came the “disappointments”. These included the revelations of torture at Abu Ghraib and the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. “I don’t know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were... Things didn’t go according to plan, let’s put it that way,” he said.
On his handling of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, which political analysts date as the moment when his unpopularity became irreversible, Mr Bush was less self-critical: “I thought long and hard about Katrina,” he said before concluding that he could not have done anything differently.
The remainder of the press conference, which in 16 questions managed to cover pretty much the whole of his eight years in office, was devoted to a more familiar defence of his record and the occasional joke at his own expense.
“Sometimes I didn’t like the stories you wrote or reported on,” he said. “Sometimes you misunderestimated me. But always the relationship has been professional.”
The same could not be said of Washington in general, he added, and particularly the “opiners” and “those who get angry and yell and say bad things”. These appeared to include Europeans, whom Mr Bush counted among the minority around the world in having lowered their view of the US over the past few years.
“I strongly disagree,” said Mr Bush when asked if America’s moral standing had fallen. “My view is that most people around the world, they respect America. And some of them doesn’t [sic] like me. I understand that. Some of the writers and the, you know, opiners and all that.”
Mr Bush had warm words for Barack Obama and advised the president-elect to ignore those who overstate the “burdens of office”. Putting on a plaintive voice, he said: “You know, it’s kind of like, you know, ‘why me? Oh the burdens,’ you know... It’s just pathetic, isn’t it, self-pity?”
As for his own future, Mr Bush reminded reporters that he was a “type A personality” who does not like to dawdle. “You know, I just can’t envision myself with a big straw hat and Hawaiian shirt, sitting on some beach,” he said to laughter. “Particularly since I quit drinking.”
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Afghans fear US plan to rearm villagers
By Jon Boone in Kabul
Published: January 13 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 13 2009 02:00
Afghan authorities are struggling to reach agreement on a US-backed plan to help villages defend themselves against Taliban fighters.
Many Afghans fear the proposals will lead to the emergence of a new generation of lawless militias.
US planners want to start a pilot scheme in a single district in Wardak, an increasingly dangerous province south of Kabul, as soon as possible with a view to extending it to help turn the tide against the Taliban insurgency which threatens Nato supply chains and this year's presidential election.
Muhammad Halim Fidai, the governor of Wardak, said there was an urgent need to help villages defend themselves.
"We don't have enough police to keep the Taliban out of these villages and we don't have time to train more police - we have to fill the gap now." However, there is no agreement on which ministry should control the scheme, how many people should be recruited in individual villages, who should pay their salaries, or even what they should be called. William Wood, the US ambassador, described them last month as "community guards".
General McKiernan, the senior US general in Afghanistan, briefed western diplomats on "community outreach" while some Afghan officials call them "public guards".
There is uncertainty about how such forces should defend themselves against well-armed Taliban fighters who have terrorised villages into submission by brutally executing government sympathisers.
Handing out weapons to informal forces has the potential to create enormous embarrassment for the international community. It has poured millions of dollars into disarming militias, which often tyrannised ordinary people.
Mr Wood was adamant the US would not provide any weapons, and would restrict its involvement to supplying uniforms, training and other equipment.
But one senior official in the interior ministry said his department would be in charge of finding suitable weapons, possibly by repairing "old and broken" guns.
At the same time Mohammad Masom Stanekzai, a vice-chairman of Afghanistan's disarmament organisation, said members of the guard forces would be encouraged to supply first their own weapons, which would allow the government to increase the number of weapons that have been officially registered.
The only thing clear is that many Afghans are deeply suspicious of any- thing that could bring back the return of the factional fighting of the 1990s, which paved the way for the rise of the fundamentalist Taliban regime.
The plan also risks aggravating tensions between Afghans in the north of the country, where many former commanders have given up their weapons, and the south and east, which are most likely to receive weapons under the programme.
Mr Stanekzai said all ministries involved were determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past, not least the hastily conceived and ill-fated 2006 auxiliary police scheme which led to the recruitment and arming of barely trained men, many of whom were drug addicts.
He said the defence forces would be under a clear "command and control mechanism" and would be "owned by" the village shuras , or traditional representative councils, which will help to recruit men.
"This is not the rearming of militias, because we won't be handing all the funding to individual militia leaders - that just leads the men to be loyal to the militia leader, not the government."
But one western diplomat said details were too sketchy to be reassuring. "Who will select these shuras ? Who guards the guardians?"
*Pakistani forces attacked militants in mountains near the Afghan border yesterday, government officials said. The action came after more than 600 al-Qaeda-linked militants attacked a paramilitary force camp and two checkpoints in the Mohmand region, to the north of Peshawar in Pakistan, on Saturday night killing six soldiers and wounding seven, the force said. The paramilitaries said they pushed back the militants, killing 40.
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Dubai reveals budget deficit
By Simeon Kerr in Dubai
Published: January 13 2009 04:14 | Last updated: January 13 2009 04:14
An understated press conference to announce details of the 2009 budget should have been a run-of-the-mill event. But in the context of Dubai’s infamously opaque finances, Saturday’s statements were revolutionary.
