UK plans to ban use of offshore centres
By Vanessa Houlder
Published: March 30 2009 00:02 | Last updated: March 30 2009 00:48
Banks operating in Britain will be banned from using tax havens if they sign up to a draft code of practice drawn up by the government to address a row over their aggressive tax planning.
The draft, which also gives the tax authorities the final say over whether they consider a deal to be avoidance, is more radical than businesses expected when it was announced by Alistair Darling last month. But its stringency will add to widespread scepticism that banks will sign up to the voluntary code, fuelling suspicions that it is primarily a political damage limitation exercise.
Some senior bankers who have seen the draft code, to be published in next month’s Budget, have been alarmed by its emphasis on paying tax in accordance with the “spirit as well as the letter of the law”, a subjective concept that would alter fundamentally the balance of power between banks and Revenue & Customs.
The code will only succeed if the government is able to persuade all banks, including UK branches of overseas banks, to sign up to it. The government believes that banks will accept the code because of public anger over avoidance at a time when taxpayers are providing support for the industry. Dave Hartnett, permanent secretary for tax at Revenue & Customs, told the Financial Times he believed banks operating in Britain would sign up to the code after a period of consultation.
The code is designed to stop companies using offshore jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands that are viewed with suspicion by tax authorities. The ban is likely to fuel the controversy over the “tax haven” label, which has never been defined successfully.
The code is unlikely to curb the use of onshore centres such as Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Delaware for corporate tax planning. It will also permit the use of havens for “non-tax commercial reasons” which could justify many transactions in jurisdictions such as Jersey and the Isle of Man.
In recent weeks, corporate lawyers have fought back against the perception that the use of tax havens is inherently suspect, arguing they are valuable for their tax neutrality and for the ability to sidestep irrelevant complications in the tax code. Miles Walton, a partner of Allen & Overy, a law firm, said they “played a helpful and beneficial part in the world of international finance and investments”.
Lord Myners, City minister, told the House of Lords this week that tax avoidance was a moral issue: “We can no longer hide behind the excuse that there is no acceptable definition of avoidance.”
The code defines tax avoidance as any outcome which could “reasonably be expected to be unintended by parliament or tax authorities” in a move likely to infuriate businesses.
But the attempt to invoke the spirit of the law has shocked some legal experts. Judith Freedman, a professor of tax law at Oxford University, said: “There is a fundamental issue here about the rule of law in how we attempt to control the behaviour of taxpayers. It is whether we use legislation or whether we use the discretion of unelected officials.”
Baroness Noakes, shadow Treasury spokesman, said last week that the complexity of the tax code meant it was difficult to identify its spirit.
“I believe that taxation needs to be imposed by clear law,” she said.
The proposed code would bar any tax planning round the pay and bonuses of senior executives. Mr Hartnett said there was little current evidence of bonuses escaping tax.
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Farmers to cut US planting
By Javier Blas in London
Published: March 29 2009 20:04 | Last updated: March 30 2009 00:13
US farmers are set to sow fewer acres this spring with crops such as corn and wheat, breaking a string of four years of increases in a move likely to support agricultural commodities prices through the economic crisis.
The US Department of Agriculture will reveal its first acreage estimate on Tuesday in its Prospective Plantings report. Because the country exports half the world’s corn, a third of world soyabeans, and a fifth of the world’s wheat, changes in acreage and hence in output have a huge impact in global food prices.
Traders anticipate a drop in almost every major crop with the exception of soyabean, bringing the country’s cropland to about 248m acres, down 2 per cent from last year. Farmers are planting less because reduced profitability on the back of current low prices and high cost for fertilisers.
The overall acreage fall would be the first since 2005 when US farmers started to expand their cropland to cash in on high prices brought by strong consumption from the nascent ethanol industry and developing countries such as China.
Ranchers are also expected to cut sharply their production of meat and poultry this season, the first simultaneous drop in animal protein output since 1973.
Although the drop in cropland and meat output will support prices, analysts were unanimous in warning that the deep global economic crisis’ impact on demand would cap any spike and that a repetition of last year’s record prices was unlikely.
The key US crop is corn and traders forecast a drop in planting to 82-84m acres, down from last year’s 86m and 2007’s peak of 90.5m. “It appears certain that 2009-10 US corn balance sheet forecasts will tighten significantly,” said Lewis Hagerdon, an agricultural commodities strategist at JPMorgan.
Corn prices have fallen to $3.90 a bushel, lower than last Junes’s record high of $7.65, because of lower demand. But prices remain above their 10-year average of $2.75 and the prospect of lower supplies is keeping forward prices for the next crop season at a premium above current spot levels.
Traders said farmers faced high cost for fertilisers, a critical input for corn, and were likely to plant alternatively more soyabean, which requires less fertiliser. Traders see soyabean’s acreage above 80m acres, up from last year’s 75.7m. Cotton planting is likely to hit its lowest level in 26 years as US farmers move away from the fibre amid low returns.
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India looks to China to fill power deficit
By Joe Leahy in Mumbai
Published: March 30 2009 00:07 | Last updated: March 30 2009 00:07
Chinese companies are building $7bn of power plant equipment for customers in India, in a business that is underpinning growing trade between Asia’s second and third largest economies.
Chinese producers are processing orders from India for 20,000 megawatts of boilers, turbines and generators, the main equipment in a power station, according to Lloyd’s Register, which provides third-party assurance certification services for the power business.
“India and China both need each other for growth. There’s huge demand on the Indian side and there’s huge supply available on the Chinese side – and that is creating a big opportunity for trade,” said Swaminathan Krishnaswamy, vice-president for India chemicals and power and Sino-India business development at Lloyd’s Register.
The main Chinese suppliers include Shanghai Electric, Dongfang Electric and Harbin Electric. Indian buyers include industrial groups Reliance, Essar, Adani, KSK Industries, JSW Energy and Jindal Steel & Power.
Bilateral trade between India and China has grown rapidly. It was forecast to reach $20bn last year from just $1.2bn in 1995, and is targeted to double to $40bn by 2010.
The power equipment business shows that differences between the Chinese and Indian development models can lead to trade helping both weather the economic downturn.
While India has specialised in services exports, excelling in industries such as information technology outsourcing, China has developed an unparalleled ability to roll out big-ticket infrastructure to support its huge trade in merchandise exports.
As India becomes more prosperous and seeks to create more manufacturing jobs for its vast pool of unskilled labour, it urgently needs to upgrade its infrastructure.
In the power sector, however, India’s main producer of boilers and other large equipment, Bharat Heavy Electrical, has been overwhelmed with orders.
It has capacity for only about 10,000 MW of power equipment a year compared with the government’s target for the five years ending 2012 to build power plants with capacity of 78,000 MW, forcing India to look to China to help fill the gap.
Another reason many Indian groups are buying Chinese power equipment is that they are able to deliver much more quickly than indigenous groups.
Chinese producers can deliver equipment for a 4,000 MW facility in about 18 months, up to 30 per cent quicker than their Indian counterparts.
This is important when India is facing an annual power deficit between output and demand of about 9-13 per cent.
“Despite strong economic growth, India’s power sector is undercapacity and plagued by inefficiencies in generation, transmission and distribution,” McKinsey & Co wrote in a recent report on India’s infrastructure, “Building India”.
Lloyd’s Register says it has about 75 per cent market share in the third-party assurance market for the China-India power trade with contracts in the area worth about $4m.
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Secrets of success
By Jack Burton
Published: March 26 2009 12:59 | Last updated: March 26 2009 12:59
Singapore has the ambition to become the Monaco of Asia, with all the attributes for which the European principality is well-known.
The south-east Asian city-state held its first Formula One grand prix last September. Super-yachts are berthed at new luxury harbour facilities. The first casino resort is scheduled to open this year. And dozens of international private banks have sprouted since 2004 as the government has made a concerted push to establish the country as the regional centre for wealth management services.
Officials hate Singapore being described as a tax haven. They prefer to say it is a low-tax jurisdiction. Nevertheless, Singapore has long been a favoured destination for the rich to stash their cash. It gained a reputation as a financial bolthole in the 1960s, as ethnic Chinese business tycoons in south-east Asia viewed Singapore as a safe haven to protect their funds from confiscation by local governments that resented the wealth accumulated by the Chinese elite.
Singapore’s rise as a wealth management centre for those beyond Asia got a boost in 2005 with the adoption of the European Union Savings Directive, under which banks in tax sanctuaries such as Switzerland must impose withholding taxes on accounts held by EU citizens if the names of the account holders are not revealed.
In response, Credit Suisse and UBS established their biggest private banking operations outside of Switzerland in Singapore, and were followed by smaller European private banks including Julius Baer and Liechtenstein’s LGT.
What attracted them to Singapore was the bank secrecy laws, which are among the world’s strictest. In addition, the country has no law against international tax evasion. “Under current law, Singapore will not assist in tax evasion cases in foreign jurisdictions,” says Edmund Leow, a tax lawyer at Baker & McKenzie. Wong & Leow in Singapore.
Singapore does not tax the global income of those holding local bank accounts. Residents are subject to a maximum tax rate of 20 per cent on local salary income, and investment income is tax-free. The corporate tax rate will be cut by 1 percentage point to 17 per cent this year, making it among the lowest in the world.
Singapore’s bank secrecy laws are based on British common law, inherited from its former colonial rulers. Although it has signed double-taxation treaties with 60 countries, “Singapore has been much more restrictive than the UK in the exchange of information” under these treaties, says Leow.
An important exception is its qualified intermediary agreement with the US, which requires all foreign banks that operate in the US to disclose overseas bank accounts held by US citizens. Singapore also has laws banning the laundering of money from internationally recognised illegal activities, such as drug trafficking and financial fraud, or funds looted from national treasuries by foreign leaders or their families.
“We do not stand for the abuse of our [banking] laws to shelter criminals,” Lim Hwee Hua, a senior finance ministry official, told parliament recently. But Singapore is under growing pressure from foreign governments to disclose more information about local bank accounts to counter tax evasion.
One crucial test of the city-state’s resolve to maintain bank secrecy has been a demand by the EU that Singapore – along with Hong Kong – accept the EU Savings Directive. So far, Singapore has refused to do so and the dispute has blocked the signing of an EU-Singapore partnership agreement to promote closer co-operation.
In addition, Singapore could attract the attention of the new Obama administration in the US, which has vowed to take drastic actions against countries that it sees as tax havens.
Singapore appears to be softening its stance somewhat. The government is considering adopting standards set by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for transparency and effective exchange of tax information. “Singapore agrees with the principles behind the OECD standard, which will serve to help government address offshore tax offences,” Lim told parliament.
Under the OECD rules, Singapore would have to assist with information requests on specific tax evasion cases from its tax treaty partners. But the city-state would have the right to reject such a request if its purpose was unclear or it appeared that foreign governments were engaging in “fishing expeditions” to gain information to identify possible tax evaders.
How far Singapore is willing to go to disclose information under the OECD rules will be important for the future of its private banking industry, which is a pillar of the financial services sector. An aggressive enforcement of the rules would probably drive away some private banks.
The sector is already reeling from the effects of the global financial crisis. “High net worth individuals have been among the hardest hit in Asia by the crisis, which has slowed the growth of the wealth management industry,” says Cem Karacadag, an economist with Credit Suisse in Singapore.
However, if the city-state is able to maintain some degree of bank secrecy, the crisis could prove beneficial in the years ahead. “Singapore is likely to see a bigger inflow of money as western countries raise taxes to finance the bail-out of their local banking systems,” says a Singapore-based private banker.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Major cyber spy network uncovered
08:16 GMT, Sunday, 29 March 2009 09:16 UK
Major cyber spy network uncovered
A computer keyboard (file image)
An electronic spy network, based mainly in China, has infiltrated computers from government offices around the world, Canadian researchers say.
They said the network had infiltrated 1,295 computers in 103 countries.
They included computers belonging to foreign ministries and embassies and those linked with the Dalai Lama - Tibet's spiritual leader.
There is no conclusive evidence China's government was behind it, researchers say. Beijing also denied involvement.
The report comes after a 10-month investigation by the Information Warfare Monitor (IWM), which comprises researchers from Ottawa-based think tank SecDev Group and the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies.
They were acting on a request from the Tibetan spiritual leader's office to check whether the computers of his Tibetan exile network had been infiltrated.
Researchers found that ministries of foreign affairs of Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Barbados and Bhutan appear to had been targeted.
Hacked systems were also discovered in the embassies of India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta, Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Pakistan.
Compromised
The researchers said hackers were apparently able to take control of computers belonging to several foreign ministries and embassies across the world using malicious software, or malware.
"We uncovered real-time evidence of malware that had penetrated Tibetan computer systems, extracting sensitive documents from the private office of the Dalai Lama," investigator Greg Walton was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying.
The Dalai Lama
They say they believe the system, which they called GhostNet, was focused on governments in Asia.
By installing malware on compromised computers, hackers were able to take control of them to send and receive classified data.
In this case, the software also gave hackers the ability to use audio and video recording devices to monitor the rooms the computers were in. But investigators said they did not know whether or not this element had been used.
According to the New York Times, the spying operation is the largest to have been uncovered in terms of the number of countries affected.
In an abstract for the report entitled The Snooping Dragon: Social Malware Surveillance of the Tibetan Movement - posted on the IWM website - investigators said while such attacks were not new, these particularly stood out for their ability to collect "actionable intelligence for use by the police and security services of a repressive state, with potentially fatal consequences for those exposed".
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Mizuho to halt global expansion
By Michiyo Nakamoto in Tokyo
Published: March 27 2009 00:06 | Last updated: March 27 2009 00:06
Mizuho, Japan’s second largest banking group, is putting its overseas expansion on ice and refocusing its resources on the domestic market, said Takashi Tsukamoto, its president-designate.
In a switch from his predecessor’s policy of global expansion, Mr Tsukamoto, who will become chief executive on April 1, plans to return Mizuho to its roots of lending to Japanese corporations.
“Basically, we will refocus our resources on domestic lending,” Mr Tsukamoto told the Financial Times.
His decision comes amid growing concern about financial protectionism, as banks in the main economies come under pressure to increase lending in their home markets.
“There is a slight tendency [towards financial protectionism]”, Mr Tsukamoto said.
“Lending overseas was a driver for the past few years [but] ... especially because western economies are not doing well ... it will be phased down.”
Three years ago Mizuho Corporate Bank, the group’s wholesale and commercial arm, made a public “declaration” that it wanted to become a “global bank” and raise overseas revenues from 22 per cent to 40 per cent of overall revenues.
That strategy was, in part, driven by a shift by Mizuho Corporate Bank’s main customers among large Japanese companies to the capital markets.
But Mr Tsukamoto said the global financial crisis had made it difficult to raise funds on the capital markets, and “even big companies are asking for loans”.
Bank lending in Japan has increased 4 per cent each month since November.
But banks are under growing pressure to increase lending further, with authorities repeatedly urging them to accept capital injections from the government.
Mr Tsukamoto denied that Mizuho, which has raised Y800bn ($8.1bn) in capital this financial year, would need to raise more funds right away.
Mizuho has so far suffered Y742bn in losses related to US subprime and other products in the past two years, but a more cautious approach currently means: “We haven’t taken business risks that will require immediate capital enhancement.”
According to Yasuhiro Sato, who is to head Mizuho Corporate Bank: “It is becoming important to use capital for our clients, not for our own business.”
In spite of the growth in domestic lending, Mizuho expects business in Japan to be tough for a year or so.
Satoru Nishibori, the new head of Mizuho Bank, which serves retail customers and small and medium-sized businesses, said: “We can no longer go on the offensive.”
Mr Nishibori brushed away fears that non-performing loans would surge as a result of the economic downturn.
Mizuho’s non-performing loan ratio, which exceeded 6 per cent in Japan’s banking crisis, is about 1.3 per cent. “I can’t even imagine this going to 3 per cent,” he said.
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Ras al-Khaimah mines a variety of seams
By Simeon Kerr in Dubai
Published: March 25 2009 17:00 | Last updated: March 25 2009 17:00
Ras al-Khaimah, the mountainous northern outpost of the United Arab Emirates, never had much oil, rather like Dubai, its more famous neighbour. But rather than basing its economy on trade, it chose to look underground for mineral wealth and to adopt an industrial strategy.
That has led to a large ceramics factory – RAK Ceramics – cement factories and quarrying in the Hajar mountains becoming the chosen vehicles for developing the emirate.
RAK Minerals & Mines Investments, a joint venture between RAK Ceramics and Trimex, an Indian minerals group, has taken that strategy international. The partners are investing in and developing raw materials for the industries that underpin the emirate’s fortunes.
The company has invested in clay mines in Thailand and Indonesia, an important raw material for RAK Ceramics, while also mining for copper in Congo and Armenia.
Madhu Koneru, managing director of RMMI, says the investment will mean price stability in the future, allowing the emirate to plan with more confidence.
“The ruler could see the need for constant prices,” says Mr Koneru, whose family business has built up a trade partnership with the government since the 1970s. “Why not invest in the resources needed for infrastructure?”
The latest venture, investing in a coal mine in the Indonesian region of East Kalimantan and building a related railway and port to transport the coal to the sea, follows that logic. But this time the rationale can be found in the emirate’s thorniest problem over the past year: power, or more accurately, the lack of it.
An over-reliance on the UAE federal power authority has left Ras al-Khaimah starved of enough electricity to power a series of real estate developments. Sheikh Saud bin Qasr Al Qasimi, the emirate’s crown prince, launched the developments during the years of the petrodollar boom, with the vision of turning Ras al-Khaimah into a mini-Dubai.
Long before the credit crunch tightened the noose on the property market, the emirate had decided that it needed to seize the initiative in terms of utilities.
Coal is an interesting, if controversial, alternative to the gas-fuelled power that is becoming the norm in the Gulf, which contains some of the world’s largest natural gas resources. Ajman, another UAE emirate with buildings standing empty for lack of electricity, also has plans for a coal-fired station.
Mr Koneru says Ras al-Khaimah’s coal-fired plant, which will be launched in 2011, will develop to a maximum capacity of 1,000MW and need more than 7m tons of coal a year. About 35 to 50 per cent of of the coal from the Indonesian venture will go to Ras al-Khaimah, with the remainder exported to other Asian markets such as Japan and India.
The regional government is a 7.5 per cent equity partner in the project, which will see the joint venture build a 120km railway on the eastern side of Borneo, which will cost about $1bn over five years, but halve road transportation costs. The project should pay back its costs in about five to 10 years, Mr Koneru says.
Using coal will cut the emirate’s costs up to 30 to 40 per cent compared to gas-fired power, but it throws up environmental concerns, which are noted by UAE residents who see the pollution surrounding the emirate’s existing cement factories. The global trend is against burning fossil fuels such as coal.
But Mr Koneru plays down such worries, saying the coal has a particularly low sulphur content, allowing for cleaner burning. The location of the power plant, wedged between a port and a cement works, will also integrate their systems, allowing ash from the burned coal to be used in the cement plant.
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India's disillusioned Muslims pin their hopes on politics
By Amy Kazmin in Aligarh, India
Published: March 28 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 28 2009 02:00
The thriving campus of Aligarh Muslim University in northern India embodies the modern face of the country's 150m-strong Muslim community.
Young men in skullcaps and burka-clad women walk among neat flower-beds and Indo-Islamic buildings on the grounds of the school, founded more than a century ago as a beacon of rational western-style education for south Asia's Muslims.
Yet there is a disquiet among the 30,000 students. "Intelligence agents are everywhere, watching everything," says one academic. It's a common feeling as the government has grown more suspicious of its large Muslim minority, especially after terror attacks rocked main Indian cities over the last year.
Deep insecurity still haunts India's Muslims, 62 years after the traumatic partition of the British-ruled subcontinent into Hindu -majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
Although their families stayed in ostensibly secular India, Indian Muslims say they have been treated as second-class citizens of doubtful loyalty, if not as outright traitors and terrorists.
Perceptions of pervasive discrimination were reinforced by a 2006 government report, which found the Muslims were one of the most educationally, economically and socially deprived communities in India, with a status similar to Dalits, the lowest caste Hindus formerly known as "untouchables".
However, as India gears up for parliamentary elections beginning next month, Muslims are debating how better to assert themselves politically to redress their grievances and prevent their community from falling further behind in India's fast-developing economy. "Muslims are thinking, 'If other parties are not willing to give us our share, we have to reorganise our vote'," said Mohammad Muqim, chair of Aligarh Muslim's philosophy department.
For decades after independence, Muslims were a bulwark of support for the Congress party, with its professed commitment to secularism. Its main rival, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party, portrays India as a Hindu society and has accused Congress of "minority appeasement".
In recent years, Muslims have watched other downtrodden groups, including Dalits, gain greater political clout for their communities by voting along caste lines.
However, Muslims, dispersed across the country, have struggled to gain influence in the first-past-the-post electoral system.
Although they account for 14 per cent of the population, Muslims have normally held just 6 to 9 per cent of parliamentary seats, scattered among various parties. Some constituencies with significant numbers of Muslim voters have long been reserved for low-caste Hindu representatives as part of New Delhi's effort to redress injustices stemming from the caste system.
Elsewhere, votes have been fragmented as competing parties fielded rival Muslim candidates.
There has been disillusionment with Muslim politicians, amid suspicions that national parties consciously promote those with questionable or tarnished records as "token" Muslims.
"The bad characters from Muslim society are being sheltered by political parties," says Saleem Peerzada, an Aligarh Muslim-educated engineer. "They don't want a real, effective, educated Muslim leadership to emerge."
India is not without Muslim success stories. Its vast film industry is dominated by Muslim superstars. Wipro, one of its biggest software companies, is controlled by a Muslim, Azim Premji. Muslims are scattered across government, the professions and the private sector.