Never before had the Dubai government opened up its books to this extent. Saturday provided another example of the government’s transparency drive, which is likely to develop further if the emirate is to receive a sovereign rating as planned this year.
Nasser Al Shaikh, director-general of the Dubai government’s finance department, outlined details of a Dh4.2bn ($1.2bn) deficit – the emirate’s first acknowledged budget deficit at 1.3 per cent of gross domestic product.
Mr Shaikh also released an estimate of the emirate’s 2008 GDP, at Dh301bn, and announced plans to give the economy a stimulative boost by increasing central government spending by 42 per cent to Dh26.5bn. “This is enough to keep the engine going,” he said.
The spate of figures suddenly falling out of a black hole at of the finance department left economists confused.
“It’s more evidence of transparency but the figures don’t leave us all that wiser in terms of actual spending and debt obligations,” said one economist. “There isn’t much to compare it to.”
Keynesian view: Dubai is to raise revenue by spending on public projects
Over the past few months, the government’s statistics centre has been revising Dubai’s GDP upwards with the help of international consultants. The previous system, officials argued, was outmoded and unrepresentative of the emirate’s true economic output.
The new methodology, to be unveiled by the statistics centre this year, puts 2007 GDP at almost $73bn, officials said – well above the last official figure of about $50bn for 2006. The Dubai government has said its overall debt obligations amount to $80bn.
Housing contraction
Hard evidence of Dubai’s real estate correction has emerged with Colliers International reporting an overall decline of 8 per cent in the last quarter of 2008.
The consultancy’s house price index, which has collated mortgage transactions on properties open to foreign ownership since the start of 2007, recorded its first decline from the third to fourth quarters on a 45 per cent slump in transactions as the global financial crisis contributed to tightening liquidity and negative sentiment towards property.
“The good news is that the decline is not as bad as some people have been saying – it’s just part of the property cycle,” says Ian Albert, Colliers’ regional director.
The average value of apartments fell by 11 per cent and villas by 3 per cent, but townhouses rose in value by 1 per cent, the survey says.
Properties in the Burj Dubai development have been hardest hit as they were the main focus of speculation before the property bubble burst.
Asteco, a real estate agency, also says Burj Dubai saw declines of 28 per cent from the third to fourth quarters.
The revision, which at a stroke helps reduce the emirate’s debt-to-GDP ratio, was balanced by Mr Shaikh’s acceptance that the government will have to tame its previous GDP growth targets of 11 per cent a year to 2015 down to a more modest 4 to 6 per cent.
The overall budget, which includes most of Dubai Inc, sees spending on all government-controlled entities of Dh135bn this year, up 11 per cent on 2008’s budgeted expenditure, Mr Shaikh said.
Saturday’s figures did not include details of income or expenditure for the Dubai Holding conglomerate controlled by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, Dubai’s ruler.
Mr Shaikh said the government will in due course reveal actual revenue and spending figures for 2008 and he confirmed that spending in 2008 had exceeded the budgeted figures.
Overall revenues are set to rise 4 per cent to Dh138bn from all government-controlled entities, such as Emirates Airlines and Dubai World, the conglomerate that includes offshore developer Nakheel. Oil accounts for 3 per cent of GDP, with the budget based on an average oil price of $45 a barrel.
Mr Shaikh said the rise in government revenues, in spite of the harsher economic outlook, will come from an expansion in government services, the primary revenue generator. Core government services, such as the transport agency, are forecast to bring in Dh33.5bn, an increase of 26 per cent this year.
Mr Shaikh ruled out new taxes, but he said the introduction of the Salik road toll system is boosting revenue, as will the metro light rail network when it opens in September.
Other state services are also planned, helping raise revenues in spite of an environment that could threaten Dubai’s growing system of indirect taxes, which bolster the public purse without taxing incomes. These include visa costs, speeding fines and the premium paid by expatriates for utilities.
Economists were generally upbeat on the Keynesian approach to spending.
“Dubai’s budget prioritises infrastructure spending and investment as the key area to allocate its funds. [This is] a positive strategy that will also help Dubai in the long term,” said Marios Maratheftis of Standard Chartered.
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Websites and TV spur donations from Gulf region
By Abeer Allam in Riyadh and Simeon Kerr in Dubai
Published: January 12 2009 19:07 | Last updated: January 12 2009 19:07
Until two years ago most charitable donations for political causes in the Arab world were channelled through private networks or religious institutions. Arab governments, stung by criticism that their citizens had provided money to extremist groups such as al-Qaeda, were nervous of such gifts.
Israel’s invasion of south Lebanon in 2006 changed that, however, as Arab satellite TV channels raised public outrage and provided the focus and technology for donations. Three years on, the machinery to raise funds for the beleaguered Palestinians of Gaza is even better oiled.
Citizens across the Gulf, organising through television programmes and social networking websites, have donated millions of dollars to Palestinian causes.
The drive is backed by governments that feel under tremendous political pressure to appear supportive of Palestinians and yet are powerless to stop the Gaza war. Fundraising is encouraged particularly in Gulf countries where public protests are often banned.
After Israel’s offensive into the Gaza Strip, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah launched a national fundraising campaign with an $8m (€5.9m, £5.3m) donation that was later followed by another $1.3m from Prince al Waleed bin Talal.