Yet even many successful Muslims feel their community faces entrenched barriers that can be removed only by greater political clout.
"Our experience compelled us - politics is a must," says Amanullah Khan, who has spent 25 years promoting education among Muslims, and complains of authorities' reluctance to recognise Muslim-run schools. "We must have a party under our own leadership, from which we can bargain in a better way."
To that end, Mr Khan, a political novice, plans to contest parliamentary elections with the Assam United Democratic Front party. The three-year-old Muslim-led party won 10 seats in the Assam state legislature and will field about 25 candidates in the national polls.
The Parcham party, founded by Mr Peerzada, has focused on contesting municipal and local council elections from Muslim areas.
Meanwhile, the All India Milli Council, a Muslim organisation, has begun endorsing candidates, as part of a strategy to unify Muslim votes. Manzoor Alam, its secretary-general, says Muslim influence may not be felt for a decade but "by 2019, we will be reaching the point that no political parties may ignore the genuine demands of Muslims".
To some, there is not a moment to lose, given the deep sense of disillusionment among many Muslim youths. "You are pushing them to the wall," says Abusaleh Shariff, a demographer who helped write the report on the status of Muslims. "The question is, will they ultimately take up arms and revolution?"
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King Abdullah appoints deputy
By Abeer Allam in Riyadh
Published: March 28 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 28 2009 02:00
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah yesterday appointed his half-brother Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz as the new second deputy prime minister, signalling that he would be next in line for the throne after the ailing Crown Prince Sultan.
The appointment of Prince Naif, 74, who has been the kingdom's interior minister for more than 30 years and is seen as a conservative, will help to allay fears of a succession crisis should anything happen to the 84-year-old king. Abeer Allam, Riyadh
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Air waves give Mediterranean tycoons new wings
By Paul Betts
Published: March 27 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 27 2009 02:00
Making money in telecoms seems to have become a good way of getting a boarding pass to run an airline these days. At least this is the case of Roberto Colaninno, the new chairman of Alitalia, and Andreas Vgenopolous, the flamboyant Greek businessman who has just stepped into the cockpit of Olympic Airlines.
A decade ago, Mr Colaninno took the Italian business establishment by surprise by mounting a bid for Telecom Italia in what was at the time one of the biggest hostile takeovers seen in Europe. He was subsequently taken over by Pirelli but left with a handsome profit. He then set about reviving the Piaggio scooter maker but soon sought a new challenge. A couple of months ago he took control of Alitalia with a group of other Italian investors to rescue the loss making Italian flag carrier.
Mr Vgenopolous this week has done something similar. His Marfin Investment Group last year sold its strategic 20 per cent stake in the Greek telecoms incumbent OTE to Deutsche Telekom for €2.5bn ($3.4bn). It has now decided to spend some of the loose change from its telecoms deal by agreeing to pay the Greek government €177.2m to gain control of Olympic Airlines - an even bigger European aviation basket case than Alitalia. Olympic, after all, has apparently been losing €2m a day.
To give Mr Vgenopolous and Mr Colaninno a better chance to succeed in their new airline ventures, their respective governments have also agreed to assume the airlines' toxic assets as part of their sale. The European Commission has already approved the writeoff of more than €2.6bn in Olympic accumulated debt and has suspended court action over the repayment of €850m in state aid. Rome has also given Mr Colaninno a clean slate in return for his commitments to revive the airline.
The Italian businessman has also wasted little time to strike up a strategic alliance with a strong airline partner to reinforce his recovery strategy. This week Air France-KLM finalised its acquisition of a 25 per cent strategic stake in the new Alitalia.
It would not be surprising to see Mr Vgenopolous eventually do the same - perhaps not with a big European carrier but rather with a Middle East operator, such as Dubai-based Emirates, which could be interested in developing a new European platform around Athens. This is not just idle speculation. After all, Marfin Investment Group's biggest shareholder is a Dubai sovereign wealth fund.
But if there are some intriguing similarities in the Alitalia and Olympic rescues, there is also one big difference. By merging the new Alitalia with its main domestic rival Air One, the Italian salvage deal follows the general if questionable and somewhat anti-competitive trend of flag carriers seeking to regain or reinforce their dominance of their domestic market.
One recent lesson of the airline industry is that carriers need to secure a dominant position of their domestic market to survive. But decades of mismanagement at Alitalia systematically eroded its dominant position in its all-important domestic market, and even with Air One it is still likely to be a long haul to regain it.
The Greeks, however, are taking a more virtuous approach. The government rejected on competition grounds a last-minute bid for Olympic by Aegean Airlines, a profitable, private Greek airline that last year carried more passengers than Olympic. This is clearly good news for Greek airline passengers. But will these two Greek rivals manage at the end of the day to remain commercially viable when everybody else is reverting to old domestic monopolies?
This poses another Socratic question - will the Greeks with their virtuous exception end up setting the trend or will the Greek exception simply prove the rule?
Wendel wars
The latest turmoil at Wendel is the result of poor investment decisions. In recent years, the family-controlled group that once built cannons for Louis XIV had converted itself into a blue-blooded investment company.
But Jean-Bernard Lafonta, its whizz-kid chief executive, broke a cardinal rule of private equity by unbalancing his portfolio of majority-owned assets with a large minority stake in Saint-Gobain, one of France's leading industrial companies. Worse, he accumulated this stake at the wrong time paying 70 per cent more than the conglomerate's shares are worth today.
If this were not bad enough, the 900 or so family members were outraged when the board led by Ernest-Antoine Seillière handsomely rewarded the Wendel patriarch, Mr Lafonta and other executives with a €324m package of shares. That may have been just about acceptable when the company was flourishing, but not in the current climate. Mr Lafonta is finally going, paying the price for his ill-timed and ill-considered Saint-Gobain investment. The chairman is hanging on but will have to bend backwards to regain the confidence of many of his angry family members.
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Swiss bankers work their way through grief
By Richard Milne in Geneva
Published: March 28 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 28 2009 02:00
Swiss banking secrecy might be on the wane but restaurant secrecy appears to be alive and kicking.
An attempt to inquire about the mood of Geneva's private bankers this week at a restaurant close to their discreet headquarters on the Rue du Rhone was met by a firm " pas de commentaire " at the Relais de l'Entrecote restaurant. A banker rushing off outside was a little more helpful: "Things aren't very good. People here are very angry with how it is all being blamed on us."
Approaches to possible bank customers were no more successful. Outside Banque Jacob Safra came one of the few responses: "Leave me in peace."
The mood in Geneva is compared by one senior private banker to the "stages of grief" outlined by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a Swiss psychiatrist. Right now, he says, the private banks are somewhere in between the first two stages: denial and anger. "Bargaining comes next and then acceptance," he adds, helpfully omitting the intermediary stage of depression.
All this follows moves by countries led by the US and Germany to clamp down on tax evasion and bank secrecy. Switzerland agreed this month to ease its legendary bank secrecy laws.
In Geneva itself, the banker's analysis seems borne out. The head of one private bank says secrecy "is not going to go". He points to the country's model of direct democracy, where citizens vote on many issues by referendum. "The Swiss will never vote for it. They don't want to be transparent."
Anger in Geneva is focused especially on Germany and Peer Steinbrück, its finance minister, who has caused enormous offence for comments in which he likened the pressure on Switzerland to the 7th Cavalry bearing down on "Indians".
"The German behaviour is intolerable, unacceptable. This is economic warfare," says the head of the bank. He is also angry at the US and UK: "If I had to launder money I would never go to Switzerland but the UK or US because you don't have to disclose beneficial ownership."
Pierre Mirabaud, the chairman of the Swiss Bankers' Association, says Switzerland is being treated as a scapegoat by countries that are jealous of its leadership in private banking, and adds that there are more tax dodgers in Delaware than in Switzerland. Mr Mirabaud, who is also head of the eponymous private bank in Geneva, argued it was "absurd to think that Swiss private banking is based on tax evasion" with customers coming for expertise, economic stability and service to the country.
Some banks have responded by placing travel bans on senior employees leaving the country, the Financial Times revealed this week, although the bankers' association said yesterday it was not recommending such restrictions.
But there are voices going beyond a sense of outrage. Peter Brabeck, the vice-chairman of Credit Suisse and chairman of Nestlé, says banks will have to play up other selling points other than bank secrecy.
"I think [bank secrecy] is a story of the past and I think banks have realised that and are prepared to act in a different way. I'm sure that Switzerland will continue to be a very important financial centre of the world, but now based on quality and service," he adds.
There is a feeling in Geneva that the best-known private banks, such as Pictet, Lombard and several smaller firms as well as the cantonal banks, will continue to do well as they pride themselves on customer service and quality.
A senior industry figure who is close to several private banks says clients going outside Switzerland might be aghast at the service they receive.
"You will probably come across a guy in Toulouse with white socks and short sleeves," he says. "It is a cultural thing. Swiss people have been looking after other people's money for so long they breed bankers. Other countries don't."
The institutions that could suffer, therefore, are the hundreds of small banks, many of which have used secrecy as a huge draw. Swiss bankers also say foreign banks could find themselves in trouble too for the same reason. "Private banks all have fewer problems than the smaller Swiss banks and foreign banks," the industry figure says.
But for all the fighting talk, the interesting part will be to see if the banks move through the stages of grief towards acceptance. The senior banker adds: "There is a terrible temptation to say it will go away - but it won't."
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Swiss banks ban overseas travel amid global crackdown on secrecy
By Richard Milne in Geneva
Published: March 27 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 27 2009 02:00
Switzerland's private banks have started to ban their top executives from travelling abroad, even to neighbouring France and Germany, because of fears they will be detained as part of a global crackdown on bank secrecy.
The head of one leading private bank in Geneva said the growing determination of countries such as the US and Germany to tackle tax evasion and secrecy meant banks felt they had to take extra measures to protect employees.
"Some banks have taken this precaution," he said.
"If today I go to Germany to visit two banks I deal with . . . German customs can take me in and question me."
The travel bans, which have not been brought in by all banks, have focused on those visiting the US, following the detention there last year of a senior private banker from UBS, Switzerland's biggest bank, as part of a federal tax investigation.
The head of the private bank, which itself has no travel restrictions, said: "Today if you are a banker from Switzerland going to the US you have to fear you will be taken in for questioning. I am thinking twice about going to America."
However, four people in the private banking industry in Geneva told the Financial Times of banks bringing in total travel bans for staff, even for adjoining European countries.
"Private bankers aren't even travelling to France. The partners are not leaving Geneva at all," said a senior industry figure close to several private banks.
No bank contacted by the FT wanted to discuss the matter publicly.
The restrictions come ahead of next week's Group of 20 summit where a clampdown on tax havens is set to be discussed.
Under pressure from other countries, Switzerland, which is estimated to account for about a third of the world's $11,000bn (€8,100bn, £7,600bn) in clandestine personal wealth, agreed this month to ease its bank secrecy laws and accept international standards on tax transparency.
From their discreet offices on a luxury goods shopping street overlooking Lac Leman, private bankers in Geneva reacted this week with a mixture of intense anger, at what they see as an unjustified attack by big countries, and concern about the threat to their business model.
"It is not really about bank secrecy; it is about solving an internal problem [for the big countries] by finding an enemy outside to bash," said one senior banker.
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高精度のマネーロンダリング監視システム 三井住友銀
三井住友銀行はマネーロンダリング（資金洗浄）の疑いがある取引の監視を強化するための高精度のシステムを4月1日から導入する。みずほフィナンシャルグループも新型システムを採用済みで、三菱東京ＵＦＪ銀行は今秋導入予定。国際的な監視強化の流れを受け、3メガバンクが体制の整備を急いでいる。
三井住友銀行は新たに欧米の主要金融機関で採用されている米ＳＡＳ社製のシステムを導入する。(14:42)
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サハリン２、初のＬＮＧ輸出始まる まず東ガス、東電向け
【モスクワ＝坂井光】ロシア・サハリン沖の資源開発事業サハリン２の事業主体サハリンエナジーは29日、ロシア初となる液化天然ガス（ＬＮＧ）の輸出を開始した。まず東京ガス、東京電力向けで４月初旬に東京湾に到着する見通し。
サハリン南端のアニワ湾から14万5000立方メートルのＬＮＧを積み込んだタンカーが29日午後（日本時間同）、日本に向けて出港した。日本はサハリン２で生産されるＬＮＧの約６割を輸入する予定。これは天然ガス国内消費量の７―８％に相当し、中東に依存したエネルギー調達先の多様化に寄与するとして期待されている。
サハリン２には三井物産と三菱商事が計22.5％を出資している。(23:44)
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クボタ、サウジで合弁 プラント向け鋳鋼管工場
クボタはエチレンプラントの熱分解炉などに使う鋳鋼管の工場をサウジアラビアに建設する。投資額は約60億円で、2010年7月の稼働を目指す。クボタが中東に進出するのは初めて。中東各国は石油化学産業の育成に力を入れており、プラント向けの配管需要が伸びると判断した。鋳鋼管の販売で世界首位を狙う。
8月にサウジの投資会社「サラワト・ディベロップメント・カンパニー（ＴＤＣ）」と合弁で、同国東部のダンマン市にプラント向け鋳鋼管の製造販売会社「クボタサウジアラビア」を設立する。出資比率はクボタが51％、ＴＤＣが49％で資本金は1500万ドル（約15億円）。合弁設立と同時期に工場建設を始める。(07:00)
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ブラジル人学校、２カ月で子どもが４割減る 文科省調査
文部科学省は28日までに、全国のブラジル人学校について緊急調査を実施した結果、今年2月2日までの約2カ月間で子供の数が4割減ったと発表した。景気の悪化が原因で、3人に1人は親が学校に通わせる余裕がなくなり、不就学状態になっているという。
調査は全国のブラジル人学校86校にアンケートを実施、うち58校が回答した。昨年12月1日と今年2月2日の在籍者数の変化を聞いたところ、5歳以下が平均55％減、6―14歳が37％減、15―17歳が21％減。全体で39％減った。
学校に来なくなった理由は42％が「帰国」で、「自宅・不就学」が35％。「不明」も11％いた。文科省は「経済危機が直撃している」として、自治体に対し公立校に一時的に在籍させるなどの支援を求めるとともに、国としても追加支援策を検討する。(07:00)
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浜松派遣村：ブラジル人ら窮状訴え １０８世帯が相談
派遣村で支給された食事を受け取る離職者ら＝浜松市中区の東ふれあい公園で２００９年３月２９日午後０時１０分、瀬上順敬撮影
派遣村で支給された食事を受け取る離職者ら＝浜松市中区の東ふれあい公園で２００９年３月２９日午後０時１０分、瀬上順敬撮影
住居や仕事を失った人からの相談を受ける「トドムンド浜松派遣村」が２９日、浜松市で開設された。市内に住むブラジル人も多く訪れることが予測され、ポルトガル語で「みんな」を意味する「トドムンド」と名付け、ボランティアの通訳ら１５人が外国人に対応した。
「派遣切り」などに苦しむ人を支援しようと、司法書士やボランティア関係者が企画。この日はブラジル人など外国人５５世帯と日本人５３世帯が相談のため訪れ、「子供が３人もいるのに所持金が１００円しかない」「仕事がしたい」と泣きながら話すなど、深刻な状況を訴えた。炊き出しもしたが、会場となった公園の使用規制のためテントを張った宿泊などはできない。
浜松市はこの日、日曜日にもかかわらず生活保護の受付窓口を開き、約４０件を受理した。また、失職などで住居を失い路上生活を余儀なくされた人たちも、市社会福祉協議会から貸し付けを受けるなどして全員が住む場所を確保したという。
榛葉隆雄村長は「休日も市役所の窓口を開かせたことや外国人登録者でも生活保護申請を受理させることができたなど成果があった」と話した。派遣村は３０日も同市中区中央１の東ふれあい公園で、午前９時～午後３時の間に開かれる。
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General says threats to shoot down N Korean rocket are double standards
28.03.2009, 22.42
MOSCOW, March 28 (Itar-Tass) -- Some countries’ threats to shoot down the rocket North Korean plans to launch to take a satellite to orbit are a manifestation of double standards, Deputy chief of the Russian Army General Staff, Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn told Ekho Moskvy radio on Saturday.
“When some say that the launch of the North Korean rocket is a threat to the security of a certain country, this looks very much like double standards: some may do things and many things, but others may not,” the general said.
He drew a parallel between the North Korean launch and the Iranian nuclear programme. At a meeting with French parliamentarians he noted that 80 percent of energy in France was generated by nuclear power plants and asked them why another country could not do the same.
“They agreed that such policy of double standards could not have a positive effect on the international situation,” Nogovitsyn said.
He said Russia had technology and equipment to monitor outer space. “Nothing of what is launched and will be launched there can be hidden. Just like we, the U.S. has the same technical capabilities,” he said.
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Siemens plans to become Gazprom’s strategic partners in LNG sphere.
27.03.2009, 23.51
MOSCOW, March 27 (Itar-Tass) -- Germany’s Siemens corporation hopes to become a strategic partner of Russia’s gas giant Gazprom in the sphere of liquefied natural gas production, first of all in the Shtokman offshore gas field in the Arctic, Siemens Vice President Dietrich Moeller said in an interview with The Gazprom corporate magazine on Friday.
In his words, this issue was in the focus of a meeting between the presidents of the two companies.
According to the German businessman, Siemens can play very beneficial role within the implementation of Gazprom’s Yamal projects.
In order to reach that objective, the company should win open tenders, Moeller said, adding that Siemens is confident of its victory.
He said that the companies did not use their cooperation potential in full.
“We have vast prospects,” the German businessman said, expressing satisfaction with the growing dynamics of cooperation owing to the companies’ joint efforts.
“The volume of interaction between Gazprom and Siemens is on the rise,” Moeller said.
The Shtokman field, one of the world's largest natural gas fields, is located in the Barents Sea. Its C1 and C2 reserves are estimated at 3.8 trillion cubic meters of gas and 37 million tonnes of gas condensate, Prime Tass economic news agency said.
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Saudi prince rents 66 limousines for stopover at Lake Geneva
16:45 | 27/ 03/ 2009
Print version
GENEVA, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - Saudi Prince Abdullah bin Saud bin Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has rented 66 limousines for his upcoming 90-day stay at Lake Geneva, the Tribune de Geneve reported on Friday.
The prince will arrive in May for treatment at a Swiss health resort, and stay at his 17,000-square-meter (183,000 sq. ft.) white marble palace on the left bank of Lake Geneva.
The rental of the limousines, which are being driven in from Germany, has sparked criticism from local luxury car rental companies. The cars and drivers have been hired from a Munich company.
Louis Roulet, the director of Golden Limousine Services in Switzerland, told Swiss media that according to national laws, chauffeurs driving cars with foreign license plates are prohibited from receiving money from clients within the country.
However, Jacques Folly, the head of the department of trade in the canton of Geneva, said the arrangement had been made on the federal level to allow the Saudi royal family the use of foreign cars and drivers, as they will also be traveling to Paris and the French Alps.
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Russia, Turkmenistan fail to sign pipeline agreement
16:31 | 26/ 03/ 2009
Print version
MOSCOW. (Sanobar Shermatova, member of the RIA Novosti Expert Council) - The Moscow visit of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov on March 25 has clarified relations between the two countries.
Turkmenistan, a country in Central Asia, has huge reserves of natural gas, which its neighbors need to meet their energy requirements. But what does it need from Russia?
Russia's policy in Central Asia is focused on gaining access to its energy resources. The Caspian pipeline project, which Vladimir Putin negotiated with Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, badly needs Turkmen gas to become effective.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hoped to sign an intergovernmental agreement on building a West-East pipeline across Turkmenistan, which would have advanced the project lobbied by Moscow to a new level.
Under the plan, the pipeline would link deposits in northeast Turkmenistan to the Caspian Sea.
However, the sides have not signed the agreement, and details of the two presidents' talks point to problems with financing the West-East pipeline.
Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko will soon go to Ashgabat to finalize the agreement, which is to be signed during the president's next meeting, Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko told the media.
Although the project has been put off, it is unlikely that Moscow has lost it.
Turkmenistan is currently formulating a strategy of national development. The Moscow visit by its president should be viewed against the backdrop of his official visits to Kazakhstan in May 2007 and Uzbekistan in February 2008. The latter two countries proposed their own schemes for consolidating the Central Asian countries, where Turkmenistan is assigned a special role.
Ashgabat is cleverly evading the attempts of its large neighbors to draw it into the zones of their influence, which highlights the country's political priorities. Turkmenistan's relations with Russia will differ from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan's relations with the Kremlin.
However, a rapid rapprochement between them is unlikely. Evidence of this is the refusal to accept a simplified visa regime proposed by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov. Sources say the new regime was only planned to facilitate visits by Russian businessmen.
The complicated consular procedures could be eventually simplified. But nothing is done quickly in Turkmenistan, which abides by the golden rule: Why run when you can walk?
The hierarchy of Turkmenistan's priorities, where Russia so far holds the top spot, will be certainly complemented by other partners. Turkmenistan could also review its associated status in the CIS. Recently, it proposed holding the conference of the Council of the CIS Foreign Ministers in Ashgabat, which may be good news for its neighbors.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
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Russia to create Arctic troops to defend ice treasures
27.03.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru URL: http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/107313-arctic_troops-0
Russia intends to create Arctic troops to maintain security of the Russian part of the Arctic Ocean under the conditions of the current political situation in the world. The region is said to become Russia’s leading strategic base by 2016, The Kommersant newspaper wrote.
The document posted on the official website of the Russian Security Council said that the Arctic troops would be set up to maintain the military security under various conditions of the military and political situation. The document also envisages the establishment of the Coast Guard system in the Arctic region.