Saudi state television showed thousands of the country’s citizens and Palestinian expatriates giving money and other items. Women donated jewellery, a businessman offered to buy 30 ambulances and cars were handed over.
While Arabs have taken to the streets in countries such as Egypt, Morocco and Jordan, few public protests have been allowed in the Gulf, where governments are generally suspicious of Hamas, the militant group under Israeli assault in Gaza.
In Saudi Arabia, the ministry of the interior rejected a request by activists to organise a rally, saying that protests were against the law, according to Mohamed al-Qahtani, an activist.
There was, however, a rally in Abu Dhabi in support of the Palestinians on Saturday. Another in Dubai, however, was poorly attended. In Qatar, which has an Israeli representative office but which is also close to Hamas, a small demonstration was allowed after Friday prayers last week.
Websites have also played a pivotal role, co-ordinating groups of young people who donate money to the United Nations’ relief effort, the Red Crescent Society and other organisations.
In Dubai and Jordan, Aramex, a regional courier, is leading a fundraising campaign with a large UAE retailer to collect and deliver medicine, food and other aid to Gaza.
Aramex has responded to previous disasters across the Middle East and south Asia, including the 2004 tsunami and previous Palestinian intifadas. But Fadi Ghan-dour, Aramex’s chief executive, says the response to the Gaza initiative has overshadowed previous efforts.
“The feedback has been overwhelming, not only in contributions but in volunteers coming to work with us in our warehouses in Jordan and the UAE,” he says.
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Iran to set aside 20% of oil revenues
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Published: January 12 2009 13:18 | Last updated: January 12 2009 13:18
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered that 20 per cent of oil and gas revenues should in future be set aside for a new investment fund, curbing the government’s ability to use this income to fund populist policies.
The order is part of a set of mandatory economic, social and political guidelines the top leader set for populist president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad to be included in the country’s next five-year development plan which runs from 2010 to 2015.
The government is drafting the new plan and is expected to present it to the parliament in spring for final approval.
Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s opponents accuse him of ignoring the current development plan which was drawn up under the previous reformist government and increasing the budget dependence on oil to as much as 70 per cent.
Analysts believe the order by Ayatollah Khamenei is a warning to the government that it must find other sources of revenue for its current budget at a time when crude prices have fallen to around $40 per barrel from $147 in July.
However, they doubt that any government will be able to dramatically decrease dependence on petrodollars by 2015.
High inflation of 28.3 per cent and youth unemployment of 21 per cent are fuelling public criticism of the government for its inability to tackle people’s daily economic problems.
The government has been accused by fundamentalists and reformists alike of wasting record oil revenues in its three years in office and raiding the Oil Stabilisation Fund, which was established to collect oil windfalls to be used when prices fall.
The central bank says there is $25bn in the fund, but analysts reject this figure and some even claim it has reached zero.
The Expediency Council, which drafts macro-economic policy as part of its advisory role to the supreme leader, suggested in the summer that the OSF should be converted into a National Development Fund, in a move to restrict central governments from accessing the extra oil revenues.