Russia wants to take the region under the control of the nation’s Federal Security Bureau. The strategy stipulates the border control of the region and the organization of border zones in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation.
The former head of the Russian Federal Security Bureau, Nikolai Patrushev, visited the Arctic and confirmed that Russia would have to compete with other countries in defending its interests in the region. The publication of Russia’s Arctic strategy coincided with Norway’s claims regarding the military drills in the Arctic waters. Official spokespeople for NATO said that the alliance was not viewing Russia either as an enemy or a problem. They only said that NATO was concerned about the growing navigation in the Arctic against the background of the global warming.
Spokespeople for Canadian and Norwegian ministries for foreign affairs said that they would release their comments about Russia’s Arctic strategy only after they analyzed it in detail.
Artur Chilingarov, the special representative of the Russian president on Arctic affairs, stated that Russia must fully defend its borders and sovereignty.
All materials required to legalize the exterior border of Russia’s Arctic region are to be collected by 2010.
Major cyber spy network uncovered
A computer keyboard (file image)
An electronic spy network, based mainly in China, has infiltrated computers from government offices around the world, Canadian researchers say.
They said the network had infiltrated 1,295 computers in 103 countries.
They included computers belonging to foreign ministries and embassies and those linked with the Dalai Lama - Tibet's spiritual leader.
There is no conclusive evidence China's government was behind it, researchers say. Beijing also denied involvement.
The report comes after a 10-month investigation by the Information Warfare Monitor (IWM), which comprises researchers from Ottawa-based think tank SecDev Group and the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies.
They were acting on a request from the Tibetan spiritual leader's office to check whether the computers of his Tibetan exile network had been infiltrated.
Researchers found that ministries of foreign affairs of Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Barbados and Bhutan appear to had been targeted.
Hacked systems were also discovered in the embassies of India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta, Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Pakistan.
Compromised
The researchers said hackers were apparently able to take control of computers belonging to several foreign ministries and embassies across the world using malicious software, or malware.
"We uncovered real-time evidence of malware that had penetrated Tibetan computer systems, extracting sensitive documents from the private office of the Dalai Lama," investigator Greg Walton was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying.
The Dalai Lama
They say they believe the system, which they called GhostNet, was focused on governments in Asia.
By installing malware on compromised computers, hackers were able to take control of them to send and receive classified data.
In this case, the software also gave hackers the ability to use audio and video recording devices to monitor the rooms the computers were in. But investigators said they did not know whether or not this element had been used.
According to the New York Times, the spying operation is the largest to have been uncovered in terms of the number of countries affected.
In an abstract for the report entitled The Snooping Dragon: Social Malware Surveillance of the Tibetan Movement - posted on the IWM website - investigators said while such attacks were not new, these particularly stood out for their ability to collect "actionable intelligence for use by the police and security services of a repressive state, with potentially fatal consequences for those exposed".
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Mizuho to halt global expansion
By Michiyo Nakamoto in Tokyo
Published: March 27 2009 00:06 | Last updated: March 27 2009 00:06
Mizuho, Japan’s second largest banking group, is putting its overseas expansion on ice and refocusing its resources on the domestic market, said Takashi Tsukamoto, its president-designate.
In a switch from his predecessor’s policy of global expansion, Mr Tsukamoto, who will become chief executive on April 1, plans to return Mizuho to its roots of lending to Japanese corporations.
“Basically, we will refocus our resources on domestic lending,” Mr Tsukamoto told the Financial Times.
His decision comes amid growing concern about financial protectionism, as banks in the main economies come under pressure to increase lending in their home markets.
“There is a slight tendency [towards financial protectionism]”, Mr Tsukamoto said.
“Lending overseas was a driver for the past few years [but] ... especially because western economies are not doing well ... it will be phased down.”
Three years ago Mizuho Corporate Bank, the group’s wholesale and commercial arm, made a public “declaration” that it wanted to become a “global bank” and raise overseas revenues from 22 per cent to 40 per cent of overall revenues.
That strategy was, in part, driven by a shift by Mizuho Corporate Bank’s main customers among large Japanese companies to the capital markets.
But Mr Tsukamoto said the global financial crisis had made it difficult to raise funds on the capital markets, and “even big companies are asking for loans”.
Bank lending in Japan has increased 4 per cent each month since November.
But banks are under growing pressure to increase lending further, with authorities repeatedly urging them to accept capital injections from the government.
Mr Tsukamoto denied that Mizuho, which has raised Y800bn ($8.1bn) in capital this financial year, would need to raise more funds right away.
Mizuho has so far suffered Y742bn in losses related to US subprime and other products in the past two years, but a more cautious approach currently means: “We haven’t taken business risks that will require immediate capital enhancement.”
According to Yasuhiro Sato, who is to head Mizuho Corporate Bank: “It is becoming important to use capital for our clients, not for our own business.”
In spite of the growth in domestic lending, Mizuho expects business in Japan to be tough for a year or so.
Satoru Nishibori, the new head of Mizuho Bank, which serves retail customers and small and medium-sized businesses, said: “We can no longer go on the offensive.”
Mr Nishibori brushed away fears that non-performing loans would surge as a result of the economic downturn.
Mizuho’s non-performing loan ratio, which exceeded 6 per cent in Japan’s banking crisis, is about 1.3 per cent. “I can’t even imagine this going to 3 per cent,” he said.
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Ras al-Khaimah mines a variety of seams
By Simeon Kerr in Dubai
Published: March 25 2009 17:00 | Last updated: March 25 2009 17:00
Ras al-Khaimah, the mountainous northern outpost of the United Arab Emirates, never had much oil, rather like Dubai, its more famous neighbour. But rather than basing its economy on trade, it chose to look underground for mineral wealth and to adopt an industrial strategy.
That has led to a large ceramics factory – RAK Ceramics – cement factories and quarrying in the Hajar mountains becoming the chosen vehicles for developing the emirate.
RAK Minerals & Mines Investments, a joint venture between RAK Ceramics and Trimex, an Indian minerals group, has taken that strategy international. The partners are investing in and developing raw materials for the industries that underpin the emirate’s fortunes.
The company has invested in clay mines in Thailand and Indonesia, an important raw material for RAK Ceramics, while also mining for copper in Congo and Armenia.
Madhu Koneru, managing director of RMMI, says the investment will mean price stability in the future, allowing the emirate to plan with more confidence.
“The ruler could see the need for constant prices,” says Mr Koneru, whose family business has built up a trade partnership with the government since the 1970s. “Why not invest in the resources needed for infrastructure?”
The latest venture, investing in a coal mine in the Indonesian region of East Kalimantan and building a related railway and port to transport the coal to the sea, follows that logic. But this time the rationale can be found in the emirate’s thorniest problem over the past year: power, or more accurately, the lack of it.
An over-reliance on the UAE federal power authority has left Ras al-Khaimah starved of enough electricity to power a series of real estate developments. Sheikh Saud bin Qasr Al Qasimi, the emirate’s crown prince, launched the developments during the years of the petrodollar boom, with the vision of turning Ras al-Khaimah into a mini-Dubai.
Long before the credit crunch tightened the noose on the property market, the emirate had decided that it needed to seize the initiative in terms of utilities.
Coal is an interesting, if controversial, alternative to the gas-fuelled power that is becoming the norm in the Gulf, which contains some of the world’s largest natural gas resources. Ajman, another UAE emirate with buildings standing empty for lack of electricity, also has plans for a coal-fired station.
Mr Koneru says Ras al-Khaimah’s coal-fired plant, which will be launched in 2011, will develop to a maximum capacity of 1,000MW and need more than 7m tons of coal a year. About 35 to 50 per cent of of the coal from the Indonesian venture will go to Ras al-Khaimah, with the remainder exported to other Asian markets such as Japan and India.
The regional government is a 7.5 per cent equity partner in the project, which will see the joint venture build a 120km railway on the eastern side of Borneo, which will cost about $1bn over five years, but halve road transportation costs. The project should pay back its costs in about five to 10 years, Mr Koneru says.
Using coal will cut the emirate’s costs up to 30 to 40 per cent compared to gas-fired power, but it throws up environmental concerns, which are noted by UAE residents who see the pollution surrounding the emirate’s existing cement factories. The global trend is against burning fossil fuels such as coal.
But Mr Koneru plays down such worries, saying the coal has a particularly low sulphur content, allowing for cleaner burning. The location of the power plant, wedged between a port and a cement works, will also integrate their systems, allowing ash from the burned coal to be used in the cement plant.
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India's disillusioned Muslims pin their hopes on politics
By Amy Kazmin in Aligarh, India
Published: March 28 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 28 2009 02:00
The thriving campus of Aligarh Muslim University in northern India embodies the modern face of the country's 150m-strong Muslim community.
Young men in skullcaps and burka-clad women walk among neat flower-beds and Indo-Islamic buildings on the grounds of the school, founded more than a century ago as a beacon of rational western-style education for south Asia's Muslims.
Yet there is a disquiet among the 30,000 students. "Intelligence agents are everywhere, watching everything," says one academic. It's a common feeling as the government has grown more suspicious of its large Muslim minority, especially after terror attacks rocked main Indian cities over the last year.
Deep insecurity still haunts India's Muslims, 62 years after the traumatic partition of the British-ruled subcontinent into Hindu -majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
Although their families stayed in ostensibly secular India, Indian Muslims say they have been treated as second-class citizens of doubtful loyalty, if not as outright traitors and terrorists.
Perceptions of pervasive discrimination were reinforced by a 2006 government report, which found the Muslims were one of the most educationally, economically and socially deprived communities in India, with a status similar to Dalits, the lowest caste Hindus formerly known as "untouchables".
However, as India gears up for parliamentary elections beginning next month, Muslims are debating how better to assert themselves politically to redress their grievances and prevent their community from falling further behind in India's fast-developing economy. "Muslims are thinking, 'If other parties are not willing to give us our share, we have to reorganise our vote'," said Mohammad Muqim, chair of Aligarh Muslim's philosophy department.
For decades after independence, Muslims were a bulwark of support for the Congress party, with its professed commitment to secularism. Its main rival, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party, portrays India as a Hindu society and has accused Congress of "minority appeasement".
In recent years, Muslims have watched other downtrodden groups, including Dalits, gain greater political clout for their communities by voting along caste lines.
However, Muslims, dispersed across the country, have struggled to gain influence in the first-past-the-post electoral system.
Although they account for 14 per cent of the population, Muslims have normally held just 6 to 9 per cent of parliamentary seats, scattered among various parties. Some constituencies with significant numbers of Muslim voters have long been reserved for low-caste Hindu representatives as part of New Delhi's effort to redress injustices stemming from the caste system.
Elsewhere, votes have been fragmented as competing parties fielded rival Muslim candidates.
There has been disillusionment with Muslim politicians, amid suspicions that national parties consciously promote those with questionable or tarnished records as "token" Muslims.
"The bad characters from Muslim society are being sheltered by political parties," says Saleem Peerzada, an Aligarh Muslim-educated engineer. "They don't want a real, effective, educated Muslim leadership to emerge."
India is not without Muslim success stories. Its vast film industry is dominated by Muslim superstars. Wipro, one of its biggest software companies, is controlled by a Muslim, Azim Premji. Muslims are scattered across government, the professions and the private sector.
Yet even many successful Muslims feel their community faces entrenched barriers that can be removed only by greater political clout.
"Our experience compelled us - politics is a must," says Amanullah Khan, who has spent 25 years promoting education among Muslims, and complains of authorities' reluctance to recognise Muslim-run schools. "We must have a party under our own leadership, from which we can bargain in a better way."
To that end, Mr Khan, a political novice, plans to contest parliamentary elections with the Assam United Democratic Front party. The three-year-old Muslim-led party won 10 seats in the Assam state legislature and will field about 25 candidates in the national polls.
The Parcham party, founded by Mr Peerzada, has focused on contesting municipal and local council elections from Muslim areas.
Meanwhile, the All India Milli Council, a Muslim organisation, has begun endorsing candidates, as part of a strategy to unify Muslim votes. Manzoor Alam, its secretary-general, says Muslim influence may not be felt for a decade but "by 2019, we will be reaching the point that no political parties may ignore the genuine demands of Muslims".
To some, there is not a moment to lose, given the deep sense of disillusionment among many Muslim youths. "You are pushing them to the wall," says Abusaleh Shariff, a demographer who helped write the report on the status of Muslims. "The question is, will they ultimately take up arms and revolution?"
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King Abdullah appoints deputy
By Abeer Allam in Riyadh
Published: March 28 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 28 2009 02:00
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah yesterday appointed his half-brother Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz as the new second deputy prime minister, signalling that he would be next in line for the throne after the ailing Crown Prince Sultan.
The appointment of Prince Naif, 74, who has been the kingdom's interior minister for more than 30 years and is seen as a conservative, will help to allay fears of a succession crisis should anything happen to the 84-year-old king. Abeer Allam, Riyadh
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Air waves give Mediterranean tycoons new wings
By Paul Betts
Published: March 27 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 27 2009 02:00
Making money in telecoms seems to have become a good way of getting a boarding pass to run an airline these days. At least this is the case of Roberto Colaninno, the new chairman of Alitalia, and Andreas Vgenopolous, the flamboyant Greek businessman who has just stepped into the cockpit of Olympic Airlines.
A decade ago, Mr Colaninno took the Italian business establishment by surprise by mounting a bid for Telecom Italia in what was at the time one of the biggest hostile takeovers seen in Europe. He was subsequently taken over by Pirelli but left with a handsome profit. He then set about reviving the Piaggio scooter maker but soon sought a new challenge. A couple of months ago he took control of Alitalia with a group of other Italian investors to rescue the loss making Italian flag carrier.
Mr Vgenopolous this week has done something similar. His Marfin Investment Group last year sold its strategic 20 per cent stake in the Greek telecoms incumbent OTE to Deutsche Telekom for €2.5bn ($3.4bn). It has now decided to spend some of the loose change from its telecoms deal by agreeing to pay the Greek government €177.2m to gain control of Olympic Airlines - an even bigger European aviation basket case than Alitalia. Olympic, after all, has apparently been losing €2m a day.
To give Mr Vgenopolous and Mr Colaninno a better chance to succeed in their new airline ventures, their respective governments have also agreed to assume the airlines' toxic assets as part of their sale. The European Commission has already approved the writeoff of more than €2.6bn in Olympic accumulated debt and has suspended court action over the repayment of €850m in state aid. Rome has also given Mr Colaninno a clean slate in return for his commitments to revive the airline.
The Italian businessman has also wasted little time to strike up a strategic alliance with a strong airline partner to reinforce his recovery strategy. This week Air France-KLM finalised its acquisition of a 25 per cent strategic stake in the new Alitalia.
It would not be surprising to see Mr Vgenopolous eventually do the same - perhaps not with a big European carrier but rather with a Middle East operator, such as Dubai-based Emirates, which could be interested in developing a new European platform around Athens. This is not just idle speculation. After all, Marfin Investment Group's biggest shareholder is a Dubai sovereign wealth fund.
But if there are some intriguing similarities in the Alitalia and Olympic rescues, there is also one big difference. By merging the new Alitalia with its main domestic rival Air One, the Italian salvage deal follows the general if questionable and somewhat anti-competitive trend of flag carriers seeking to regain or reinforce their dominance of their domestic market.
One recent lesson of the airline industry is that carriers need to secure a dominant position of their domestic market to survive. But decades of mismanagement at Alitalia systematically eroded its dominant position in its all-important domestic market, and even with Air One it is still likely to be a long haul to regain it.
The Greeks, however, are taking a more virtuous approach. The government rejected on competition grounds a last-minute bid for Olympic by Aegean Airlines, a profitable, private Greek airline that last year carried more passengers than Olympic. This is clearly good news for Greek airline passengers. But will these two Greek rivals manage at the end of the day to remain commercially viable when everybody else is reverting to old domestic monopolies?
This poses another Socratic question - will the Greeks with their virtuous exception end up setting the trend or will the Greek exception simply prove the rule?
Wendel wars
The latest turmoil at Wendel is the result of poor investment decisions. In recent years, the family-controlled group that once built cannons for Louis XIV had converted itself into a blue-blooded investment company.
But Jean-Bernard Lafonta, its whizz-kid chief executive, broke a cardinal rule of private equity by unbalancing his portfolio of majority-owned assets with a large minority stake in Saint-Gobain, one of France's leading industrial companies. Worse, he accumulated this stake at the wrong time paying 70 per cent more than the conglomerate's shares are worth today.
If this were not bad enough, the 900 or so family members were outraged when the board led by Ernest-Antoine Seillière handsomely rewarded the Wendel patriarch, Mr Lafonta and other executives with a €324m package of shares. That may have been just about acceptable when the company was flourishing, but not in the current climate. Mr Lafonta is finally going, paying the price for his ill-timed and ill-considered Saint-Gobain investment. The chairman is hanging on but will have to bend backwards to regain the confidence of many of his angry family members.
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Swiss bankers work their way through grief
By Richard Milne in Geneva
Published: March 28 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 28 2009 02:00
Swiss banking secrecy might be on the wane but restaurant secrecy appears to be alive and kicking.
An attempt to inquire about the mood of Geneva's private bankers this week at a restaurant close to their discreet headquarters on the Rue du Rhone was met by a firm " pas de commentaire " at the Relais de l'Entrecote restaurant. A banker rushing off outside was a little more helpful: "Things aren't very good. People here are very angry with how it is all being blamed on us."
Approaches to possible bank customers were no more successful. Outside Banque Jacob Safra came one of the few responses: "Leave me in peace."
The mood in Geneva is compared by one senior private banker to the "stages of grief" outlined by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a Swiss psychiatrist. Right now, he says, the private banks are somewhere in between the first two stages: denial and anger. "Bargaining comes next and then acceptance," he adds, helpfully omitting the intermediary stage of depression.
All this follows moves by countries led by the US and Germany to clamp down on tax evasion and bank secrecy. Switzerland agreed this month to ease its legendary bank secrecy laws.
In Geneva itself, the banker's analysis seems borne out. The head of one private bank says secrecy "is not going to go". He points to the country's model of direct democracy, where citizens vote on many issues by referendum. "The Swiss will never vote for it. They don't want to be transparent."
Anger in Geneva is focused especially on Germany and Peer Steinbrück, its finance minister, who has caused enormous offence for comments in which he likened the pressure on Switzerland to the 7th Cavalry bearing down on "Indians".
"The German behaviour is intolerable, unacceptable. This is economic warfare," says the head of the bank. He is also angry at the US and UK: "If I had to launder money I would never go to Switzerland but the UK or US because you don't have to disclose beneficial ownership."
Pierre Mirabaud, the chairman of the Swiss Bankers' Association, says Switzerland is being treated as a scapegoat by countries that are jealous of its leadership in private banking, and adds that there are more tax dodgers in Delaware than in Switzerland. Mr Mirabaud, who is also head of the eponymous private bank in Geneva, argued it was "absurd to think that Swiss private banking is based on tax evasion" with customers coming for expertise, economic stability and service to the country.
Some banks have responded by placing travel bans on senior employees leaving the country, the Financial Times revealed this week, although the bankers' association said yesterday it was not recommending such restrictions.
But there are voices going beyond a sense of outrage. Peter Brabeck, the vice-chairman of Credit Suisse and chairman of Nestlé, says banks will have to play up other selling points other than bank secrecy.
"I think [bank secrecy] is a story of the past and I think banks have realised that and are prepared to act in a different way. I'm sure that Switzerland will continue to be a very important financial centre of the world, but now based on quality and service," he adds.
There is a feeling in Geneva that the best-known private banks, such as Pictet, Lombard and several smaller firms as well as the cantonal banks, will continue to do well as they pride themselves on customer service and quality.
A senior industry figure who is close to several private banks says clients going outside Switzerland might be aghast at the service they receive.
"You will probably come across a guy in Toulouse with white socks and short sleeves," he says. "It is a cultural thing. Swiss people have been looking after other people's money for so long they breed bankers. Other countries don't."
The institutions that could suffer, therefore, are the hundreds of small banks, many of which have used secrecy as a huge draw. Swiss bankers also say foreign banks could find themselves in trouble too for the same reason. "Private banks all have fewer problems than the smaller Swiss banks and foreign banks," the industry figure says.
But for all the fighting talk, the interesting part will be to see if the banks move through the stages of grief towards acceptance. The senior banker adds: "There is a terrible temptation to say it will go away - but it won't."
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Swiss banks ban overseas travel amid global crackdown on secrecy
By Richard Milne in Geneva
Published: March 27 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 27 2009 02:00
Switzerland's private banks have started to ban their top executives from travelling abroad, even to neighbouring France and Germany, because of fears they will be detained as part of a global crackdown on bank secrecy.
The head of one leading private bank in Geneva said the growing determination of countries such as the US and Germany to tackle tax evasion and secrecy meant banks felt they had to take extra measures to protect employees.
"Some banks have taken this precaution," he said.
"If today I go to Germany to visit two banks I deal with . . . German customs can take me in and question me."
The travel bans, which have not been brought in by all banks, have focused on those visiting the US, following the detention there last year of a senior private banker from UBS, Switzerland's biggest bank, as part of a federal tax investigation.
The head of the private bank, which itself has no travel restrictions, said: "Today if you are a banker from Switzerland going to the US you have to fear you will be taken in for questioning. I am thinking twice about going to America."
However, four people in the private banking industry in Geneva told the Financial Times of banks bringing in total travel bans for staff, even for adjoining European countries.
"Private bankers aren't even travelling to France. The partners are not leaving Geneva at all," said a senior industry figure close to several private banks.
No bank contacted by the FT wanted to discuss the matter publicly.
The restrictions come ahead of next week's Group of 20 summit where a clampdown on tax havens is set to be discussed.