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基礎科学充実で横断組織 文科省
塩谷立文部科学相は13日の閣議後会見で、ノーベル賞などにつながる基礎科学の充実のため、「基礎科学力強化推進本部（本部長・塩谷文科相）」を設置した、と発表した。本部には事務次官や各局の局長らが参加、理数教育や研究環境の整備など省内の関係施策に横ぐしを通す。塩谷文科相は「2009年を基礎科学力強化年にする」と述べ、関係施策を計画的に推進していく考えを示した。(15:01)
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08年の企業倒産、負債総額が前年の倍の12兆円に 民間調べ
民間調査会社の東京商工リサーチが13日発表した2008年の企業倒産は、前年と比べ件数・負債総額ともに増加した。負債総額1000万円以上の企業倒産（銀行取引停止処分などを含む）件数は前年比11％増の１万5646件で、暦年ベースでは03年以来５年ぶりの多さだった。負債総額は約２倍の12兆 2919億円と、02年以来６年ぶりの高水準となった。上場企業倒産（上場廃止後の倒産を除く）は戦後最多の33件となった。
08年12月は件数が1362件と、単月ベースでは02年12月以来６年ぶりに1300件を上回った。負債総額は6326億6800万円だった。
帝国データバンクも同日、企業倒産集計（法的整理のみ）を発表。08年の倒産件数は15.7％増の１万2681件、負債総額は約２倍の11兆9113億円で、戦後７番目の高水準だった。
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08年企業倒産 件数15％増、負債総額は戦後7番目に 帝国データ
民間調査会社の帝国データバンクが13日発表した2008年の全国の企業倒産集計によると、倒産件数は前年比15.7％増の1万2681件で、前年比での増加は2年連続となった。負債総額は前年と比べて約2倍の11兆9113億円で戦後7番目の水準となった。戦後2番目の大型倒産となったリーマン・ブラザーズ証券のほか、不動産業で大型倒産が相次いだのが影響した。
金融危機と景気後退を受け、7つの業種すべてで倒産件数が前年を上回った。燃料価格の高騰を背景に運輸・通信業で前年比37％増の500件となったほか、建設業が同17.3％増の3446件、卸売業が同18.6％増の1950件となったのが目立った。上場企業の倒産は34件（上場廃止後に倒産した1件を含む）で、02年の29件を上回り6年ぶりに戦後最多を更新した。
帝国データは負債額1000万円以上の法的整理についてまとめている。(15:25)
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08年対内・対外投資、有価証券21兆円資金流出 海外勢、換金売り
財務省が13日発表した2008年暦年の対内・対外証券投資（指定報告機関ベース）によると、株式と債券の売買に伴う日本から海外への資金流出が21兆 2123億円に達した。外国人が日本株・債券を売却したのが主因で、現行基準の統計が始まった05年以降では初めての資金流出に転じた。世界的な金融危機や景気低迷を背景に、日本の資本市場からマネーが逃避したことを裏付けた。
旧基準の統計までさかのぼると、資金流出は04年以来。ただ「08年の資金流出は過去最大の規模とみられる」と財務省は説明している。(11:27)
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世界の弁護士が知恵結集 金融危機受け規制枠組み検討
国際的な弁護士団体、国際法曹協会（ＩＢＡ、ロンドン）は２月にも国際的な金融規制の枠組みなどを検討する金融危機タスクフォース（作業部会）を発足させる方向で調整に入った。ヘッジファンド規制や格付け会社の国際的なルールのあり方などの意見を取りまとめ、再発を防ぐ手だてとするよう各国当局に要請する。
15、16日にロンドンで開催する正副会長会議で川村明副会長が正式に提案し、２月にドバイで開く常任理事会で設置を決定する。(11:01)
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損失肩代わり商品のＥＴＦ、東証が上場検討 英社と提携
東京証券取引所は来年度中に、企業倒産などで将来資金が焦げ付いた場合に損失を肩代わりする商品（ＣＤＳ）の指数を作り、投資信託として上場する検討に入った。企業の信用リスクに応じて価格が上下する分かりやすい仕組みにして、市場の健全な発展につなげる狙い。
損失肩代わり商品は「クレジット・デフォルト・スワップ（ＣＤＳ）」と呼ばれる。本来、企業の倒産に備えた保険のような役割を持つが、ここ数年、投資商品としての側面も強まり、世界で取引規模が急速に拡大した。(10:05)
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サウジが途上国から「卒業」 特恵関税、経済成長で対象外に
途上国からの輸入品にかかる関税を安くする特恵関税制度で、財務省はサウジアラビアを対象国から外す。経済成長で途上国の基準を満たさなくなったため。同国からの輸入品で関税が優遇されている化学品などの税率が高くなる。関連する政令を改正し、４月から実施する。特恵の対象国から“卒業”する国が出るのは２年ぶりとなる。
関税制度には、途上国の経済発展を手助けするため、所得水準の低い国の輸入品に通常より安い税率を課す「特恵関税」の仕組みがある。世界銀行の統計で高所得の国に含まれないなどの基準に該当する155カ国・地域からの輸入品が特恵関税の対象になっている。(07:00)
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水資源ビジネス、官民で本格参入 政府は融資で支援
政府と民間企業は協力して、世界の水資源ビジネスに本格参入する。民間企業を中心に近く協議会を設置、水需要が高まるアジアや中近東を念頭に官民連携で市場開拓を目指す。日本企業が強みを持つ水処理膜や排水処理技術での進出を足がかりに、長期的に利益が見込める上下水道の運営に進出する計画だ。政府は政府系金融機関の融資や貿易保険を通じて支援。年内にもアジアで試験事業を始め、他地域に広げていく方針だ。
世界の水資源ビジネスを巡っては「水メジャー」と呼ばれる欧州の大企業が大きなシェアを占め、日本企業の進出は遅れているのが実情。今後、水ビジネスの市場拡大が見込まれ、国際貢献にもつながることから、官民一体で取り組む必要があると判断した。(07:00)
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個人マネーも銀行シフト 定期預金5.6％増、08年11月末
個人マネーが株式や投資信託から、預金など安全資産へのシフトを加速している。定期預金の残高が昨年11月末時点で前年より６％近く伸びる一方、投信は４割ほど減った。金融混乱で家計が保有する株や投信で100兆円を超える評価損が発生。相場の変動で元本が目減りするリスクを再認識した個人は安全志向を強めている。資金調達では大企業も社債などから借り入れにシフトしており、マネーの銀行依存が一段と鮮明になってきた。
日銀によると、個人の定期預金残高（国内銀行）は08年11月末に約190兆7000億円と前年同月に比べ5.6％増えた。外国銀行と信用金庫を加えても同5.1％の伸び（残高は約256兆9000億円）となった。定期預金は日銀が量的緩和政策を解除した06年春に底を打ち、07年後半から伸び率を高めた。(07:00)
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銀行店舗、08年は15年ぶりに増加 全銀協調べ
銀行の店舗数減少が一段落し、2008年は15年ぶりに増加したことが全国銀行協会の調べで分かった。バブル崩壊後、不良債権処理を優先するため店舗投資を抑えてきた大手行が個人客向けの店舗を拡充した影響が大きい。ただ、昨年秋からの世界的な金融危機で邦銀も体力が弱ってきており、今後も積極的な店舗投資を行えるかは不透明だ。
全銀協によると、08年９月末の銀行店舗数は１万3534。1993年の１万7159をピークに減り続け、07年９月末は１万3516に落ち込んだが、15年ぶりに増加に転じた。(07:00)
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拘留の日本人男性が出国 北朝鮮、２００３年の麻薬密輸容疑者
2009.1.13 13:31