Under pressure from other countries, Switzerland, which is estimated to account for about a third of the world's $11,000bn (€8,100bn, £7,600bn) in clandestine personal wealth, agreed this month to ease its bank secrecy laws and accept international standards on tax transparency.
From their discreet offices on a luxury goods shopping street overlooking Lac Leman, private bankers in Geneva reacted this week with a mixture of intense anger, at what they see as an unjustified attack by big countries, and concern about the threat to their business model.
"It is not really about bank secrecy; it is about solving an internal problem [for the big countries] by finding an enemy outside to bash," said one senior banker.
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高精度のマネーロンダリング監視システム 三井住友銀
三井住友銀行はマネーロンダリング（資金洗浄）の疑いがある取引の監視を強化するための高精度のシステムを4月1日から導入する。みずほフィナンシャルグループも新型システムを採用済みで、三菱東京ＵＦＪ銀行は今秋導入予定。国際的な監視強化の流れを受け、3メガバンクが体制の整備を急いでいる。
三井住友銀行は新たに欧米の主要金融機関で採用されている米ＳＡＳ社製のシステムを導入する。(14:42)
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サハリン２、初のＬＮＧ輸出始まる まず東ガス、東電向け
【モスクワ＝坂井光】ロシア・サハリン沖の資源開発事業サハリン２の事業主体サハリンエナジーは29日、ロシア初となる液化天然ガス（ＬＮＧ）の輸出を開始した。まず東京ガス、東京電力向けで４月初旬に東京湾に到着する見通し。
サハリン南端のアニワ湾から14万5000立方メートルのＬＮＧを積み込んだタンカーが29日午後（日本時間同）、日本に向けて出港した。日本はサハリン２で生産されるＬＮＧの約６割を輸入する予定。これは天然ガス国内消費量の７―８％に相当し、中東に依存したエネルギー調達先の多様化に寄与するとして期待されている。
サハリン２には三井物産と三菱商事が計22.5％を出資している。(23:44)
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クボタ、サウジで合弁 プラント向け鋳鋼管工場
クボタはエチレンプラントの熱分解炉などに使う鋳鋼管の工場をサウジアラビアに建設する。投資額は約60億円で、2010年7月の稼働を目指す。クボタが中東に進出するのは初めて。中東各国は石油化学産業の育成に力を入れており、プラント向けの配管需要が伸びると判断した。鋳鋼管の販売で世界首位を狙う。
8月にサウジの投資会社「サラワト・ディベロップメント・カンパニー（ＴＤＣ）」と合弁で、同国東部のダンマン市にプラント向け鋳鋼管の製造販売会社「クボタサウジアラビア」を設立する。出資比率はクボタが51％、ＴＤＣが49％で資本金は1500万ドル（約15億円）。合弁設立と同時期に工場建設を始める。(07:00)
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ブラジル人学校、２カ月で子どもが４割減る 文科省調査
文部科学省は28日までに、全国のブラジル人学校について緊急調査を実施した結果、今年2月2日までの約2カ月間で子供の数が4割減ったと発表した。景気の悪化が原因で、3人に1人は親が学校に通わせる余裕がなくなり、不就学状態になっているという。
調査は全国のブラジル人学校86校にアンケートを実施、うち58校が回答した。昨年12月1日と今年2月2日の在籍者数の変化を聞いたところ、5歳以下が平均55％減、6―14歳が37％減、15―17歳が21％減。全体で39％減った。
学校に来なくなった理由は42％が「帰国」で、「自宅・不就学」が35％。「不明」も11％いた。文科省は「経済危機が直撃している」として、自治体に対し公立校に一時的に在籍させるなどの支援を求めるとともに、国としても追加支援策を検討する。(07:00)
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浜松派遣村：ブラジル人ら窮状訴え １０８世帯が相談
派遣村で支給された食事を受け取る離職者ら＝浜松市中区の東ふれあい公園で２００９年３月２９日午後０時１０分、瀬上順敬撮影
派遣村で支給された食事を受け取る離職者ら＝浜松市中区の東ふれあい公園で２００９年３月２９日午後０時１０分、瀬上順敬撮影
住居や仕事を失った人からの相談を受ける「トドムンド浜松派遣村」が２９日、浜松市で開設された。市内に住むブラジル人も多く訪れることが予測され、ポルトガル語で「みんな」を意味する「トドムンド」と名付け、ボランティアの通訳ら１５人が外国人に対応した。
「派遣切り」などに苦しむ人を支援しようと、司法書士やボランティア関係者が企画。この日はブラジル人など外国人５５世帯と日本人５３世帯が相談のため訪れ、「子供が３人もいるのに所持金が１００円しかない」「仕事がしたい」と泣きながら話すなど、深刻な状況を訴えた。炊き出しもしたが、会場となった公園の使用規制のためテントを張った宿泊などはできない。
浜松市はこの日、日曜日にもかかわらず生活保護の受付窓口を開き、約４０件を受理した。また、失職などで住居を失い路上生活を余儀なくされた人たちも、市社会福祉協議会から貸し付けを受けるなどして全員が住む場所を確保したという。
榛葉隆雄村長は「休日も市役所の窓口を開かせたことや外国人登録者でも生活保護申請を受理させることができたなど成果があった」と話した。派遣村は３０日も同市中区中央１の東ふれあい公園で、午前９時～午後３時の間に開かれる。
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General says threats to shoot down N Korean rocket are double standards
28.03.2009, 22.42
MOSCOW, March 28 (Itar-Tass) -- Some countries’ threats to shoot down the rocket North Korean plans to launch to take a satellite to orbit are a manifestation of double standards, Deputy chief of the Russian Army General Staff, Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn told Ekho Moskvy radio on Saturday.
“When some say that the launch of the North Korean rocket is a threat to the security of a certain country, this looks very much like double standards: some may do things and many things, but others may not,” the general said.
He drew a parallel between the North Korean launch and the Iranian nuclear programme. At a meeting with French parliamentarians he noted that 80 percent of energy in France was generated by nuclear power plants and asked them why another country could not do the same.
“They agreed that such policy of double standards could not have a positive effect on the international situation,” Nogovitsyn said.
He said Russia had technology and equipment to monitor outer space. “Nothing of what is launched and will be launched there can be hidden. Just like we, the U.S. has the same technical capabilities,” he said.
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Siemens plans to become Gazprom’s strategic partners in LNG sphere.
27.03.2009, 23.51
MOSCOW, March 27 (Itar-Tass) -- Germany’s Siemens corporation hopes to become a strategic partner of Russia’s gas giant Gazprom in the sphere of liquefied natural gas production, first of all in the Shtokman offshore gas field in the Arctic, Siemens Vice President Dietrich Moeller said in an interview with The Gazprom corporate magazine on Friday.
In his words, this issue was in the focus of a meeting between the presidents of the two companies.
According to the German businessman, Siemens can play very beneficial role within the implementation of Gazprom’s Yamal projects.
In order to reach that objective, the company should win open tenders, Moeller said, adding that Siemens is confident of its victory.
He said that the companies did not use their cooperation potential in full.
“We have vast prospects,” the German businessman said, expressing satisfaction with the growing dynamics of cooperation owing to the companies’ joint efforts.
“The volume of interaction between Gazprom and Siemens is on the rise,” Moeller said.
The Shtokman field, one of the world's largest natural gas fields, is located in the Barents Sea. Its C1 and C2 reserves are estimated at 3.8 trillion cubic meters of gas and 37 million tonnes of gas condensate, Prime Tass economic news agency said.
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Saudi prince rents 66 limousines for stopover at Lake Geneva
16:45 | 27/ 03/ 2009
Print version
GENEVA, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - Saudi Prince Abdullah bin Saud bin Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has rented 66 limousines for his upcoming 90-day stay at Lake Geneva, the Tribune de Geneve reported on Friday.
The prince will arrive in May for treatment at a Swiss health resort, and stay at his 17,000-square-meter (183,000 sq. ft.) white marble palace on the left bank of Lake Geneva.
The rental of the limousines, which are being driven in from Germany, has sparked criticism from local luxury car rental companies. The cars and drivers have been hired from a Munich company.
Louis Roulet, the director of Golden Limousine Services in Switzerland, told Swiss media that according to national laws, chauffeurs driving cars with foreign license plates are prohibited from receiving money from clients within the country.
However, Jacques Folly, the head of the department of trade in the canton of Geneva, said the arrangement had been made on the federal level to allow the Saudi royal family the use of foreign cars and drivers, as they will also be traveling to Paris and the French Alps.
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Russia, Turkmenistan fail to sign pipeline agreement
16:31 | 26/ 03/ 2009
Print version
MOSCOW. (Sanobar Shermatova, member of the RIA Novosti Expert Council) - The Moscow visit of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov on March 25 has clarified relations between the two countries.
Turkmenistan, a country in Central Asia, has huge reserves of natural gas, which its neighbors need to meet their energy requirements. But what does it need from Russia?
Russia's policy in Central Asia is focused on gaining access to its energy resources. The Caspian pipeline project, which Vladimir Putin negotiated with Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, badly needs Turkmen gas to become effective.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hoped to sign an intergovernmental agreement on building a West-East pipeline across Turkmenistan, which would have advanced the project lobbied by Moscow to a new level.
Under the plan, the pipeline would link deposits in northeast Turkmenistan to the Caspian Sea.
However, the sides have not signed the agreement, and details of the two presidents' talks point to problems with financing the West-East pipeline.
Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko will soon go to Ashgabat to finalize the agreement, which is to be signed during the president's next meeting, Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko told the media.
Although the project has been put off, it is unlikely that Moscow has lost it.
Turkmenistan is currently formulating a strategy of national development. The Moscow visit by its president should be viewed against the backdrop of his official visits to Kazakhstan in May 2007 and Uzbekistan in February 2008. The latter two countries proposed their own schemes for consolidating the Central Asian countries, where Turkmenistan is assigned a special role.
Ashgabat is cleverly evading the attempts of its large neighbors to draw it into the zones of their influence, which highlights the country's political priorities. Turkmenistan's relations with Russia will differ from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan's relations with the Kremlin.
However, a rapid rapprochement between them is unlikely. Evidence of this is the refusal to accept a simplified visa regime proposed by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov. Sources say the new regime was only planned to facilitate visits by Russian businessmen.
The complicated consular procedures could be eventually simplified. But nothing is done quickly in Turkmenistan, which abides by the golden rule: Why run when you can walk?
The hierarchy of Turkmenistan's priorities, where Russia so far holds the top spot, will be certainly complemented by other partners. Turkmenistan could also review its associated status in the CIS. Recently, it proposed holding the conference of the Council of the CIS Foreign Ministers in Ashgabat, which may be good news for its neighbors.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
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Russia to create Arctic troops to defend ice treasures
27.03.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru URL: http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/107313-arctic_troops-0
Russia intends to create Arctic troops to maintain security of the Russian part of the Arctic Ocean under the conditions of the current political situation in the world. The region is said to become Russia’s leading strategic base by 2016, The Kommersant newspaper wrote.
The document posted on the official website of the Russian Security Council said that the Arctic troops would be set up to maintain the military security under various conditions of the military and political situation. The document also envisages the establishment of the Coast Guard system in the Arctic region.
Russia wants to take the region under the control of the nation’s Federal Security Bureau. The strategy stipulates the border control of the region and the organization of border zones in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation.
The former head of the Russian Federal Security Bureau, Nikolai Patrushev, visited the Arctic and confirmed that Russia would have to compete with other countries in defending its interests in the region. The publication of Russia’s Arctic strategy coincided with Norway’s claims regarding the military drills in the Arctic waters. Official spokespeople for NATO said that the alliance was not viewing Russia either as an enemy or a problem. They only said that NATO was concerned about the growing navigation in the Arctic against the background of the global warming.
Spokespeople for Canadian and Norwegian ministries for foreign affairs said that they would release their comments about Russia’s Arctic strategy only after they analyzed it in detail.
Artur Chilingarov, the special representative of the Russian president on Arctic affairs, stated that Russia must fully defend its borders and sovereignty.
All materials required to legalize the exterior border of Russia’s Arctic region are to be collected by 2010.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Brazil president blames white people for crisis
Brazil president blames white people for crisis
By Jonathan Wheatley in São Paulo
Published: March 27 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 27 2009 02:00
Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva yesterday blamed the global economic crisis on "white people with blue eyes" and said it was wrong that black and indigenous people should pay for white people's mistakes, writes Jonathan Wheatley .
Speaking in Brasília at a joint press conference with Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, Mr Lula da Silva told reporters: "This crisis was caused by the irrational behaviour of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing."
He added: "I do not know any black or indigenous bankers so I can only say [it is wrong] that this part of mankind which is victimised more than any other should pay for the crisis."
Mr Brown appeared to distance himself from Mr Lula da Silva's remarks. "I'm not going to attribute blame to any individuals," he said.
Mr Brown was visiting Brazil as part of a five-day tour of Europe, the US and South America in preparation for the G20 summit to take place in London next Thursday.
He made a joint appeal with Mr Lula da Silva for the world's biggest economies to provide $100bn to boost global trade.
Mr Lula da Silva also spoke out strongly against protectionism and raising trade barriers in response to the global crisis.
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The Short View
By John Authers
Published: March 26 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 26 2009 02:00
Who is going to pay? Most of the world's leading economies are trying to spend their way out of the sudden collapse in financial activity using borrowed money. While contentious, there are ample defences for this policy.
But working out who pays is a harder question, which will be aired when the G20 heads of state meet in London next week. The air is thick with verbal barbs - from the Chinese central bank's interest in a new reserve currency, to the Czech prime minister's anger with the US deficit. Yesterday showed that the market is listening.
First, the auction of 40-year gilts in the UK saw the first "failure" since 2002. In other words, it was undersubscribed, with bids only for 93 per cent of the bonds. The instant response was as though the UK could not fund its deficit, as the Bank of England warned this week.
The yield on 10-year gilts rose from 3.35 per cent to 3.53 per cent - almost back to where it was before the BoE said two weeks ago it would buy gilts. Then the BoE bought some gilts, and the yield came all the way down to 3.27 per cent.
Auction failures are not unprecedented, and the extreme reaction showed that investors are nervous.
Sterling barely moved on these developments. Instead, it rose and fell on comments by Tim Geithner, the US Treasury secretary. He said first that he was "open" to China's proposal that the dollar should be superseded as the reserve currency. Minutes later, he said he expected the dollar to be the reserve currency "for a long time". Between his comments, the dollar dropped by 1.1 per cent, and then rebounded.
Again this is about who pays. If the US inflates out of the crisis, and the dollar falls, those holding assets in dollars will lose and, in effect, pay the bill. That is why politicians are talking so much about these issues. With markets scared, they should mind their words.
----------------------------
朝鮮総連：競売訴訟 「本部の所有者は議長」 回収機構が勝訴－－東京地裁
在日本朝鮮人総連合会（朝鮮総連）の中央本部（東京都千代田区）を強制競売するため、整理回収機構が朝鮮総連などを相手取り、実質的な所有者が総連であることの確認を求めた訴訟の判決で、東京地裁は２６日、不動産名義を総連の徐萬述（ソマンスル）議長に書き換えるよう命じた。浜秀樹裁判長は「実質的な帰属主体は総連」と述べた。
総連には法人格がなく登記の当事者になれないため、総連本部の所有者の名義は「合資会社朝鮮中央会館管理会」。
総連に約６２７億円の債務返済を命じた０７年６月の東京地裁判決を受け、回収機構側が中央本部の強制競売を目指したが、所有者の名義が異なるため実行できず提訴した。【銭場裕司】
◇朝鮮総連中央本部広報室の話
事実を無視した不当極まりない判決であり、控訴する。
-----------------------------
「レッドパージ名誉回復を」９２歳男性ら３人、国を提訴
2009年3月27日15時13分
共産党員らが職場から追放された米軍占領下での「レッドパージ」で、勤め先を免職・解雇された神戸市内の７９～９２歳の男性３人が２７日、「レッドパージは基本的人権を侵害した行為であり、国はその被害者の名誉回復や職場復帰に向けた施策を講じる義務を怠った」として、国に計６千万円の慰謝料を求める訴訟を神戸地裁に起こした。
３人は大橋豊さん（７９）＝当時逓信省（旧郵政省）神戸中央電報局＝と川崎義啓（よしひろ）さん（９２）＝同旭硝子尼崎工場＝、安原清次郎さん（８８）＝同川崎製鉄（現ＪＦＥスチール）葺合工場。訴状によると、３人は５０年８～１０月、それぞれの勤め先から日本共産党員であることを理由に突然、免職・解雇されたとしている。
３人は、レッドパージがあった３年前の４７年には思想信条や結社の自由を保障した憲法が施行されていたと指摘。「国は連合国軍総司令部（ＧＨＱ）によるレッドパージの指示に従うべきではなく、少なくとも主権が回復した５２年以降は被害の実態を調べ、名誉回復や職場復帰、財産的補償をする法的義務があった」と主張している。
--------------------------
春闘、非製造系は健闘 ゼンセン系、４５組合がベア獲得
2009年3月26日22時16分
流通や繊維などの労働組合が加盟するＵＩゼンセン同盟は２６日、春闘の交渉状況を発表した。２０２組合で妥結し、うち４５組合が賃金改善（ベースアップ）分を獲得した。一方、自動車や電機などで作る金属労協の中堅・中小組合は、８１組合のうちベア獲得は４組合（２５日時点）のみ。非製造業と製造業で明暗が分かれている。
妥結したＵＩゼンセンの２０２組合すべてで定期昇給分を維持した。定期昇給とベアを合わせた要求額の平均９７３５円に対し、妥結平均額は６１３９円（単純平均）で、昨年比２４６円減だった。
ベアを獲得した４５組合の業種は、スーパー・コンビニ、化学・医薬品、専門店・ホームセンターなどで、平均は１１０４円。「自動車・電機にかかわる産業の組合は苦戦しているが、非製造業系は健闘している」と落合清四会長は話した。
一方、自動車・電機は、中堅・中小労組も苦しい交渉となっている。金属労協によると、２５日時点で、要求をしている１３１社の組合のうち、回答を引き出したのは８１社（６２％）。昨年同時期では８割が回答を受けており、今年は景気の悪化の影響で交渉自体が難航している。
全組合で定昇は維持。ベア回答は４社で、金額は３００～５００円。一時金については、２４組合で、最低基準としている４カ月を下回る回答を受けた。
--------------------------------
05:48 GMT, Friday, 27 March 2009
PM and Palace 'discussed reform'
State Opening of Parliament
Gordon Brown and Buckingham Palace have discussed plans to change the rules of succession to the throne, including giving royal women equal rights.
Downing Street said the scrapping of the ban on heirs to the throne marrying Roman Catholics was also discussed.
Mr Brown told the BBC that people living in the 21st Century expected discrimination to be removed.
Meanwhile a BBC poll suggests public support for reform, with 80% wanting equal succession rights for women.
A Private Members' Bill aimed at ending the discrimination is due to be debated but the government is not backing it.
But speaking during his visit to Brazil the prime minister said: "There are clearly issues about the exclusion of people from the rights of succession and there are clearly issues that have got to be dealt with.
BBC POLL: THE PUBLIC SPEAKS
* Equal rights for royal women? - 89% yes
* Heir allowed to marry Catholic? - 81% yes
* British monarchy to continue? - 76% yes
* 1,000 people polled by ICM Research, 20-22 March 2009
Why the monarchy discriminates
Send us your comments
"This is not an easy set of answers.
"But I think in the 21st Century people do expect discrimination to be removed and they do expect us to be looking at all these issues".
The BBC's poll also suggests 76% of Britons want the monarchy to continue after the Queen.
The legislation on reform has been introduced by Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, to end the "uniquely discriminatory" rules laid down in the 1701 Act of Settlement.
For centuries the rules have endured but now the government has indicated that it is prepared to look at it again, said BBC political correspondent Ben Wright.
Downing Street confirmed the prime minister would raise the prospect of the major reforms at a Commonwealth summit in November, and that dialogue with Buckingham Palace was ongoing.
Such reform would need the backing of the 15 other Commonwealth countries which have the British monarch as head of state.
Sources at Number 10 have said while the government supports the "principles and objectives" of the bill, it would not support the bill itself.
Dr Harris has cross-party support for his proposals, but a Ministry of Justice spokesman said while the government "stood firmly against discrimination" there were no immediate plans to legislate because the changes required were "complex".
'Slowly, slowly'
The Act states that heirs to the throne lose their right to be the sovereign if they marry a Catholic or convert.
In addition, male heirs are given precedence.
If the Act was changed to give royal daughters equal rights, Princess Anne would become fourth in line, behind Prince Harry. Currently she comes after the Duke of York and the Earl of Wessex, and their children.
As things stand, Prince William cannot marry a Roman Catholic and become king.
And if he has a daughter she cannot be queen if she has a younger brother.
Pie chart
Dr Harris's Royal Marriages and Succession to the Crown (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill is co-sponsored by Catholic parliamentarians such as Tory MP Edward Leigh, Labour's Andrew Mackinlay and John Grogan and fellow Lib Dem John Pugh.
BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt said the government was now moving "slowly, very slowly" on the issue, as it tried to deal with what a Scottish cardinal has called "state-sponsored sectarianism", said
But it may not give this particular private members bill the support it would need to become law.
A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: "The government has always stood firmly against discrimination in all its forms, including against Roman Catholics, and we will continue to do so.
"To bring about changes to the law on succession would be a complex undertaking involving amendment or repeal of a number of items of related legislation, as well as requiring the consent of legislatures of member nations of the Commonwealth.
"We are examining this complex area although there are no immediate plans to legislate."
Republic
Dr Harris said there was "nothing new" in the government saying it wanted to see change.
"When first elected 12 years ago they said they would end unjustified discrimination wherever it exists. But there has been no action to back that up.