北朝鮮の朝鮮中央通信は１３日、麻薬密輸容疑で２００３年１０月に北朝鮮で摘発、拘留されていた日本人男性が同日、出国したと報道した。出国先には言及しなかった。同日の高麗航空便を利用し、北京経由で帰国する可能性がある。
男性は「日本エンタープライズ株式会社の部長、サワダ・ヨシアキ」氏。貨客船「万景峰９２」が麻薬密輸に使われているとでっち上げるため、「日本の謀略団体がサワダ部長を利用した」ことが判明し、「サワダ部長」が「犯罪容疑と背後関係について認め、謝罪した」という。
日本政府は２００３年以降の日朝協議で、「サワダ部長」の容疑事実関係や送還を取り上げてきた。今回突然、出国措置となった背景は不明だ。（共同）
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よど号犯最後の子女帰国へ 若林容疑者の次男
2009.1.13 12:30
日航機「よど号」を乗っ取り北朝鮮に在住している元赤軍派メンバーの家族のうち、同国に残る最後の子女となっていた若林盛亮容疑者（６１）＝国際手配中＝の次男（１４）が１３日午前、訪朝した代理人に付き添われて帰国の途に就いた。
北朝鮮生まれで日本旅券のない次男は、代理人が準備した旅券に代わる渡航書を所持し、北京国際空港で日本大使館の担当者と帰国手続きを行った。同日午後、関西国際空港に向け出発する。
今回の次男の帰国で、北朝鮮に残るのは容疑者４人と若林容疑者の妻、故田宮高麿・元赤軍派幹部の妻の計６人になる。代理人によると、６人は帰国に向けて、「日本政府と早急に協議したい」との立場を変えていない。代理人は、帰国次第、日本政府にこうした６人の意向を伝えることにしている。（共同）
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中学教諭が校長ら提訴 「嫌がらせで休職」
2009.1.13 13:58
愛媛県四国中央市の市立中学の女性養護教諭（５８）が１３日、校長らの度重なる嫌がらせで休職に追い込まれたとして、県と市のほか、前校長や現校長ら４人に慰謝料計１００万円を求める訴訟を松山地裁に起こした。
訴状などによると、昨年１月、保健室で教員同士のトラブルが発生した際、その場に居合わせた女性教諭の説明に対し、前校長らからうそつき呼ばわりされた。校長が代わった昨年４月以降も、生徒を保健室に行かせないなどして養護教諭の業務を妨害された、としている。教諭は体調を崩し、昨年１２月から休職しているという。
県教委は「訴えの内容を把握していない」としている。
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Shop Horror: Worst Christmas Ever
17 mins ago
SkyNews Sky News
* Print Story
British shops suffered from "truly dreadful" sales figures in December, making it the worst month on record, a survey has revealed.
As consumers reined in spending due to the economic downturn and delayed their Christmas shopping, retailers saw like-for-like sales fall 3.3% compared with December 2007.
The slump made December 2008 the worst sales month on record, barring Easter distortions, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) KPMG Retail Sales Monitor warned.
Stephen Robertson, director general of the BRC, said: "These are truly dreadful numbers.
"Some retailers were more successful than others and the second half of December was better than the first. But overall the food sector was almost the only one to show growth.
"Non-food retailers had a torrid December despite a blizzard of promotions and deals, which would have hit margins.
"Many hard-pressed customers couldn't be seduced into spending."
Food and drink was one of the few sectors to see an increase in sales from November 30 to January 3 - but it had the weakest sales growth since March and was inflated by higher prices.
Footwear was the only other sector to show sales growth over the festive period, although the BRC said this largely reflected heavy discounting.
The rise in online shopping boosted non-food, non-store sales by 30% on a year ago.
However, clothing, furniture and "big ticket" homewares fell further below year-earlier levels in December.
KPMG's head of retail, Helen Dickinson, warned the December figures did not bode well for the year ahead.
"December's performance has historically set the scene for the year ahead, so the outlook is indeed bleak," she said.
The December fall brought the year-on-year comparable sales decline in the fourth quarter of 2008 to 2.7%.
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Hedge fund that invested with Madoff shutting
8 hours 5 mins ago
Reuters Svea Herbst-Bayliss
* Print Story
Hedge-fund firm GMB Capital Management is shutting down a fund that lost millions on bad bets that included having putting money with accused swindler Bernard Madoff, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The Boston-based GMB Low Volatility Fund LP, which had $50 million (33.7 million pounds) in assets at its peak, began liquidating late last year, the sources said.
GMB Capital is run by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Gabriel Bitran and his son Marco.
Low Volatility Fund told investors the fund would rely partially on Bitran's complicated algorithms to deliver low volatility where prices almost never change. The fund also relied on externally managed funds.