"They need to support this bill today, amend it as necessary and make sure it passes. They can't wait until next year because our constitution also tells us that their time is up in June. This is the last chance."
"Very few political ideas, let alone constitutional changes, have two-thirds support"
Lib Dem MP Dr Evan Harris
The BBC poll, conducted by ICM Research, suggests four out of five people want to give women equal rights of succession and remove the ban on the heir marrying a Roman Catholic.
Some 89% of the 1,000 people questioned believed male and female heirs should have equal rights to succeed to the throne.
Some 81% believed that an heir to the throne should be allowed to marry a Roman Catholic and still become monarch.
According to the poll, 76% said the monarchy should continue, against 18% who said they would favour Britain becoming a republic. An additional 6% said they did not know.
Dr Harris said the results showed the government and the Conservative Party should support this bill and "end these historic injustices as soon as possible".
"Very few political ideas, let alone constitutional changes, have two-thirds support yet ending discrimination against Catholics in royal marriages and against women in the succession both have over 80% support," he said.
---------------------------
5:49 GMT, Thursday, 26 March 2009
EU warns Spain over development
Over-building on the south coast is rampant
The European Parliament has voted in favour of a report criticising Spanish property laws.
The report says Spanish legislation allowing developers to acquire private land below market rates breaches the European Convention on Human Rights.
MEPs were acting on complaints from Britons and other homeowners who feared their homes might be bulldozed.
MEPs say they hope the vote will increase pressure on the Spanish government to change its laws.
'Extensive urbanisation'
The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to freeze hundreds of millions of euros in Spain's EU funding if the Spanish government does not tackle what the parliament condemned as "extensive urbanisation" practices.
Cranes at a building site
In a full vote in Strasbourg on Thursday, 349 MEPs voted in favour, 114 abstained and 110 cast their vote against the report by the Danish Green Party MEP Margrete Auken.
MEPs from the Spanish conservative PP party were among those who voted against the report while those from the governing Socialist Party abstained.
The report was drafted after more than 100 petitions by thousands of expatriates living in Spain complaining of breaches of their land-ownership rights were sent to the EU's petitions committee.
One of the main campaigners behind the case, Canadian expat Charles Svoboda, says local and regional governments often rubber-stamp planning applications submitted by developers.
FROM THE BBC WORLD SERVICE
More from BBC World Service
Under current Spanish laws, developers can then demand that home-owners sell their properties at prices well below the market rate.
If they refuse to sell, Mr Svoboda says, they may even have their houses demolished. MEPs backing the report say that constitutes a breach of citizens' legitimate ownership rights.
Speaking after the "yes" vote, Margrete Auken said this showed the European Parliament was willing to fight on behalf of EU citizens.
"We've shown now that this parliament can listen to the citizens and can take their case seriously and really support them.
"So it's much easier for them in the future to have the feeling that they have the EU institutions behind them."
'Endemic corruption'
The European Parliament also criticised the "endemic corruption" which it says the Spanish property market suffers from, and demanded that any plans which did not comply with EU law be halted.
This is the third time that the European Parliament has debated urban planning practices in Spain. It condemned the lack of redress Spanish and foreign residents have in the face of alleged development excesses in 2005 and 2007.
This time though, it says, Spain will suffer the consequences to the tune of millions of euros in frozen funds if it fails to act.
--------------------------
18:23 GMT, Thursday, 26 March 2009
Mystery over Sudan 'air strike'
map of Egypt, Sudan and Sinai
A Sudanese government minister has confirmed reports of an air raid in eastern Sudan earlier this year.
The minister, Mabrook Mubarak Saleem, told an Arabic news channel that many people had been killed in the strike, said to have taken place last month.
Israeli officials have not commented publicly on reports that their planes may have been involved.
Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, did not confirm any raid but said Israel hit everywhere to stop terror.
"That was true in the north," said Mr Olmert, "and it was true in the south ... Those who need to know, know there is no place where Israel cannot operate."
Giving a speech in the coastal town of Herzliya, the outgoing prime minister said: "We operate in many places near and far, and carry out strikes in a manner that strengthens our deterrence."
The CBS television network said it had been told by American officials that a strike by Israeli planes in January had succeeded in preventing weapons from Sudan reaching Gaza.
Mr Mabrook Mubarak Saleem said those killed in the air raid had been civilians from a number of African countries.
'Nod and wink'
The BBC's Paul Wood in Jerusalem says Israel's response is following a traditional pattern, set when it attacked a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007, of first refusing to confirm an alleged strike and then giving a nod and a wink.
What we are getting now from Mr Olmert is clearly the nod and the wink, our correspondent says.
Much informed comment has appeared in the Israeli media, he adds, including the view of a retired general that Israel would not have had to violate anyone's airspace to carry out the strike, if it did.
Nonetheless it was a long way to fly and the assumption is that this was a serious target, our correspondent says, and that these were weapons that could have changed the game in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants.
They could have included surface to air missiles or perhaps missiles with a 70km (44-mile) range that would have enabled militants to hit Tel Aviv from Gaza, our correspondent adds.
-------------------------
Offshore account holders offered tax deal
By Vanessa Houlder and Haig Simonian
Published: March 26 2009 23:32 | Last updated: March 26 2009 23:32
Thousands of British investors with up to £3bn stashed in secret Liechtenstein bank accounts will be asked to come forward voluntarily under a deal to be negotiated next week that could be the first of many worldwide.
Lawyers said the Liechtenstein plan, discussed behind closed doors with the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, could serve as an international model for other tax havens seeking to avoid an OECD blacklist.
Liechtenstein’s government announced on Thursday it would begin talks with the UK’s Revenue & Customs next Wednesday, stating it wanted to encourage “voluntary disclosure of untaxed assets”. The decision follows agreement by the tiny alpine principality to ease its bank secrecy rules and to encourage foreign account holders to come clean.
Dave Hartnett, permanent secretary for tax at Revenue & Customs, said the intention was “to open up the historic bank accounts”.
The proposed purge of undeclared bank accounts by one of the world’s hitherto most secretive tax havens reflects pressure on Liechtenstein. Germany succeeded last year in uncovering tax evaders after buying stolen customer data from a former Liechtenstein bank employee.
Liechtenstein is trying to break away from the traditional image of tax havens by proposing an imaginative long-term process to tackle undeclared assets that could benefit foreign tax authorities, without excessively penalizing the rich.
Revenue & Customs wants to prise open secret accounts by offering an “offshore disclosure facility”, along the lines of the 2007 partial “amnesty” that raised £400m from holders of undeclared offshore accounts. That would be unlikely to offer immunity from prosecution, but would provide a straightforward mechanism with limited penalties for investors wanting to put their affairs in order.
Liechtenstein banks would be asked to close accounts of customers who did not act on this offer, presenting them with difficulties finding a home for their money.
Negotiations also seek a tax-information exchange agreement, another tool to pursue tax evaders that Liechtenstein has already agreed with the US. Liechtenstein has said it is ready to negotiate bilateral agreements with other countries. It had first-round talks with Germany last week.
Separately, Monaco, the Mediterranean city-state that is home to 25,000 wealthy foreigners, pledged to meet international standards on transparency. That followed lengthy talks with the OECD, which had previous branded it – like Liechtenstein – an “unco-operative tax haven”.
Monaco has agreed to negotiate tax information exchange with all countries that want it. It will expand the scope of an anti-fraud agreement under negotiation with the European Commission to meet OECD standards. Other jurisdictions scrambled to become more transparent to stave off the threat of blacklisting at the G20 summit next week.
-------------------------
首都圏にＰＡＣ３展開、破壊措置命令受けて
特集 北朝鮮情勢
航空自衛隊員に見送られながら、入間基地を出発するＰＡＣ３の発射機（ランチャー）を乗せた車＝菅野靖撮影
北朝鮮が「人工衛星」名目で弾道ミサイルの発射準備を進めている問題で、自衛隊は２７日夜、浜田防衛相が発令した「破壊措置命令」に基づき、地上配備型のパトリオット・ミサイル３（ＰＡＣ３）の首都圏への展開を開始した。
航空自衛隊入間基地（埼玉県狭山市）では２７日午後８時、迎撃ミサイルを搭載するランチャーやレーダー装置などを積んだ約３０台の車両が続々と出発。
展開先となる陸上自衛隊朝霞駐屯地（東京都練馬区など）と防衛省（新宿区）内にある空自市ヶ谷基地に向かった。
By Jonathan Wheatley in São Paulo
Published: March 27 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 27 2009 02:00
Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva yesterday blamed the global economic crisis on "white people with blue eyes" and said it was wrong that black and indigenous people should pay for white people's mistakes, writes Jonathan Wheatley .
Speaking in Brasília at a joint press conference with Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, Mr Lula da Silva told reporters: "This crisis was caused by the irrational behaviour of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing."
He added: "I do not know any black or indigenous bankers so I can only say [it is wrong] that this part of mankind which is victimised more than any other should pay for the crisis."
Mr Brown appeared to distance himself from Mr Lula da Silva's remarks. "I'm not going to attribute blame to any individuals," he said.
Mr Brown was visiting Brazil as part of a five-day tour of Europe, the US and South America in preparation for the G20 summit to take place in London next Thursday.
He made a joint appeal with Mr Lula da Silva for the world's biggest economies to provide $100bn to boost global trade.
Mr Lula da Silva also spoke out strongly against protectionism and raising trade barriers in response to the global crisis.
--------------------------
The Short View
By John Authers
Published: March 26 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 26 2009 02:00
Who is going to pay? Most of the world's leading economies are trying to spend their way out of the sudden collapse in financial activity using borrowed money. While contentious, there are ample defences for this policy.
But working out who pays is a harder question, which will be aired when the G20 heads of state meet in London next week. The air is thick with verbal barbs - from the Chinese central bank's interest in a new reserve currency, to the Czech prime minister's anger with the US deficit. Yesterday showed that the market is listening.
First, the auction of 40-year gilts in the UK saw the first "failure" since 2002. In other words, it was undersubscribed, with bids only for 93 per cent of the bonds. The instant response was as though the UK could not fund its deficit, as the Bank of England warned this week.
The yield on 10-year gilts rose from 3.35 per cent to 3.53 per cent - almost back to where it was before the BoE said two weeks ago it would buy gilts. Then the BoE bought some gilts, and the yield came all the way down to 3.27 per cent.
Auction failures are not unprecedented, and the extreme reaction showed that investors are nervous.
Sterling barely moved on these developments. Instead, it rose and fell on comments by Tim Geithner, the US Treasury secretary. He said first that he was "open" to China's proposal that the dollar should be superseded as the reserve currency. Minutes later, he said he expected the dollar to be the reserve currency "for a long time". Between his comments, the dollar dropped by 1.1 per cent, and then rebounded.
Again this is about who pays. If the US inflates out of the crisis, and the dollar falls, those holding assets in dollars will lose and, in effect, pay the bill. That is why politicians are talking so much about these issues. With markets scared, they should mind their words.
----------------------------
朝鮮総連：競売訴訟 「本部の所有者は議長」 回収機構が勝訴－－東京地裁
在日本朝鮮人総連合会（朝鮮総連）の中央本部（東京都千代田区）を強制競売するため、整理回収機構が朝鮮総連などを相手取り、実質的な所有者が総連であることの確認を求めた訴訟の判決で、東京地裁は２６日、不動産名義を総連の徐萬述（ソマンスル）議長に書き換えるよう命じた。浜秀樹裁判長は「実質的な帰属主体は総連」と述べた。
総連には法人格がなく登記の当事者になれないため、総連本部の所有者の名義は「合資会社朝鮮中央会館管理会」。
総連に約６２７億円の債務返済を命じた０７年６月の東京地裁判決を受け、回収機構側が中央本部の強制競売を目指したが、所有者の名義が異なるため実行できず提訴した。【銭場裕司】
◇朝鮮総連中央本部広報室の話
事実を無視した不当極まりない判決であり、控訴する。
-----------------------------
「レッドパージ名誉回復を」９２歳男性ら３人、国を提訴
2009年3月27日15時13分
共産党員らが職場から追放された米軍占領下での「レッドパージ」で、勤め先を免職・解雇された神戸市内の７９～９２歳の男性３人が２７日、「レッドパージは基本的人権を侵害した行為であり、国はその被害者の名誉回復や職場復帰に向けた施策を講じる義務を怠った」として、国に計６千万円の慰謝料を求める訴訟を神戸地裁に起こした。
３人は大橋豊さん（７９）＝当時逓信省（旧郵政省）神戸中央電報局＝と川崎義啓（よしひろ）さん（９２）＝同旭硝子尼崎工場＝、安原清次郎さん（８８）＝同川崎製鉄（現ＪＦＥスチール）葺合工場。訴状によると、３人は５０年８～１０月、それぞれの勤め先から日本共産党員であることを理由に突然、免職・解雇されたとしている。
３人は、レッドパージがあった３年前の４７年には思想信条や結社の自由を保障した憲法が施行されていたと指摘。「国は連合国軍総司令部（ＧＨＱ）によるレッドパージの指示に従うべきではなく、少なくとも主権が回復した５２年以降は被害の実態を調べ、名誉回復や職場復帰、財産的補償をする法的義務があった」と主張している。
--------------------------
春闘、非製造系は健闘 ゼンセン系、４５組合がベア獲得
2009年3月26日22時16分
流通や繊維などの労働組合が加盟するＵＩゼンセン同盟は２６日、春闘の交渉状況を発表した。２０２組合で妥結し、うち４５組合が賃金改善（ベースアップ）分を獲得した。一方、自動車や電機などで作る金属労協の中堅・中小組合は、８１組合のうちベア獲得は４組合（２５日時点）のみ。非製造業と製造業で明暗が分かれている。
妥結したＵＩゼンセンの２０２組合すべてで定期昇給分を維持した。定期昇給とベアを合わせた要求額の平均９７３５円に対し、妥結平均額は６１３９円（単純平均）で、昨年比２４６円減だった。
ベアを獲得した４５組合の業種は、スーパー・コンビニ、化学・医薬品、専門店・ホームセンターなどで、平均は１１０４円。「自動車・電機にかかわる産業の組合は苦戦しているが、非製造業系は健闘している」と落合清四会長は話した。
一方、自動車・電機は、中堅・中小労組も苦しい交渉となっている。金属労協によると、２５日時点で、要求をしている１３１社の組合のうち、回答を引き出したのは８１社（６２％）。昨年同時期では８割が回答を受けており、今年は景気の悪化の影響で交渉自体が難航している。
全組合で定昇は維持。ベア回答は４社で、金額は３００～５００円。一時金については、２４組合で、最低基準としている４カ月を下回る回答を受けた。
--------------------------------
05:48 GMT, Friday, 27 March 2009
PM and Palace 'discussed reform'
State Opening of Parliament
Gordon Brown and Buckingham Palace have discussed plans to change the rules of succession to the throne, including giving royal women equal rights.
Downing Street said the scrapping of the ban on heirs to the throne marrying Roman Catholics was also discussed.
Mr Brown told the BBC that people living in the 21st Century expected discrimination to be removed.
Meanwhile a BBC poll suggests public support for reform, with 80% wanting equal succession rights for women.
A Private Members' Bill aimed at ending the discrimination is due to be debated but the government is not backing it.
But speaking during his visit to Brazil the prime minister said: "There are clearly issues about the exclusion of people from the rights of succession and there are clearly issues that have got to be dealt with.
BBC POLL: THE PUBLIC SPEAKS
* Equal rights for royal women? - 89% yes
* Heir allowed to marry Catholic? - 81% yes
* British monarchy to continue? - 76% yes
* 1,000 people polled by ICM Research, 20-22 March 2009
Why the monarchy discriminates
Send us your comments
"This is not an easy set of answers.
"But I think in the 21st Century people do expect discrimination to be removed and they do expect us to be looking at all these issues".
The BBC's poll also suggests 76% of Britons want the monarchy to continue after the Queen.
The legislation on reform has been introduced by Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, to end the "uniquely discriminatory" rules laid down in the 1701 Act of Settlement.
For centuries the rules have endured but now the government has indicated that it is prepared to look at it again, said BBC political correspondent Ben Wright.
Downing Street confirmed the prime minister would raise the prospect of the major reforms at a Commonwealth summit in November, and that dialogue with Buckingham Palace was ongoing.
Such reform would need the backing of the 15 other Commonwealth countries which have the British monarch as head of state.
Sources at Number 10 have said while the government supports the "principles and objectives" of the bill, it would not support the bill itself.
Dr Harris has cross-party support for his proposals, but a Ministry of Justice spokesman said while the government "stood firmly against discrimination" there were no immediate plans to legislate because the changes required were "complex".
'Slowly, slowly'
The Act states that heirs to the throne lose their right to be the sovereign if they marry a Catholic or convert.
In addition, male heirs are given precedence.
If the Act was changed to give royal daughters equal rights, Princess Anne would become fourth in line, behind Prince Harry. Currently she comes after the Duke of York and the Earl of Wessex, and their children.
As things stand, Prince William cannot marry a Roman Catholic and become king.
And if he has a daughter she cannot be queen if she has a younger brother.
Pie chart
Dr Harris's Royal Marriages and Succession to the Crown (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill is co-sponsored by Catholic parliamentarians such as Tory MP Edward Leigh, Labour's Andrew Mackinlay and John Grogan and fellow Lib Dem John Pugh.
BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt said the government was now moving "slowly, very slowly" on the issue, as it tried to deal with what a Scottish cardinal has called "state-sponsored sectarianism", said
But it may not give this particular private members bill the support it would need to become law.
A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: "The government has always stood firmly against discrimination in all its forms, including against Roman Catholics, and we will continue to do so.
"To bring about changes to the law on succession would be a complex undertaking involving amendment or repeal of a number of items of related legislation, as well as requiring the consent of legislatures of member nations of the Commonwealth.
"We are examining this complex area although there are no immediate plans to legislate."
Republic
Dr Harris said there was "nothing new" in the government saying it wanted to see change.
"When first elected 12 years ago they said they would end unjustified discrimination wherever it exists. But there has been no action to back that up.
"They need to support this bill today, amend it as necessary and make sure it passes. They can't wait until next year because our constitution also tells us that their time is up in June. This is the last chance."
"Very few political ideas, let alone constitutional changes, have two-thirds support"
Lib Dem MP Dr Evan Harris
The BBC poll, conducted by ICM Research, suggests four out of five people want to give women equal rights of succession and remove the ban on the heir marrying a Roman Catholic.
Some 89% of the 1,000 people questioned believed male and female heirs should have equal rights to succeed to the throne.
Some 81% believed that an heir to the throne should be allowed to marry a Roman Catholic and still become monarch.
According to the poll, 76% said the monarchy should continue, against 18% who said they would favour Britain becoming a republic. An additional 6% said they did not know.
Dr Harris said the results showed the government and the Conservative Party should support this bill and "end these historic injustices as soon as possible".
"Very few political ideas, let alone constitutional changes, have two-thirds support yet ending discrimination against Catholics in royal marriages and against women in the succession both have over 80% support," he said.
---------------------------
5:49 GMT, Thursday, 26 March 2009
EU warns Spain over development
Over-building on the south coast is rampant
The European Parliament has voted in favour of a report criticising Spanish property laws.
The report says Spanish legislation allowing developers to acquire private land below market rates breaches the European Convention on Human Rights.
MEPs were acting on complaints from Britons and other homeowners who feared their homes might be bulldozed.
MEPs say they hope the vote will increase pressure on the Spanish government to change its laws.
'Extensive urbanisation'
The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to freeze hundreds of millions of euros in Spain's EU funding if the Spanish government does not tackle what the parliament condemned as "extensive urbanisation" practices.
Cranes at a building site
In a full vote in Strasbourg on Thursday, 349 MEPs voted in favour, 114 abstained and 110 cast their vote against the report by the Danish Green Party MEP Margrete Auken.
MEPs from the Spanish conservative PP party were among those who voted against the report while those from the governing Socialist Party abstained.
The report was drafted after more than 100 petitions by thousands of expatriates living in Spain complaining of breaches of their land-ownership rights were sent to the EU's petitions committee.
One of the main campaigners behind the case, Canadian expat Charles Svoboda, says local and regional governments often rubber-stamp planning applications submitted by developers.
FROM THE BBC WORLD SERVICE
More from BBC World Service
Under current Spanish laws, developers can then demand that home-owners sell their properties at prices well below the market rate.
If they refuse to sell, Mr Svoboda says, they may even have their houses demolished. MEPs backing the report say that constitutes a breach of citizens' legitimate ownership rights.
Speaking after the "yes" vote, Margrete Auken said this showed the European Parliament was willing to fight on behalf of EU citizens.
"We've shown now that this parliament can listen to the citizens and can take their case seriously and really support them.
"So it's much easier for them in the future to have the feeling that they have the EU institutions behind them."
'Endemic corruption'
The European Parliament also criticised the "endemic corruption" which it says the Spanish property market suffers from, and demanded that any plans which did not comply with EU law be halted.
This is the third time that the European Parliament has debated urban planning practices in Spain. It condemned the lack of redress Spanish and foreign residents have in the face of alleged development excesses in 2005 and 2007.
This time though, it says, Spain will suffer the consequences to the tune of millions of euros in frozen funds if it fails to act.
--------------------------
18:23 GMT, Thursday, 26 March 2009
Mystery over Sudan 'air strike'
map of Egypt, Sudan and Sinai
A Sudanese government minister has confirmed reports of an air raid in eastern Sudan earlier this year.
The minister, Mabrook Mubarak Saleem, told an Arabic news channel that many people had been killed in the strike, said to have taken place last month.
Israeli officials have not commented publicly on reports that their planes may have been involved.
Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, did not confirm any raid but said Israel hit everywhere to stop terror.
"That was true in the north," said Mr Olmert, "and it was true in the south ... Those who need to know, know there is no place where Israel cannot operate."
Giving a speech in the coastal town of Herzliya, the outgoing prime minister said: "We operate in many places near and far, and carry out strikes in a manner that strengthens our deterrence."
The CBS television network said it had been told by American officials that a strike by Israeli planes in January had succeeded in preventing weapons from Sudan reaching Gaza.
Mr Mabrook Mubarak Saleem said those killed in the air raid had been civilians from a number of African countries.
'Nod and wink'
The BBC's Paul Wood in Jerusalem says Israel's response is following a traditional pattern, set when it attacked a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007, of first refusing to confirm an alleged strike and then giving a nod and a wink.
What we are getting now from Mr Olmert is clearly the nod and the wink, our correspondent says.
Much informed comment has appeared in the Israeli media, he adds, including the view of a retired general that Israel would not have had to violate anyone's airspace to carry out the strike, if it did.
Nonetheless it was a long way to fly and the assumption is that this was a serious target, our correspondent says, and that these were weapons that could have changed the game in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants.
They could have included surface to air missiles or perhaps missiles with a 70km (44-mile) range that would have enabled militants to hit Tel Aviv from Gaza, our correspondent adds.
-------------------------
Offshore account holders offered tax deal
By Vanessa Houlder and Haig Simonian
Published: March 26 2009 23:32 | Last updated: March 26 2009 23:32
Thousands of British investors with up to £3bn stashed in secret Liechtenstein bank accounts will be asked to come forward voluntarily under a deal to be negotiated next week that could be the first of many worldwide.
Lawyers said the Liechtenstein plan, discussed behind closed doors with the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, could serve as an international model for other tax havens seeking to avoid an OECD blacklist.
Liechtenstein’s government announced on Thursday it would begin talks with the UK’s Revenue & Customs next Wednesday, stating it wanted to encourage “voluntary disclosure of untaxed assets”. The decision follows agreement by the tiny alpine principality to ease its bank secrecy rules and to encourage foreign account holders to come clean.
Dave Hartnett, permanent secretary for tax at Revenue & Customs, said the intention was “to open up the historic bank accounts”.
The proposed purge of undeclared bank accounts by one of the world’s hitherto most secretive tax havens reflects pressure on Liechtenstein. Germany succeeded last year in uncovering tax evaders after buying stolen customer data from a former Liechtenstein bank employee.
Liechtenstein is trying to break away from the traditional image of tax havens by proposing an imaginative long-term process to tackle undeclared assets that could benefit foreign tax authorities, without excessively penalizing the rich.
Revenue & Customs wants to prise open secret accounts by offering an “offshore disclosure facility”, along the lines of the 2007 partial “amnesty” that raised £400m from holders of undeclared offshore accounts. That would be unlikely to offer immunity from prosecution, but would provide a straightforward mechanism with limited penalties for investors wanting to put their affairs in order.
Liechtenstein banks would be asked to close accounts of customers who did not act on this offer, presenting them with difficulties finding a home for their money.
Negotiations also seek a tax-information exchange agreement, another tool to pursue tax evaders that Liechtenstein has already agreed with the US. Liechtenstein has said it is ready to negotiate bilateral agreements with other countries. It had first-round talks with Germany last week.
Separately, Monaco, the Mediterranean city-state that is home to 25,000 wealthy foreigners, pledged to meet international standards on transparency. That followed lengthy talks with the OECD, which had previous branded it – like Liechtenstein – an “unco-operative tax haven”.
Monaco has agreed to negotiate tax information exchange with all countries that want it. It will expand the scope of an anti-fraud agreement under negotiation with the European Commission to meet OECD standards. Other jurisdictions scrambled to become more transparent to stave off the threat of blacklisting at the G20 summit next week.
-------------------------
首都圏にＰＡＣ３展開、破壊措置命令受けて
特集 北朝鮮情勢
航空自衛隊員に見送られながら、入間基地を出発するＰＡＣ３の発射機（ランチャー）を乗せた車＝菅野靖撮影
北朝鮮が「人工衛星」名目で弾道ミサイルの発射準備を進めている問題で、自衛隊は２７日夜、浜田防衛相が発令した「破壊措置命令」に基づき、地上配備型のパトリオット・ミサイル３（ＰＡＣ３）の首都圏への展開を開始した。
航空自衛隊入間基地（埼玉県狭山市）では２７日午後８時、迎撃ミサイルを搭載するランチャーやレーダー装置などを積んだ約３０台の車両が続々と出発。
展開先となる陸上自衛隊朝霞駐屯地（東京都練馬区など）と防衛省（新宿区）内にある空自市ヶ谷基地に向かった。
Thursday, March 26, 2009
韓日の架け橋役３０年、電通の成田豊最高顧問
韓日の架け橋役３０年、電通の成田豊最高顧問
日本最大の広告代理店、電通の成田豊最高顧問（７９）が韓国政府から修交勲章光化章を贈られた。３０年にわたる韓日文化交流事業を積極的に後援した功労だ。
権哲賢（クォン・チョルヒョン）駐日大使が２４日に駐日韓国大使館に成田顧問を招いて勲章を授与した。修交勲章光化章は国権伸長や友邦との親善など国益増進に寄与した人に授与されるもので、外国人に贈られる最高等級の勲章だ。
勲章を授与された成田顧問は、「韓国の国歌であるムクゲの花言葉は尊敬だと聞いた。互いに尊敬する心を忘れないことこそ未来の両国民を強く結びつける基本だと確信する」と感想を述べた。また「韓国は私が生まれ青少年時代を送ったところで、一度も忘れたことはない」と話した。
１９２９年に忠清南道天安（チュンチョンナムド・チョナン）で生まれ、中学３年を終えるまで韓国で少年期を送った成田顧問は、鉄道業に従事する父親とともにソウルをはじめ各地で生活した。「いまでも夏には北漢山（プッカンサン）に登り、冬には漢江（ハンガン）でスケートをしたことをはっきりと覚えている」と振り返った。
成田顧問は８８年のソウルオリンピックと９３年の大田万博開催当時に協賛企業募集に寄与したほか、韓国が遅れて招致に乗り出した２００２年のサッカー・ワールドカップと関連しても両国の友好増進に向け韓日共同開催を主導した。２００５年からはソウルで毎年韓日サッカー大会を開催するなど多彩な韓日文化交流事業も主導してきた。昨年９月にソウルで開かれた韓日交流おまつりでは日本側実行委員長を務め行事を成功裏に進める実践力も誇示した。
成田顧問は本業の広告分野でも韓日協力を主導した。９７年に国内の広告会社のフェニックスコミュニケーションズと共同で韓日フォーラムを開催し、国内広告業界・メディアとの連係を図った。２００６年には韓日など８カ国・地域で構成されたアジア広告業協会を設立し初代会長に就任した。２００７年の第４回アジア広告業協会総会の済州島（チェジュド）での開催も成田顧問が主導した。金浦（キムポ）空港と羽田空港を結ぶシャトル便の就航も成田顧問の寄与が大きく作用した。
勲章授与式後に権大使が開催したレセプションには森喜朗もと首相ら日本の著名人が多く出席した。
中央日報 Joins.com
2009.03.25 08:53:13
------------------------
Swiss secrecy laws had nothing to do with the Nazis
Published: March 26 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 26 2009 02:00
From Mr Bruno Gurtner.
Sir, Your correspondent writes, in his article about Swiss bank secrecy (“A vault unlocked”, March 24), that Swiss secrecy laws “date back to 1934, when they were enacted partly to protect German Jews and trade unionists from the Nazis”. This is a big myth. The argument about it being set up to protect Jewish money first appeared in the November 1966 Bulletin of the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (today Credit Suisse). The main reason bank secrecy was strengthened in 1934 was a scandal two years earlier, when the Basler Handelsbank was caught in flagrante facilitating tax evasion by members of French high society, among them two bishops, several generals, and the owners of Le Figaro and Le Matin newspapers. Before that, there was professional secrecy (such as exists between doctors and their patients), and violation was a civil offence, not a criminal one as it is today. Swiss bank secrecy has always been an effective way to attract foreign money.
Many Swiss people are delighted that our country is going to stop blocking the exchange of information with other jurisdictions and will now follow Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development standards. For Switzerland this is a huge step. Other important steps must follow, to tackle other loopholes in the offshore world, such as those provided by British trusts and by other damaging facilities offered in Britain’s Crown Dependencies.
Bruno Gurtner,
Chair of the Global Board,
Tax Justice Network,
Bern, Switzerland
----------------------
AIG executive resigns on pages of NYT
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A top executive with the insurance giant AIG resigned Wednesday via an opinion article in the New York Times, bitterly complaining of being "betrayed" by company management and "unfairly persecuted" by politicians. Skip related content
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Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president with the American International Group?s financial products unit, addressed his open letter to AIG CEO Edward Liddy.
"We in the financial products unit have been betrayed by AIG and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials," DeSantis said. "In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn."
DeSantis, who said he was proud of his 11 years of work at AIG, said: "I was in no way involved in -- or responsible for -- the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung AIG."
Nor were most of the remaining employees in the division, he said.
"Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage," he wrote.
After receiving more than 170 billion dollars in federal bailout money, AIG handed out 165 million dollars in bonuses to top executives, unleashing a firestorm of criticism among the US public and on Capitol Hill.
DeSantis said that Liddy is "aware that most of the employees of (the) financial products unit had nothing to do with the large losses. And I am disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us.
"I and many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain members of Congress ... and from the press over our retention payments," DeSantis wrote.
DeSantis wrote he is donating his 742,000 dollar-plus retention bonus "directly to organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn."
--------------------------
Business
Gazprom sets up joint venture for gas sales in Italy
17:49 | 25/ 03/ 2009
Print version
BERLIN, March 25 (RIA Novosti) - Gazprom has bought a 50% stake in A2A Beta S.p.A. from Italy's A2A Alfa S.r.l. to create a joint venture to sell gas on the Italian market, a Gazprom spokesman said on Wednesday.
The deal was struck by Gazprom's subsidiary, Gazprom Germania, which trades natural gas from Russia and Central Asia in Germany and Western Europe.
"Consequently we have put into practice previously reached agreements to establish a joint venture with the aim of selling natural gas on the Italian gas market," Gazprom Germania spokesman Burkhard Woelki said.
A2A Alfa S.r.l. is 70% controlled by a group of Italian companies, A2A, while the remaining 30% is held by Iride. Gazprom Germania is represented in the deal by its subsidiary ZMB GmbH.
The joint venture is expected to enable Gazprom to sell about 900 million cubic meters of gas on the Italian market annually.
A2A is a leading energy company in Italy, selling 6 billion cubic meters of gas annually. Iride Group sells about 2 billion cubic meters annually.
-----------------------------
Russia, Turkmenistan fail to sign pipeline agreement
16:31 | 26/ 03/ 2009
Print version
MOSCOW. (Sanobar Shermatova, member of the RIA Novosti Expert Council) - The Moscow visit of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov on March 25 has clarified relations between the two countries.
Turkmenistan, a country in Central Asia, has huge reserves of natural gas, which its neighbors need to meet their energy requirements. But what does it need from Russia?
Russia's policy in Central Asia is focused on gaining access to its energy resources. The Caspian pipeline project, which Vladimir Putin negotiated with Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, badly needs Turkmen gas to become effective.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hoped to sign an intergovernmental agreement on building a West-East pipeline across Turkmenistan, which would have advanced the project lobbied by Moscow to a new level.
Under the plan, the pipeline would link deposits in northeast Turkmenistan to the Caspian Sea.
However, the sides have not signed the agreement, and details of the two presidents' talks point to problems with financing the West-East pipeline.
Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko will soon go to Ashgabat to finalize the agreement, which is to be signed during the president's next meeting, Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko told the media.
Although the project has been put off, it is unlikely that Moscow has lost it.
Turkmenistan is currently formulating a strategy of national development. The Moscow visit by its president should be viewed against the backdrop of his official visits to Kazakhstan in May 2007 and Uzbekistan in February 2008. The latter two countries proposed their own schemes for consolidating the Central Asian countries, where Turkmenistan is assigned a special role.
Ashgabat is cleverly evading the attempts of its large neighbors to draw it into the zones of their influence, which highlights the country's political priorities. Turkmenistan's relations with Russia will differ from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan's relations with the Kremlin.
However, a rapid rapprochement between them is unlikely. Evidence of this is the refusal to accept a simplified visa regime proposed by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov. Sources say the new regime was only planned to facilitate visits by Russian businessmen.
The complicated consular procedures could be eventually simplified. But nothing is done quickly in Turkmenistan, which abides by the golden rule: Why run when you can walk?
The hierarchy of Turkmenistan's priorities, where Russia so far holds the top spot, will be certainly complemented by other partners. Turkmenistan could also review its associated status in the CIS. Recently, it proposed holding the conference of the Council of the CIS Foreign Ministers in Ashgabat, which may be good news for its neighbors.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
-------------------------
Russia, Ukraine still arguing over Black Sea Fleet
12:52 | 25/ 03/ 2009
Print version
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) - Russia and Ukraine have been arguing over the Sevastopol-based Black Sea Fleet for a long time.
In the first years following the break-up of the Soviet Union, the two countries, both legal successors to the U.S.S.R., wrangled over the distribution of warships, bases and other naval property.
Although the Black Sea Fleet was divided in 1997, Moscow and Kiev did not ratify the relevant bilateral agreements until March 24, 1999. Moreover, both sides continue their heated arguments over the fleet's future.
The struggle for the Black Sea Fleet's future began on April 5, 1992 when the then Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk signed a decree On Urgent Measures to Develop the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The document placed the former Soviet Black Sea Fleet under Kiev's jurisdiction. There were also plans to establish the Ukrainian navy on the basis of the fleet's elements deployed in Ukraine. In effect, this implied that Kiev would be able to control the entire Black Sea Fleet. However, the Ukrainian government had no right to make this decision.
At that time, the Black Sea Fleet was part of the Joint CIS Armed Forces and the CIS Navy, commanded by Fleet Admiral Vladimir Chernavin.
On April 7, 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued his own decree placing the Black Sea Fleet under Moscow's jurisdiction. The Kremlin proposed settling the crisis through negotiations. Both Kiev and Moscow suspended the aforesaid decrees for the duration of the talks.
Protracted diplomatic bargaining was hindered by Kiev's efforts to persuade Black Sea Fleet personnel to swear allegiance to Ukraine, to establish control over the fleet and to present Moscow with a fait accompli.
On May 28, 1997, the final intergovernmental agreements on the status of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, the terms for its deployment in Ukraine, fleet-division parameters and mutual settlements linked with the fleet's division and deployment in Ukraine were signed in Kiev.
At present, the Black Sea Fleet comprises 50 warships and motor boats, as well as several dozen auxiliary ships. The number of fleet-aviation and coastal-defense units has dwindled manifold.
The fleet, which used to dominate the Black Sea and to vie with NATO forces in the Mediterranean Sea, is now smaller than the Turkish navy but larger than all other Black Sea navies put together.
Black Sea Fleet warships do not sail to the Mediterranean Sea on a regular basis, while the situation along Russia's southern borders has been aggravated. In August 2008, the fleet had to conduct combat operations during the Five Day War with Georgia.
The Ukrainian navy did not profit from warships received after the Black Sea Fleet's division. An overwhelming majority of them were soon scrapped, while the rest are considered unsuitable for service.
Nevertheless, political debates on the Black Sea Fleet continue unabated. Ukrainian nationalists and their supporters are demanding that Russia withdraw its warships from Sevastopol as soon as possible and do not want to discuss the possible extension of the naval base lease contract after 2017.
Although various Russian politicians and movements are also trying to score political points on the Black Sea Fleet issue, many of them do not care much about defending Russia's southern borders.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
日本最大の広告代理店、電通の成田豊最高顧問（７９）が韓国政府から修交勲章光化章を贈られた。３０年にわたる韓日文化交流事業を積極的に後援した功労だ。
権哲賢（クォン・チョルヒョン）駐日大使が２４日に駐日韓国大使館に成田顧問を招いて勲章を授与した。修交勲章光化章は国権伸長や友邦との親善など国益増進に寄与した人に授与されるもので、外国人に贈られる最高等級の勲章だ。
勲章を授与された成田顧問は、「韓国の国歌であるムクゲの花言葉は尊敬だと聞いた。互いに尊敬する心を忘れないことこそ未来の両国民を強く結びつける基本だと確信する」と感想を述べた。また「韓国は私が生まれ青少年時代を送ったところで、一度も忘れたことはない」と話した。
１９２９年に忠清南道天安（チュンチョンナムド・チョナン）で生まれ、中学３年を終えるまで韓国で少年期を送った成田顧問は、鉄道業に従事する父親とともにソウルをはじめ各地で生活した。「いまでも夏には北漢山（プッカンサン）に登り、冬には漢江（ハンガン）でスケートをしたことをはっきりと覚えている」と振り返った。
成田顧問は８８年のソウルオリンピックと９３年の大田万博開催当時に協賛企業募集に寄与したほか、韓国が遅れて招致に乗り出した２００２年のサッカー・ワールドカップと関連しても両国の友好増進に向け韓日共同開催を主導した。２００５年からはソウルで毎年韓日サッカー大会を開催するなど多彩な韓日文化交流事業も主導してきた。昨年９月にソウルで開かれた韓日交流おまつりでは日本側実行委員長を務め行事を成功裏に進める実践力も誇示した。
成田顧問は本業の広告分野でも韓日協力を主導した。９７年に国内の広告会社のフェニックスコミュニケーションズと共同で韓日フォーラムを開催し、国内広告業界・メディアとの連係を図った。２００６年には韓日など８カ国・地域で構成されたアジア広告業協会を設立し初代会長に就任した。２００７年の第４回アジア広告業協会総会の済州島（チェジュド）での開催も成田顧問が主導した。金浦（キムポ）空港と羽田空港を結ぶシャトル便の就航も成田顧問の寄与が大きく作用した。
勲章授与式後に権大使が開催したレセプションには森喜朗もと首相ら日本の著名人が多く出席した。
中央日報 Joins.com
2009.03.25 08:53:13
------------------------
Swiss secrecy laws had nothing to do with the Nazis
Published: March 26 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 26 2009 02:00
From Mr Bruno Gurtner.
Sir, Your correspondent writes, in his article about Swiss bank secrecy (“A vault unlocked”, March 24), that Swiss secrecy laws “date back to 1934, when they were enacted partly to protect German Jews and trade unionists from the Nazis”. This is a big myth. The argument about it being set up to protect Jewish money first appeared in the November 1966 Bulletin of the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (today Credit Suisse). The main reason bank secrecy was strengthened in 1934 was a scandal two years earlier, when the Basler Handelsbank was caught in flagrante facilitating tax evasion by members of French high society, among them two bishops, several generals, and the owners of Le Figaro and Le Matin newspapers. Before that, there was professional secrecy (such as exists between doctors and their patients), and violation was a civil offence, not a criminal one as it is today. Swiss bank secrecy has always been an effective way to attract foreign money.
Many Swiss people are delighted that our country is going to stop blocking the exchange of information with other jurisdictions and will now follow Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development standards. For Switzerland this is a huge step. Other important steps must follow, to tackle other loopholes in the offshore world, such as those provided by British trusts and by other damaging facilities offered in Britain’s Crown Dependencies.
Bruno Gurtner,
Chair of the Global Board,
Tax Justice Network,
Bern, Switzerland
----------------------
AIG executive resigns on pages of NYT
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Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president with the American International Group?s financial products unit, addressed his open letter to AIG CEO Edward Liddy.
"We in the financial products unit have been betrayed by AIG and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials," DeSantis said. "In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn."
DeSantis, who said he was proud of his 11 years of work at AIG, said: "I was in no way involved in -- or responsible for -- the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung AIG."
Nor were most of the remaining employees in the division, he said.
"Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage," he wrote.
After receiving more than 170 billion dollars in federal bailout money, AIG handed out 165 million dollars in bonuses to top executives, unleashing a firestorm of criticism among the US public and on Capitol Hill.
DeSantis said that Liddy is "aware that most of the employees of (the) financial products unit had nothing to do with the large losses. And I am disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us.
"I and many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain members of Congress ... and from the press over our retention payments," DeSantis wrote.
DeSantis wrote he is donating his 742,000 dollar-plus retention bonus "directly to organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn."
--------------------------
Business
Gazprom sets up joint venture for gas sales in Italy
17:49 | 25/ 03/ 2009
Print version
BERLIN, March 25 (RIA Novosti) - Gazprom has bought a 50% stake in A2A Beta S.p.A. from Italy's A2A Alfa S.r.l. to create a joint venture to sell gas on the Italian market, a Gazprom spokesman said on Wednesday.
The deal was struck by Gazprom's subsidiary, Gazprom Germania, which trades natural gas from Russia and Central Asia in Germany and Western Europe.
"Consequently we have put into practice previously reached agreements to establish a joint venture with the aim of selling natural gas on the Italian gas market," Gazprom Germania spokesman Burkhard Woelki said.
A2A Alfa S.r.l. is 70% controlled by a group of Italian companies, A2A, while the remaining 30% is held by Iride. Gazprom Germania is represented in the deal by its subsidiary ZMB GmbH.
The joint venture is expected to enable Gazprom to sell about 900 million cubic meters of gas on the Italian market annually.
A2A is a leading energy company in Italy, selling 6 billion cubic meters of gas annually. Iride Group sells about 2 billion cubic meters annually.
-----------------------------
Russia, Turkmenistan fail to sign pipeline agreement
16:31 | 26/ 03/ 2009
Print version
MOSCOW. (Sanobar Shermatova, member of the RIA Novosti Expert Council) - The Moscow visit of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov on March 25 has clarified relations between the two countries.