The father and son team also funnelled a chunk of money to Madoff, a financier accused last month of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, the sources said.
GMB Capital, which manages other portfolios in addition to the Low Volatility Fund, did not return a call seeking comment.
Nearly four weeks after Madoff's arrest, GMB Capital is the latest player in a scandal that has vaporized millionaires' fortunes, forced a handful of charities to shut down, and been linked with at least one suicide.
It has also embarrassed some of the investment management industry's brightest stars, who trusted the silver-haired Madoff without receiving real details on how he actually made money.
The sources said the Bitrans put 17 percent of the Low Volatility Fund's assets into a hedge fund of funds run by Tremont Group Holdings' Rye Investment unit. The fund's assets have fluctuated and at its peak totalled roughly $50 million.
Rye, in turn, ploughed virtually all of its assets into Madoff and lost $3 billion, lawyers familiar with the matter have said.
The sources said the Bitrans knew Rye was placing the funds with Madoff.
This arrangement left many of the Bitrans' direct investors fuming because traditionally hedge funds do not rely on funds of funds as subadvisers to put their money with other managers.
Madoff's arrest was only the final straw for the already ailing Low Volatility Fund, which was down roughly 50 percent by the end of November, people familiar with the matter said.
The fund began informing investors that it planned to liquidate before Madoff was arrested in December.
Last year, the average hedge fund lost about 19 percent, according to industry researchers.
For funds facing such extreme losses -- and there were hundreds of them last year -- the only solution is to shut down, industry experts said. Between market losses and redemptions, experts estimate that the hedge fund industry shrank by half last year, to about $1 trillion.
Even though the Bitrans' firm was small, it was garnering attention because many investors are looking for the next industry stars and because the large successful hedge funds are often closed to new investors.
Since hedge funds are reserved for wealthy and sophisticated investors, they are supposed to be able to sustain losses. Still, many actors, musicians and captains of industry who select hedge funds feel duped if their portfolios are mismanaged.
The Bitrans boasted strong resumes with degrees from MIT and Harvard and work experience at Wellington Management. GMB Capital's tony address in one of Boston's most vaunted downtown office buildings added to the image that the father and son had all the tools to make their investors' fortunes grow.
The elder Bitran is a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management.
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Producers seek record cut in iron ore price
By Patti Waldmeir in Shanghai and Javier Blas in London
Published: January 13 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 13 2009 02:00
Chinese and Japanese steelmakers have demanded a record 40 per cent cut in iron ore prices in annual benchmark pricing negotiations, but are facing resistance from mining groups.
Vale, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, which account for more than 70 per cent of the world's seaborne traded ore, privately acknowledge that annual contract prices are likely to drop for the first time in seven years. But they are delaying negotiations because they believe ore demand will improve in the next few months.
Traders and analysts said the miners were hoping for a cut of 20 per cent or less after securing a record 85 per cent increase in the 2008-09 negotiations.
Shen Wenrong, chairman of Jiangsu Shagang Group, China's largest private steelmaker, said last week that annual iron ore prices would fall by at least 40-50 per cent in 2009, echoing a consensus view at Chinese steel mills.
Industry officials said Japanese steelmakers were also seeking a 40-50 per cent cut as demand for ore and steel was plunging.
"A price drop is certain, but if the prices don't fall by that much, then the three major iron ore companies [Vale, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton] will lose the Chinese market," Mr Shen was quoted as saying in Caijing, an influential Chinese financial publication.
The secretive iron ore negotiations, which set the price of the bulk of the market, are often acrimonious, with some parties threatening to cancel contracts to improve their bargaining position. Such threats rarely materialise.
Iron ore traders and analysts are anticipating a drop in ore prices, but most believe it will be less severe than the steelmaking industry is demanding. "Realistically a 30 per cent cut will be more achievable", said Du Wei, a Beijing steel analyst for MySteel.
Industry officials said an agreement, which affects ore cargoes for the year starting in April 2009, was unlikely in the near term. The miners were likely to delay a deal until the second quarter betting on a recovery, they added. Last year the talks went beyond the April deadline, with the final contracts signed in June.
The miners' strategy to avoid large price cuts has so far been successful. Since November's low point, spot iron ore prices have rallied by about 30 per cent from $55 a tonne to $72 a tonne on the back of a pick-up in steel production. Iron ore spot prices hit an all-time high of close to $200 a tonne in early 2008.
Max Layton, of Macquarie in London, said the latest signs were "encouraging", although he warned that the sustainability of the rally was in question.
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市民病院も市バス事業も破綻一歩手前 大阪市
2009.1.13 20:29
大阪市は１３日、不良債務１２３億円を抱える市立４病院の市民病院事業会計に、平成２０年度一般会計から１３０億円の繰り入れを検討していることを明らかにした。
繰り入れしない場合、４病院が破綻（はたん）一歩手前とされる経営健全化団体へ転落する。同じ理由で、赤字の市営バス事業も市営地下鉄事業会計から約６８億円の繰り入れを検討。財政難のうえ金融危機で、２１年度には大幅に税収が減る見通しの市には、厳しい選択に迫られる。
病院などの公営企業は、今年度決算から、事業規模に対する不良債務の資金不足比率が２０％を超えると財政健全化法に基づく経営健全化団体とされる。財政上の“黄信号”で、改善計画を策定して国提出するといった制約がつく。
市は市総合医療センター▽北市民病院▽十三市民病院▽住吉市民病院の４病院を一括して市民病院事業を展開。昭和６３年度には約３４億円だった不良債務は、市総合医療センター開院後の平成６年度に１００億円を突破。その後も医療機器購入に伴う企業債償還などで膨らみ、経常収支は１９年度だけで７億２０００万円の赤字になり、資金不足比率は３９・１％に。市は収支改善のため北市民病院を民間医療機関に移譲する計画を進めているが、それでも資金不足比率が健全化基準を大きく超える。
また、市営バス事業の資金不足比率も同年度決算で２９・８％。市交通局で単年度黒字の地下鉄事業から補助金・出資金として支援を検討している。
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２次補正予算案、衆院を通過 自民・松浪政務官も退席
総額2兆円の定額給付金を盛った2008年度第2次補正予算案と関連法案は13日夜の衆院本会議で、与党などの賛成多数で可決、参院に送付された。野党は採決に反対し、民主、社民両党は採決時に退席。共産党は出席し反対、国民新党は本会議を欠席した。同日に自民党を離党した渡辺喜美氏のほか、同党の松浪健太内閣府政務官が採決時に退席した。
麻生太郎首相は同日夜、2次補正などの衆院通過を受け「景気対策の第2弾ロケットであり、1日も早い成立を望んでいるものだ。参院でも早期に審議、採決していただくことを期待する」とのコメントを発表した。
民主、社民、国民新の野党3党が提出した、定額給付金部分を削除した修正案は与党の反対多数で否決された。自民党からの“造反”が2人にとどまったことで、今国会最初のヤマ場を越えた。ただ、関連法案の衆院再可決が可能になる3月中旬にも再び緊迫した局面を迎える見通しだ。(20:36)
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オウム真理教：公安審査委が聴取 「ひかりの輪」からも
団体規制法に基づく観察処分更新請求で意見陳述を終え会見に臨むオウム真理教（アレフに改称）の荒木浩広報部長＝司法記者クラブで２００９年１月１３日午後３時５６分、塩入正夫撮影
団体規制法に基づく観察処分更新請求で意見陳述を終え会見に臨むオウム真理教（アレフに改称）の荒木浩広報部長＝司法記者クラブで２００９年１月１３日午後３時５６分、塩入正夫撮影
公安審査委員会は１３日、オウム真理教（アレフに改称）の幹部らから、団体規制法に基づく観察処分の更新について意見聴取した。公安調査庁が教団と同一組織と指摘した新団体「ひかりの輪」からも聴取した。両団体はそれぞれ処分更新の却下などを求めた。
意見陳述後に両団体がそれぞれ会見。アレフは「松本智津夫（麻原彰晃）死刑囚に教団を主宰する高度な意思判断能力はなく、松本死刑囚が主宰する団体は実在しない団体」として却下を求めた。ひかりの輪は「アレフとは別団体」だとして処分団体からの除外を主張した。
公安庁が昨年１２月、３年間の観察処分更新を公安審に請求しており、公安審は今月末までに結論を出す。
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租税条約：クウェートと締結で合意 産油国と初
財務省は１３日、クウェートとの間で投資促進に向けた租税条約の締結で基本合意したと発表した。政府はすでに米欧などの先進国を中心に計５６カ国と租税条約を結んでいるが、中東・産油国との締結は初。サウジアラビアやアラブ首長国連邦（ＵＡＥ）とも条約締結交渉を進めており、中東諸国との関係強化でオイルマネーの対日投資増加を目指す。
租税条約は、企業や投資家に対する課税方法の明確化▽配当・利子収入や特許使用料への課税措置の軽減－－など、投資にかかわる税制上の基本ルールを定めることで、２国間の投資・経済活動を活発化させるのが目的。
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自主回収：輸入香辛料などにガンマ線照射の恐れ
食品輸入販売「フェアトレードカンパニー」（東京都世田谷区）は１３日、０５年以降にインドから輸入した香辛料「ピープル・ツリー インド・本格派マサラ」と茶「ピープル・ツリー かんたんチャイ」を自主回収すると発表した。食品衛生法で禁じられているガンマ線が照射された恐れがあるため。健康被害の報告はないという。
同社によると、欧米では殺菌のため基準値以内の放射線の照射が認められており、日本向けのこの２商品にも誤って照射された可能性が高いという。問い合わせは同社（０３・５７３１・６６７１）。
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景気ウオッチ：街角景況感１５．９Ｐ 過去最低また更新
内閣府が１３日発表した昨年１２月の景気ウオッチャー調査によると、街角の景況感を示す現状判断指数は前月比５．１ポイント下落の１５．９となり、データが比較可能な０１年８月以降からの過去最低を３カ月連続で更新した。金融危機後に企業が踏み切った急激な減産と雇用調整が、個人消費の一段の冷え込みを招き、不況の影響が連鎖的に広がっている。
家計、企業、雇用関連すべてで過去最悪を更新した。内閣府は、街角景気は「一段と厳しさを増している」とし、基調判断を２カ月ぶりに下方修正した。０８年夏場にかけて高騰した原油価格は下落しているが、世界不況が原因で、景況感の改善にはつながっていない。
派遣社員の削減やボーナス減を背景に歳末商戦が振るわず、九州の百貨店は「客の購買意欲が全く感じられず、販売数量は前年比２０％以上の減少」と指摘。「非正規社員の削減に加え、正社員の希望退職を募集する動きもある」（東海の職業安定所）との声も出てきた。政府が住宅ローン減税の効果を期待する住宅分野でも「景気悪化で住宅ローンの審査が厳しくなり、契約に結びつかない」（北関東の住宅販売会社）、「収入減によるローン借入金の減額審査、離職・転勤による建築計画の中止が出ている」（中国の住宅販売会社）など状況は厳しい。
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国連広報センター：政府が支援費を半減 定期預金保有で
国連広報センター（東京）が、日本政府の拠出金の一部を定期預金として保有していた問題で、中曽根弘文外相は１３日、来年度の広報活動支援費を半減することを明らかにした。衆院予算委員会で、保坂展人議員（社民）の質問に答えた。
同センターには政府が広報活動支援費と施設費を毎年約２０００万円ずつ支出している。ところが、０７年末時点で５００万円の定期預金を含む１０００万円が残っていた。中曽根外相は「長期間出し入れ無く、保有されていたのは遺憾」として、来年度予算を１０００万円減額すると表明した。
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Greeks bearing gifts
By John Authers
Published: January 12 2009 19:09 | Last updated: January 12 2009 19:09
The market fears the Greeks, even when bearing gifts. It is also scared about the Irish and the Spanish.
Greece has always been treated as a peripheral eurozone member, not only in geography. Even before last year’s civil unrest, its bonds traded at a significantly higher yield than those of Germany – showing a higher perceived default risk.
The market is nervous about other nations on the eurozone’s periphery, notably Ireland and Spain, which grew overextended during the credit bubble.