Turkmenistan, a country in Central Asia, has huge reserves of natural gas, which its neighbors need to meet their energy requirements. But what does it need from Russia?
Russia's policy in Central Asia is focused on gaining access to its energy resources. The Caspian pipeline project, which Vladimir Putin negotiated with Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, badly needs Turkmen gas to become effective.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hoped to sign an intergovernmental agreement on building a West-East pipeline across Turkmenistan, which would have advanced the project lobbied by Moscow to a new level.
Under the plan, the pipeline would link deposits in northeast Turkmenistan to the Caspian Sea.
However, the sides have not signed the agreement, and details of the two presidents' talks point to problems with financing the West-East pipeline.
Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko will soon go to Ashgabat to finalize the agreement, which is to be signed during the president's next meeting, Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko told the media.
Although the project has been put off, it is unlikely that Moscow has lost it.
Turkmenistan is currently formulating a strategy of national development. The Moscow visit by its president should be viewed against the backdrop of his official visits to Kazakhstan in May 2007 and Uzbekistan in February 2008. The latter two countries proposed their own schemes for consolidating the Central Asian countries, where Turkmenistan is assigned a special role.
Ashgabat is cleverly evading the attempts of its large neighbors to draw it into the zones of their influence, which highlights the country's political priorities. Turkmenistan's relations with Russia will differ from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan's relations with the Kremlin.
However, a rapid rapprochement between them is unlikely. Evidence of this is the refusal to accept a simplified visa regime proposed by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov. Sources say the new regime was only planned to facilitate visits by Russian businessmen.
The complicated consular procedures could be eventually simplified. But nothing is done quickly in Turkmenistan, which abides by the golden rule: Why run when you can walk?
The hierarchy of Turkmenistan's priorities, where Russia so far holds the top spot, will be certainly complemented by other partners. Turkmenistan could also review its associated status in the CIS. Recently, it proposed holding the conference of the Council of the CIS Foreign Ministers in Ashgabat, which may be good news for its neighbors.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
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Russia, Ukraine still arguing over Black Sea Fleet
12:52 | 25/ 03/ 2009
Print version
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) - Russia and Ukraine have been arguing over the Sevastopol-based Black Sea Fleet for a long time.
In the first years following the break-up of the Soviet Union, the two countries, both legal successors to the U.S.S.R., wrangled over the distribution of warships, bases and other naval property.
Although the Black Sea Fleet was divided in 1997, Moscow and Kiev did not ratify the relevant bilateral agreements until March 24, 1999. Moreover, both sides continue their heated arguments over the fleet's future.
The struggle for the Black Sea Fleet's future began on April 5, 1992 when the then Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk signed a decree On Urgent Measures to Develop the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The document placed the former Soviet Black Sea Fleet under Kiev's jurisdiction. There were also plans to establish the Ukrainian navy on the basis of the fleet's elements deployed in Ukraine. In effect, this implied that Kiev would be able to control the entire Black Sea Fleet. However, the Ukrainian government had no right to make this decision.
At that time, the Black Sea Fleet was part of the Joint CIS Armed Forces and the CIS Navy, commanded by Fleet Admiral Vladimir Chernavin.
On April 7, 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued his own decree placing the Black Sea Fleet under Moscow's jurisdiction. The Kremlin proposed settling the crisis through negotiations. Both Kiev and Moscow suspended the aforesaid decrees for the duration of the talks.
Protracted diplomatic bargaining was hindered by Kiev's efforts to persuade Black Sea Fleet personnel to swear allegiance to Ukraine, to establish control over the fleet and to present Moscow with a fait accompli.
On May 28, 1997, the final intergovernmental agreements on the status of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, the terms for its deployment in Ukraine, fleet-division parameters and mutual settlements linked with the fleet's division and deployment in Ukraine were signed in Kiev.
At present, the Black Sea Fleet comprises 50 warships and motor boats, as well as several dozen auxiliary ships. The number of fleet-aviation and coastal-defense units has dwindled manifold.
The fleet, which used to dominate the Black Sea and to vie with NATO forces in the Mediterranean Sea, is now smaller than the Turkish navy but larger than all other Black Sea navies put together.
Black Sea Fleet warships do not sail to the Mediterranean Sea on a regular basis, while the situation along Russia's southern borders has been aggravated. In August 2008, the fleet had to conduct combat operations during the Five Day War with Georgia.
The Ukrainian navy did not profit from warships received after the Black Sea Fleet's division. An overwhelming majority of them were soon scrapped, while the rest are considered unsuitable for service.
Nevertheless, political debates on the Black Sea Fleet continue unabated. Ukrainian nationalists and their supporters are demanding that Russia withdraw its warships from Sevastopol as soon as possible and do not want to discuss the possible extension of the naval base lease contract after 2017.
Although various Russian politicians and movements are also trying to score political points on the Black Sea Fleet issue, many of them do not care much about defending Russia's southern borders.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Iron Ore Benchmark System May Be Scrapped, Deutsche Says
Iron Ore Benchmark System May Be Scrapped, Deutsche Says
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By Jason Scott
March 25 (Bloomberg) -- The annual iron price benchmark contract system may be scrapped as producers seek individual arrangements, Deutsche Bank AG said.
“The stress on the benchmark system has never been greater,” Deutsche analyst Peter O’Connor said today at a conference in Perth, Australia. There’s been a 50 percent increase in spot sales from Australian producers in the past six months as buyers renege on contracts, he said.
Cia. Vale do Rio Doce, the producer of the steelmaking raw material, said last month it wouldn’t seek to be the price setter this year. Vale has traditionally been the first iron-ore supplier to set so-called benchmark annual contract prices with steelmakers, establishing the basis for settlements by other miners in the international market.
In mid-2008, after a surge in demand, Australian producers BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group achieved price increases of 85 percent or higher for their ore, exceeding the 65 to 71 percent gained by Vale earlier in the year.
BHP, the world’s largest mining company, is also participating in off-exchange trading for iron ore offered by Credit Suisse Group and Deutsche Bank. The banks’ trading platforms handle swaps with initial maturities as far out as December 2009 that are settled in cash each month against an iron-ore index published by Metal Bulletin.
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Eat-What-You-Kill Bond Traders Rise From Wreckage (Update2)
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By Caroline Salas and Pierre Paulden
March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street bond trading is heading back to the 1980s, when private partnerships and independent firms dominated the market.
Jon Bass, who traded debt five seats from Salomon Brothers Inc. Chairman John Gutfreund and later helped run fixed income at UBS AG, joined equity broker BTIG LLC to help start its credit operation last month. BTIG, with a pool table and gym adjoining its seventh-floor midtown Manhattan trading room, is one of more than 50 credit dealers seeking to take advantage of the widening gap at which securities are bought and sold.
Smaller firms are emerging from the wreckage of the world’s largest financial companies, which are conserving capital following more than $1.2 trillion of writedowns and credit losses since the start of 2007. They’re luring traders with a shot at $500,000 commissions for two days’ work as banks that accepted federal bailouts retrench and slash bonuses.
“I don’t mean to dance on anybody’s graves here, but it’s just this incredible opportunity to reassemble a securities firm that does business the right way,” said Lee Fensterstock, chief executive officer of one of the firms, Broadpoint Securities Group Inc. in New York. “That business is going to lead with brain as opposed to capital. We’re not planning to run big balance sheets or big leveraged positions.”
Bear Stearns, Lehman
Broadpoint, whose shares have outperformed Citigroup Inc.’s by almost 51 percentage points this year, has added more than 240 people since September 2007. They include traders from Bear Stearns Cos., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co., which either collapsed or were absorbed by bigger banks amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Cantor Fitzgerald LP, the closely held securities firm, has hired 100 people in the past six months from banks, including UBS and Bear Stearns.
Just as when Gutfreund, 79, walked the aisles of Salomon’s trading floor, BTIG’s principals aren’t secluded in their offices during the day, said Bass, 46, who most recently headed fixed-income client management at UBS.
“Back then it was motivating to see the person running the firm in the trenches,” Bass said. “It’s getting back to basics.”
Partnerships including Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley went public in the 1980s, and many closely held firms disappeared into larger banking institutions by the end of the next decade. The trend accelerated after Sanford “Sandy” Weill’s creation of New York-based Citigroup and the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which had separated commercial and investment banks.
‘Free’ Liquidity
After Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan reduced interest rates at the start of the decade, banks borrowed inexpensively to buy long-term assets including subprime mortgage securities, said Michael Aronstein, Oscar Gruss & Son Inc.’s chief investment strategist.
“When liquidity became free, five or seven years ago, that changed the Street: You could trade $500 million of anything in a second,” said Shawn Matthews, chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. in New York, a unit of Cantor Fitzgerald LP.
“It has to go back to a time where it looked and felt like it was in the ‘80s,” Matthews said. “How many 28-year-olds can you put in positions to trade $2 billion?”
Morgan Stanley’s trading profits rose to records in 2006 and early 2007 when its leverage, the ratio of assets to shareholder equity, rose to 33 times. The New York-based firm reported a record $2.9 billion of revenue from fixed income for the second quarter of 2007.
Subprime Losses
Banks traded their own investments alongside client orders, “combining hedge funds, which is what these places turned into, with customer-oriented businesses” and creating conflict-of- interest concerns, Aronstein, 55, said. “The fact is it ended in tears.”
Losses in June 2007 at two Bear Stearns hedge funds that invested in subprime mortgage securities led to the firm’s government-arranged takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co. of New York in March 2008. Six months later, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. acquired Merrill Lynch as the world’s largest brokerage suffered almost $19 billion in net losses tied to mortgages.
New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which was the world’s biggest and most-profitable securities firm, and Morgan Stanley, converted to bank holding companies. Each received $10 billion from the U.S. government. UBS and Citigroup lost more than $138 billion and governments globally have intervened to protect the financial system from collapse.
‘Partnership Mentality’
“If Wall Street had kept the partnership mentality we wouldn’t be in this mess,” said Matthews, 42, of Cantor Fitzgerald. “The universal bank model is wounded, if not destroyed.”
After financial institutions eliminated more than 284,000 jobs and slashed pay, smaller firms are hiring salesmen and traders who wouldn’t have considered boutiques during the boom, Fensterstock, 61, said.
Banks were paying “huge amounts of restricted stock,” to keep employees, he said. “Because of the decimation firms are either out of business or with the stock performance of a Bank of America or a Citigroup, that’s no longer a factor. You have this perfect storm,” he said.
Citigroup shares have tumbled almost 95 percent to $3.03 from a peak of $56.41 in December 2006. Bank of America has fallen 87 percent to $7.26 from $54.90 in November 2006.
Fensterstock, who ran PaineWebber’s worldwide sales and trading in the early 1990s, said commission-based compensation, known as eat what you kill, is an “extremely important” aspect of the boutique model.
Banks Lower Pay
Broadpoint wants to put about half of its trading revenue into employees’ pockets, with 30 percent to 40 percent for salesmen and 10 percent to 20 percent for traders, he said.
Some salesmen at the largest firms, which are reducing compensation as business slows under the glare of government oversight, saw their compensation fall from $2 million in 2007 to just their base salary of $150,000 in 2008, with no bonus, according to Michael Maloney, president of Wall Street recruiting firm Maloney Inc.
“All the A-level and B-level salesmen will make more money on commission,” Maloney said. “I know one salesman who made half a million dollars in his pocket in 48 hours. He could gross $500 million at Citibank and he’s not going to get paid a dime.”
For all the opportunity, many of the 50 start-up boutique dealers in New York won’t succeed, he said.
‘Critical Mass’
“They just don’t have enough critical mass,” Maloney said. “A lot of people are just setting up firms where they have a Bloomberg and five or six people they used to work with.”
BTIG, which had five employees in 2002, plans to add at least 26 more salesmen and traders for investment-grade bonds, high-yield and distressed debt, said John Purcell, 50. With Bass, Purcell is co-head of global fixed income at the 270- person firm and ran global fixed-income syndicate at Citigroup.
ICP Capital, a boutique investment bank set up in 2004, has almost doubled its staff since last year’s second quarter to 74 people, including Patrick Russell, 40, the former co-head of residential mortgage trading at Morgan Stanley, said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at ICP.
John Costas, the former head of UBS’ investment bank, and Michael Hutchins, who previously headed the debt unit of UBS, are starting a financial services firm preliminarily named VinsonForbes.
Bid-Ask Spread
A shortage of trading capital at the biggest banks has increased the gap between how much they pay to buy or sell fixed-income securities. The so-called bid-ask spread has almost doubled to 19 basis points in the past six months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Those spreads will narrow in the next couple of years, and banks will attempt to win back business through financing, said Adam Yarnold, 33, who trades residential mortgage securities and distressed bonds backed by consumer loans at Braver Stern & Co. in New York. The firm has 15 traders and salesmen.
“The next 12 to 24 months will be make or break for the smaller shops,” said Yarnold, a former army ranger who helped run Deutsche Bank AG’s residential mortgage-backed securities desk in New York until July. “There will be a high mortality rate but the boutiques that make it will win big.”
Gutfreund, the former chairman of Salomon Brothers, said the resurgence of smaller firms has only to do with greed and necessity.
‘Always Money’
“The motivation is always money,” said Gutfreund, the president of Gutfreund & Co. in New York. “The reason people are leaving is because they need the money and a job.”
U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd last month proposed restrictions on executive compensation at companies that received money from the government’s financial rescue fund. U.S. House Democratic leaders voted March 19 on a 90 percent tax on executive bonus payments by companies receiving more than $5 billion in federal bailout funds. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has also criticized Merrill Lynch for paying $3.6 billion in bonuses for 2008.
“The talent is streaming out of the doors of the big firms,” Bruce Foerster, a former Lehman Brothers managing director and now president of South Beach Capital Markets in Miami said. “As the best and the brightest leave, they will tip their hat to Senator Christopher Dodd. Bright people won’t want to be at places where the government is.”
------------------------------
14:13 GMT, Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Lebanon approves Syria ambassador
A Lebanese policeman outside the building housing the new Syrian embassy in Beirut
Lebanon has approved the appointment of the first Syrian ambassador to Beirut, five months after the neighbours set up their first formal diplomatic contacts.
"President Michel Suleiman approved the nomination of Ali Abdul Karim Ali as the Syrian Arab Republic's ambassador to Beirut," an official in Beirut said.
Syria opened its embassy in December but had delayed naming an envoy.
It had come under heavy international pressure to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon for the first time.
Damascus finally did so some 60 years after the two countries gained independence. Until 2005, Damascus kept troops stationed in Lebanon.
Lebanon's ambassador to Damascus, Michel el-Khoury, was named at the start of 2009 and the embassy was opened in the Syrian capital earlier in March.
Syria had come under heavy international pressure to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon for the first time, some 60 years after the two countries gained independence.
Syria pulled out its troops from Lebanon after almost 30 years of political and military domination, amid a wave of popular protest after the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri in February 2005.
Many anti-Syrian Lebanese blamed Damascus for the killing, although Syria denied any involvement.
--------------------------------
Syria names its first ever ambassador to Lebanon
Published: Tuesday, 24 March, 2009 @ 6:22 PM in Beirut
Beirut - Syria has named its first ambassador to Lebanon and Lebanese President Michel Suleiman accepted his diplomatic accreditation Tuesday, according to a statement from the Lebanese presidential Palace in Baabda.
ali abdul Karim ali.jpg
The Lebanese presidential Palace issued today the following statement:
"President Michel Suleiman on Tuesday approved the nomination of Ali Abdel Karim Ali as the Syrian Arab Republic's ambassador to Beirut."
Ali,56 , has been Syria's ambassador to Kuwait since November 2004 and has also served as the head of Syria's official News agency SANA.
Lebanon last week opened its first embassy in Damascus and has named its first ambassador as Michel Khoury. Khoury is the current Lebanese ambassador to Cyprus
Syria had opened its Beirut embassy last December .
Syria has faced international pressure to establish formal diplomatic ties with Lebanon, which had been dominated for decades by its larger neighbor until the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
Establishment of formal relations had been a central demand of anti-Syrian Lebanese factions that won an election in 2005 following the Hariri killing and the withdrawal of Syrian troops who had first entered Lebanon in 1976.
The United States and France had led pressure on Syria to establish formal ties with Lebanon. Syria had resisted the move, citing the countries' shared history and close ties. Syria and Lebanon were carved out of the Ottoman Empire by imperial powers France and Britain in the 20th century.
Syria has yet to meet international demands to formally demarcate its border with Lebanon.
Syria dominated politics in Lebanon until the Hariri assassination, which increased international pressure on Damascus to withdraw its troops from the country.
Anti-Syrian politicians have accused Syria of orchestrating the assassination of Hariri and other anti-Damascus figures. Syria has always denied the accusations.
About Syria's first ambassador to Lebanon
Education: BA in Arabic Language and Literature from the University of Damascus
Professional experience : Prior to moving to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he has worked in the print media , radio and television in Syria for more than twenty-five years , where he held various positions, including:
- Director of Broadcasting
- Director of Television
- General Manager and Chief Editor of Syrian Arab news agency (SANA)
At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs he held the following positions
2002 - 2003: Deputy Ambassador to the Syrian Embassy in Abu Dhabi.
2003 -2004: Charge d'affairesof the Syrian Embassy in Kuwait.
Since November 2004: Syrian ambassador in Kuwait.
Ali is a Political analyst and writer and poet and writes on politics and literature on an ongoing basis. In 1998 he issued his collection of poems under the title : "Invocations of a cold summer"
He is married with four children , 2 girls and 2 boys
---------------------------------------
Russia to postpone talks with Ukraine after recent deal with EU
MOSCOW, Mar 24 (Prime-Tass) -- Russia will postpone talks with Ukraine because of a recent Ukrainian-E.U. energy agreement, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday at a meeting of the Security Council.
He said the intergovernmental talks had been previously scheduled for next week.
On Monday, Ukraine and the E.U. signed a declaration under which E.U. companies are expected to invest in the Ukrainian gas pipeline system and increase its capacity.
"The content of that declaration raises certain questions," Medvedev said.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said earlier on Monday he believed E.U.-Ukrainian talks on pipeline upgrades without Russia's participation were "not serious."
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko declared Tuesday that the declaration did not violate Russia's interests. She also said that Japanese companies could also invest in Ukraine's pipeline system.
Bogdan Sokolovsky, a spokesman for Ukraine's presidential executive office, said Ukraine was interested in Russia's participation in the pipeline system's modernization.
Commenting on the issue, Paolo Scaroni, CEO of Italian energy company Eni, said that his company, as well as Germany energy company E.ON and Gaz de France, believed an international consortium for running Ukrainian pipelines should be set up.
In 2003, Gazprom, Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy, and German energy company E.ON Ruhrgas concluded a preliminary agreement to run Ukraine's pipeline system. However, the agreement has not been finalized.
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China to cooperate with Russia against U.S. dollar
24.03.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru URL: http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/107287-China_Russia_dollar-0
China supported Russia’s initiative to develop a new global reserve currency as an alternative to the U.S. dollar saying that such a move is necessary in today’s world. Moreover China is ready to discuss this issue at the G20 summit in London, a vice governor of the country's Central Bank said on Monday.
On the one hand Russia should be glad to have such a strong ally; on the other hand there likely will be no actions from the Chinese side because today China holds about $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.
"We believe it is necessary to consider the IMF's role in this process and also define the possibility and the need to adopt measures allowing for Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to become an internationally recognized super-reserve currency," Russia's proposal read.
Hu Xiaolian said that China, which holds about $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, was prepared to debate the issue as "the dollar's dominance and U.S. economic woes could entail considerable currency fluctuations and affect the world financial situation."
At the same time, she said that discussion into a new global currency could be started but considering the dollar's status as the current primary currency, "we should focus more on enhancing control over the existing system."
The G20 summit, involving advanced and emerging economies and international financial institutions, will be held in London on April 2, aimed at finding ways to overcome the ongoing global financial crisis, RIA-Novosti reports.
On March 13, China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, said he was concerned about the safety of those assets, particularly because huge economic stimulus plans could lead to soaring deficits in the United States, which could sink the dollar’s value.
Should China lose its appetite for Treasuries, the United States’ borrowing costs could rise, making it more costly for Washington to carry out economic stimulus packages and for Americans to pay off their mortgages, nytimes.com reports.
Nicholas Lardy, an economist and China specialist at the Peterson Institute in Washington, said that through its proposal, China was indicating that the dollar’s long dominance was unfair, allowing the United States to run huge deficits by borrowing from abroad, and that the risks to holders of Treasuries were growing.
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Skypeが国際通話トラフィックでトップに
2009/03/25
通信関連の調査会社PriMetricは3月24日、国際通話サービスを提供する単一の事業者としてSkypeが世界最大となったとするレポートを発表した。調査したのはPriMetricの一部門、TeleGeography。
調査によれば国をまたいだ音声通話のトラフィックは2007年に14％、2008年に12％と伸びているという。通話料が下がっていることから、事業者の収入自体はほぼ横ばい。
堅調なトラフィックの伸びが見られる中でも際だって伸びているのがSkypeで、2008年に約41％増加している。総計4170億分の通話のうち、330億分がSkypeによるもので、これは全体の8％に相当。国際通話サービス事業者としてトップに立った。
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Syria uranium traces not conclusive, says IAEA
Source: BI-ME and Reuters , Author: BI-ME staff
Posted: 18-11-2008
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SYRIA. Traces of uranium found at a Syrian site bombed by Israel last year were not sufficient evidence of nuclear activity there, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said yesterday.
“We won’t be able to reach a quick conclusion unless we have credible information,” Mohamed ElBaradei told a news conference in Dubai. “There was uranium but it does not mean there was a reactor.”