A eurozone country defaulting and leaving the euro is close to an unthinkable event. But Friday’s news from Standard & Poor’s that Greece and Ireland were on review for a possible downgrade, followed on Monday by Spain, left many thinking the unthinkable.
The spread of Greek bonds over German bunds is 2.32 percentage points, almost 10 times its level of two years ago. Spanish spreads on Monday rose above 90 for the first time. An Intrade prediction market future puts the odds on a current eurozone member leaving the euro by the end of next year at about 30 per cent.
The euro dropped more than 1 per cent against the dollar within minutes of the Spanish news, and is down 9.8 per cent in the last few weeks.
A crisis over Greece might be the euro’s ultimate “stress test” (to borrow a phrase from Daniel Katzive of Credit Suisse). If the eurozone could find a way to deal with a default, that might confirm the euro’s status as the world’s next reserve currency.
But if the eurozone could not work out a solution, and a country exited, any such ambition would be over.
The dollar-euro exchange rate affects many other assets.
Now that fears are in the open that Greece (or another peripheral country) could be the Trojan horse that breaks up the euro, any news on this front could shake many other markets.
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Top traders hold key to success in their hands
By Clive Cookson in London
Published: January 12 2009 23:18 | Last updated: January 12 2009 23:18
Scientists will on Tuesday give banks a new tool for gauging the money-making prowess of financial traders – the lengths of their fingers.
Researchers at Cambridge university have found a strong statistical link between the profitability of male traders at a London bank and the ratio of index to ring fingers on their right hand. The longer the fourth digit in relation to the second, the more money the traders are likely to make.
This ratio, known as “2D:4D”, is affected by the amount of male hormone to which people are exposed while growing in their mother’s womb.
Previous research has shown that higher prenatal exposure to testosterone and other male hormones leads to a lower 2D:4D ratio. Finger ratios have been used to predict performance in competitive sports.
“We were surprised to find that exposure to hormones in the womb had such a strong influence on future trading performance,” said John Coates, lead author of the study, which is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a leading US journal.
Traders with the lowest 2D:4D ratios had an average annual income of £680,000 – 11 times higher than those with the highest ratios. The ratios, measured from photocopies of volunteers’ hands, ranged from 0.90 to 1.02.
The 49 traders who volunteered for the experiment came from an unnamed bank, which employs about 200 men on its high-frequency trading floor – and just three women. They try to make money from fleeting price anomalies and hold their positions for minutes, or even seconds.
Last year, the same Cambridge researchers reported the results of a different experiment in which they found that traders with the highest levels of testosterone in their body during the morning went on to make the most profit during the day.
Dr Coates, who ran a trading desk for Deutsche Bank before moving to academia, denied that the research would lead to hiring on Wall Street and in the City being decided by “biomarkers” such as finger ratios.
“Population statistics such as ours give average effects over a population but can be tricky when applied to individuals,” he said.
The next stage in the Cambridge research will be to look at other types of financial trading. “When it comes to long-run investments, we may well find that successful individuals have higher, more feminine digit ratios,” he said.
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