Diplomats in Vienna told Reuters earlier this month that particles of processed uranium were found in samples taken by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors from the site in eastern Syria, and said the findings warranted further investigation before any conclusions were drawn.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has dismissed as politically motivated the disclosures about the uranium traces and said the uranium could have come from munitions used by Israel to bomb the site in September last year.
ElBaradei said a report on Syria’s alleged covert atomic activity which the IAEA will release later this week will also not be conclusive.
“The report will say that there is still a lot of work to do. [There will be] no conclusion on whether there was a reactor or not,” he said.
Both Syria and Israel should co-operate with the IAEA’s investigation of Syria’s alleged covert programme, he said.
“We need co-operation from Syria; we need co-operation from Israel,” he said. “I would still like more transparency from the Syrians,” he added.
Washington, Israel’s chief ally, says the site was a secret nuclear reactor that was almost complete when it was bombed by Israel, which embarked on indirect peace talks with Syria months later.
Syria says the target of the Israeli attack was a disused military building, denies it was a plutonium-making reactor under construction, and it says the US intelligence was fabricated.
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元親方「兄弟子らで終了できた」…力士暴行死で
大相撲時津風部屋の序ノ口力士、時太山＝当時（１７）、本名斉藤俊さん＝暴行死事件で、傷害致死罪に問われた元親方、山本順一被告（５９）の公判が２５日、名古屋地裁（芦沢政治裁判長）で開かれた。山本被告は被告人質問で「兄弟子らの判断でぶつかりげいこを終わらせることができた」と述べた。
山本被告は、検察側から入門間もない斉藤さんに約３０分間にわたるぶつかりげいこをさせたのは異常ではないかと問われると「そうは思わなかった」と答えた。兄弟子らがこれまでの公判で「元親方の指示なく、終了できなかった」と証言した点について「斉藤さんが力を出し切って当たれば、わたしの指示がなくても終わらせることができた」と反論した。
ZAKZAK 2009/03/25
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Czech MPs oust government over economic crisis
By Jan Cienski in Warsaw and Nikki Tait in Brussels
Published: March 25 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 25 2009 02:00
The Czech government collapsed last night after losing a vote of confidence over its handling of the economic crisis.
The 101-96 vote marks the end of the coalition government of Mirek Topolanek, the centre-right prime minister, as well as the effective conclusion of the already bumpy and crisis-ridden Czech presidency of the European Union, which formally expires on June 30. The vote comes ahead of a visit to Prague next month by Barack Obama, US president.
"How can a government which has no support in the country be able to lead the European Union?" said Jiri Pehe, a Prague-based political scientist.
Mr Topolanek said he planned to resign after returning from a trip to Brussels. Jiri Paroubek, the leader of the opposition Social Democrats, has said that he will only push for fresh elections after the Czech Republic's current presidency of the European Union expires.
The EU tried to put the best face possible on the embarrassing failure of the government leading the Union, issuing a statement that said: "It is for the Czech Republic's democratic process under the constitution to resolve the domestic political issues; the Commission is confident that this is done in a way which ensures the full functioning of the council presidency."
The unexpected fall of Mr Topolanek's government adds strength to the French argument that the presidency of a 27-member union which forms the world's largest economy is unsuited for smaller and ill-prepared countries.
Mr Topolanek, facing the fifth vote of confidence in his third year as prime minister, was unable to win over enough independent MPs to save his government.
The initiative now passes to Vaclav Klaus, the euro-sceptic Czech president, who will have to name a caretaker administration to govern the country. If three attempts to form a new government fail, then new elections are called.
The difficulty in forcing new elections raises the possibility that a technocratic government will limp along in power until the next election, set for June 2010.
The opposition Social Democrats currently lead Mr Topolanek's Civic Democrats (ODS) in opinion polls.
That would leave Prague ill-prepared to deal with the fall-out from the economic downturn, which is hitting the export-orientated Czech economy with increasing force. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Zdenek Tuma, the governor of the Czech central bank, said the economy could shrink by as much as 2 per cent this year if the situation did not improve in western Europe.
Mr Topolanek had resisted calls to increase spending, arguing that the government did not have the wherewithal to bail the country out of the recession. However, that approach was unpopular with the left-leaning Social Democrats, and helped galvanise opposition.
The final straw was a domestic political scandal relating to accusations of inappropriate pressure to force a television station to stop a story criticising an opposition MP who had joined the government side.
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住友化学、世界最大級のプラント稼働へ 国内再編機運高まる
2009.3.25 21:35
住友化学がサウジアラビアの国営企業サウジ・アラムコと合弁で進める世界最大級の石油化学コンビナートが３月末にも本格稼働する。総投資額が１兆円にのぼる巨大事業で、住化では現地で生産した石油化学製品をアジア地域で４月から販売する計画だ。ただ、世界的な景気低迷下での新規の設備稼働となるため、赤字操業が続く日本の化学メーカーにとって市況面で打撃となる事態も予想される。すでに化学業界では競争激化に備え、一部製品の生産から撤退する動きも出ており、新たな再編の引き金になる可能性もある。
同社の米倉弘昌社長は、今回のサウジ合弁事業の意義について「当社が石油化学事業を始めて以来の大きな存在になる」と期待をかける。産油国で石化製品を現地生産するため、原料となるナフサ（粗製ガソリン）を輸入品の１０分の１から２０分の１という低価格で調達でき、コスト競争力が飛躍的に高まるからだ。
また、このプラントは生産規模でも世界最大級であり、石化製品の基礎原料であるエチレンについては国内工場の約３・５倍となる年１３０万トン、プロピレンも年９０万トンそれぞれ生産する計画で、生産拡大に伴うコスト削減も見込める。
住化では「早期の高稼働率の確保が可能」（野崎邦夫執行役員）とみており、本格稼働に合わせて中国をはじめとするアジア諸国に製品を供給する。
ただ、昨年後半からの世界的な景気悪化を受け、ナフサ原料となる原油価格は急落している。。住化関係者は「原油価格が１バレル＝２５ドルになっても採算は取れる」と強気の構えだが、この石化合弁は、中東地域で今後相次いで誕生する大型コンビナートとの競争にもさらされる。
一方、国内の化学各社に与える影響も大きい。旧式のエチレン設備を使用する国内各社の生産能力は平均年５０万トン規模に過ぎない。需要減に伴って減産も続いており、各社とも赤字操業を強いられているのが現状だ。
このため、三井化学では中東産の石化製品の流入を懸念し、ポリエステル繊維原料の生産を今年１１月に一部停止する。三菱化学も「日本のエチレン生産能力の３分の１が過剰になる可能性がある」とみており、茨城県の鹿島、岡山県の水島にあるエチレンプラントをめぐり、石油元売り各社も巻き込んだ形で統廃合を模索している。（飯田耕司）
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正社員一部は賃下げし契約社員を全員正社員化、広島電鉄（1/2ページ）
2009年3月25日
広島市内などで路面電車や路線バスを運行している広島電鉄（本社・広島市）の労働組合「私鉄中国地方労働組合広島電鉄支部」は２５日、契約社員を全員正社員化し、賃金も引き上げて正社員と一本化することで会社側と合意したと発表した。組合員の同意を得て０９年度の早い時期からの実施を目指す。一部の正社員は賃下げになる。同社のような千人規模の企業でのこうした取り組みは珍しく、雇用形態による労働条件の格差を解消するモデルケースとして注目されそうだ。
同支部によると、同社は０１年以降、バス、電車の運転士や車掌の採用を、１年ごとに更新する契約社員に限っており、現在約１５０人が在籍している。月額賃金は運転士２３万１千円、車掌１９万６５００円で、何年勤めても昇給はない。また、約１０４０人いる正社員のうち１５０人は、契約社員から正社員に登用された「正社員２」という雇用形態で、労働条件は契約社員と同じ。昇給のある正社員と比べると賃金は平均で月額５万円程度低かった。
新しい制度では、年功と能力を加味して昇給する賃金制度に一本化し、定年も５年延長して６５歳とする。一方で、以前から正社員として勤務している３００人弱のベテラン社員は賃金が月額５万～６万円下がるため、調整給を支給しながら１０年間でゆるやかに減額する。
同支部は契約社員も労組員として正式加盟しており、０６年から契約社員の正社員化と賃金制度の統一を求めて会社側と交渉を始めた。しかし、給与の原資は限られ、賃金の一本化でベテラン正社員の賃金が下がるケースが出てくることから交渉は難航。今回、組合員の収入減が緩和されたことや、会社側も乗務員の勤労意欲が高まり、より安全な運行が確保できるメリットがあることから合意に至った。
佐古正明委員長は「（契約社員としてだけ採用する状況を）放置しておけば、ほとんどの乗務員が低い賃金水準になってしまう。統一によって賃金が下がる正社員の組合員からは厳しい意見も予想されるが、大局的にご理解をいただきたい」と話している。
全国のバス、鉄道など２３１労組が加盟する私鉄総連によると、私鉄業界で非正規社員を正社員にして賃金制度を統一するケースは珍しい。私鉄総連は０３年、非正規社員を３年で正社員にすることを運動方針に掲げ、各労組に呼びかけてきた。藤井一也書記長は「契約社員が労組に入っていない会社が多い。各企業の経営体力の問題もあり、進んでいないのが現状だ」と話している。
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〈脇田滋・龍谷大教授（労働法）の話〉 労働者全体の利益を考えて、一番弱い非正社員の労働条件を引き上げた広島電鉄労組の取り組みは、労働運動のあるべき方向性を示す事例だ。非正社員を守れなければ結局は正社員も守れないことを認識し、賃金格差を是正した点を評価したい。ただ、欧州諸国では、派遣社員を含めて企業の枠を超えた「同一労働、同一賃金」の原則が貫かれている。日本でも産業全体の連帯を考えていく必要がある。
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〈非正規労働者の問題に詳しい村田浩治弁護士の話〉 労働者の少ない小規模企業では、非正規社員を正社員化し、その分、正社員の賃金レベルを下げる取り組みが少しずつ出始めているが、広島電鉄のような規模の企業では珍しい。
ただ、こうした動きを経営者側が主導すると「実質的な一律賃金カットだ」との反発を労働者から受ける可能性もある。会社としても容易に進められる話ではないだけに、今回、労組が合意に応じた点に大きな意味があると思う。
雇用が流動化し、不況が深刻化する中で、労組の役割も変化している。既存の正社員だけで利益を分け合う従来の姿勢から脱し、正社員の「いす」自体を増やす方向にかじを切る必要があり、そうした動きを主導すべきだ。
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By Jason Scott
March 25 (Bloomberg) -- The annual iron price benchmark contract system may be scrapped as producers seek individual arrangements, Deutsche Bank AG said.
“The stress on the benchmark system has never been greater,” Deutsche analyst Peter O’Connor said today at a conference in Perth, Australia. There’s been a 50 percent increase in spot sales from Australian producers in the past six months as buyers renege on contracts, he said.
Cia. Vale do Rio Doce, the producer of the steelmaking raw material, said last month it wouldn’t seek to be the price setter this year. Vale has traditionally been the first iron-ore supplier to set so-called benchmark annual contract prices with steelmakers, establishing the basis for settlements by other miners in the international market.
In mid-2008, after a surge in demand, Australian producers BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group achieved price increases of 85 percent or higher for their ore, exceeding the 65 to 71 percent gained by Vale earlier in the year.
BHP, the world’s largest mining company, is also participating in off-exchange trading for iron ore offered by Credit Suisse Group and Deutsche Bank. The banks’ trading platforms handle swaps with initial maturities as far out as December 2009 that are settled in cash each month against an iron-ore index published by Metal Bulletin.
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Eat-What-You-Kill Bond Traders Rise From Wreckage (Update2)
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By Caroline Salas and Pierre Paulden
March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street bond trading is heading back to the 1980s, when private partnerships and independent firms dominated the market.
Jon Bass, who traded debt five seats from Salomon Brothers Inc. Chairman John Gutfreund and later helped run fixed income at UBS AG, joined equity broker BTIG LLC to help start its credit operation last month. BTIG, with a pool table and gym adjoining its seventh-floor midtown Manhattan trading room, is one of more than 50 credit dealers seeking to take advantage of the widening gap at which securities are bought and sold.
Smaller firms are emerging from the wreckage of the world’s largest financial companies, which are conserving capital following more than $1.2 trillion of writedowns and credit losses since the start of 2007. They’re luring traders with a shot at $500,000 commissions for two days’ work as banks that accepted federal bailouts retrench and slash bonuses.
“I don’t mean to dance on anybody’s graves here, but it’s just this incredible opportunity to reassemble a securities firm that does business the right way,” said Lee Fensterstock, chief executive officer of one of the firms, Broadpoint Securities Group Inc. in New York. “That business is going to lead with brain as opposed to capital. We’re not planning to run big balance sheets or big leveraged positions.”
Bear Stearns, Lehman
Broadpoint, whose shares have outperformed Citigroup Inc.’s by almost 51 percentage points this year, has added more than 240 people since September 2007. They include traders from Bear Stearns Cos., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co., which either collapsed or were absorbed by bigger banks amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Cantor Fitzgerald LP, the closely held securities firm, has hired 100 people in the past six months from banks, including UBS and Bear Stearns.
Just as when Gutfreund, 79, walked the aisles of Salomon’s trading floor, BTIG’s principals aren’t secluded in their offices during the day, said Bass, 46, who most recently headed fixed-income client management at UBS.
“Back then it was motivating to see the person running the firm in the trenches,” Bass said. “It’s getting back to basics.”
Partnerships including Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley went public in the 1980s, and many closely held firms disappeared into larger banking institutions by the end of the next decade. The trend accelerated after Sanford “Sandy” Weill’s creation of New York-based Citigroup and the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which had separated commercial and investment banks.
‘Free’ Liquidity
After Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan reduced interest rates at the start of the decade, banks borrowed inexpensively to buy long-term assets including subprime mortgage securities, said Michael Aronstein, Oscar Gruss & Son Inc.’s chief investment strategist.
“When liquidity became free, five or seven years ago, that changed the Street: You could trade $500 million of anything in a second,” said Shawn Matthews, chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. in New York, a unit of Cantor Fitzgerald LP.
“It has to go back to a time where it looked and felt like it was in the ‘80s,” Matthews said. “How many 28-year-olds can you put in positions to trade $2 billion?”
Morgan Stanley’s trading profits rose to records in 2006 and early 2007 when its leverage, the ratio of assets to shareholder equity, rose to 33 times. The New York-based firm reported a record $2.9 billion of revenue from fixed income for the second quarter of 2007.
Subprime Losses
Banks traded their own investments alongside client orders, “combining hedge funds, which is what these places turned into, with customer-oriented businesses” and creating conflict-of- interest concerns, Aronstein, 55, said. “The fact is it ended in tears.”
Losses in June 2007 at two Bear Stearns hedge funds that invested in subprime mortgage securities led to the firm’s government-arranged takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co. of New York in March 2008. Six months later, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. acquired Merrill Lynch as the world’s largest brokerage suffered almost $19 billion in net losses tied to mortgages.
New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which was the world’s biggest and most-profitable securities firm, and Morgan Stanley, converted to bank holding companies. Each received $10 billion from the U.S. government. UBS and Citigroup lost more than $138 billion and governments globally have intervened to protect the financial system from collapse.
‘Partnership Mentality’
“If Wall Street had kept the partnership mentality we wouldn’t be in this mess,” said Matthews, 42, of Cantor Fitzgerald. “The universal bank model is wounded, if not destroyed.”
After financial institutions eliminated more than 284,000 jobs and slashed pay, smaller firms are hiring salesmen and traders who wouldn’t have considered boutiques during the boom, Fensterstock, 61, said.
Banks were paying “huge amounts of restricted stock,” to keep employees, he said. “Because of the decimation firms are either out of business or with the stock performance of a Bank of America or a Citigroup, that’s no longer a factor. You have this perfect storm,” he said.
Citigroup shares have tumbled almost 95 percent to $3.03 from a peak of $56.41 in December 2006. Bank of America has fallen 87 percent to $7.26 from $54.90 in November 2006.
Fensterstock, who ran PaineWebber’s worldwide sales and trading in the early 1990s, said commission-based compensation, known as eat what you kill, is an “extremely important” aspect of the boutique model.
Banks Lower Pay
Broadpoint wants to put about half of its trading revenue into employees’ pockets, with 30 percent to 40 percent for salesmen and 10 percent to 20 percent for traders, he said.
Some salesmen at the largest firms, which are reducing compensation as business slows under the glare of government oversight, saw their compensation fall from $2 million in 2007 to just their base salary of $150,000 in 2008, with no bonus, according to Michael Maloney, president of Wall Street recruiting firm Maloney Inc.
“All the A-level and B-level salesmen will make more money on commission,” Maloney said. “I know one salesman who made half a million dollars in his pocket in 48 hours. He could gross $500 million at Citibank and he’s not going to get paid a dime.”
For all the opportunity, many of the 50 start-up boutique dealers in New York won’t succeed, he said.
‘Critical Mass’
“They just don’t have enough critical mass,” Maloney said. “A lot of people are just setting up firms where they have a Bloomberg and five or six people they used to work with.”
BTIG, which had five employees in 2002, plans to add at least 26 more salesmen and traders for investment-grade bonds, high-yield and distressed debt, said John Purcell, 50. With Bass, Purcell is co-head of global fixed income at the 270- person firm and ran global fixed-income syndicate at Citigroup.
ICP Capital, a boutique investment bank set up in 2004, has almost doubled its staff since last year’s second quarter to 74 people, including Patrick Russell, 40, the former co-head of residential mortgage trading at Morgan Stanley, said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at ICP.
John Costas, the former head of UBS’ investment bank, and Michael Hutchins, who previously headed the debt unit of UBS, are starting a financial services firm preliminarily named VinsonForbes.
Bid-Ask Spread
A shortage of trading capital at the biggest banks has increased the gap between how much they pay to buy or sell fixed-income securities. The so-called bid-ask spread has almost doubled to 19 basis points in the past six months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Those spreads will narrow in the next couple of years, and banks will attempt to win back business through financing, said Adam Yarnold, 33, who trades residential mortgage securities and distressed bonds backed by consumer loans at Braver Stern & Co. in New York. The firm has 15 traders and salesmen.
“The next 12 to 24 months will be make or break for the smaller shops,” said Yarnold, a former army ranger who helped run Deutsche Bank AG’s residential mortgage-backed securities desk in New York until July. “There will be a high mortality rate but the boutiques that make it will win big.”
Gutfreund, the former chairman of Salomon Brothers, said the resurgence of smaller firms has only to do with greed and necessity.
‘Always Money’
“The motivation is always money,” said Gutfreund, the president of Gutfreund & Co. in New York. “The reason people are leaving is because they need the money and a job.”
U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd last month proposed restrictions on executive compensation at companies that received money from the government’s financial rescue fund. U.S. House Democratic leaders voted March 19 on a 90 percent tax on executive bonus payments by companies receiving more than $5 billion in federal bailout funds. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has also criticized Merrill Lynch for paying $3.6 billion in bonuses for 2008.
“The talent is streaming out of the doors of the big firms,” Bruce Foerster, a former Lehman Brothers managing director and now president of South Beach Capital Markets in Miami said. “As the best and the brightest leave, they will tip their hat to Senator Christopher Dodd. Bright people won’t want to be at places where the government is.”
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14:13 GMT, Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Lebanon approves Syria ambassador
A Lebanese policeman outside the building housing the new Syrian embassy in Beirut
Lebanon has approved the appointment of the first Syrian ambassador to Beirut, five months after the neighbours set up their first formal diplomatic contacts.
"President Michel Suleiman approved the nomination of Ali Abdul Karim Ali as the Syrian Arab Republic's ambassador to Beirut," an official in Beirut said.
Syria opened its embassy in December but had delayed naming an envoy.
It had come under heavy international pressure to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon for the first time.
Damascus finally did so some 60 years after the two countries gained independence. Until 2005, Damascus kept troops stationed in Lebanon.
Lebanon's ambassador to Damascus, Michel el-Khoury, was named at the start of 2009 and the embassy was opened in the Syrian capital earlier in March.
Syria had come under heavy international pressure to establish diplomatic ties with Lebanon for the first time, some 60 years after the two countries gained independence.
Syria pulled out its troops from Lebanon after almost 30 years of political and military domination, amid a wave of popular protest after the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri in February 2005.
Many anti-Syrian Lebanese blamed Damascus for the killing, although Syria denied any involvement.
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Syria names its first ever ambassador to Lebanon
Published: Tuesday, 24 March, 2009 @ 6:22 PM in Beirut
Beirut - Syria has named its first ambassador to Lebanon and Lebanese President Michel Suleiman accepted his diplomatic accreditation Tuesday, according to a statement from the Lebanese presidential Palace in Baabda.
ali abdul Karim ali.jpg
The Lebanese presidential Palace issued today the following statement:
"President Michel Suleiman on Tuesday approved the nomination of Ali Abdel Karim Ali as the Syrian Arab Republic's ambassador to Beirut."
Ali,56 , has been Syria's ambassador to Kuwait since November 2004 and has also served as the head of Syria's official News agency SANA.
Lebanon last week opened its first embassy in Damascus and has named its first ambassador as Michel Khoury. Khoury is the current Lebanese ambassador to Cyprus
Syria had opened its Beirut embassy last December .
Syria has faced international pressure to establish formal diplomatic ties with Lebanon, which had been dominated for decades by its larger neighbor until the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
Establishment of formal relations had been a central demand of anti-Syrian Lebanese factions that won an election in 2005 following the Hariri killing and the withdrawal of Syrian troops who had first entered Lebanon in 1976.
The United States and France had led pressure on Syria to establish formal ties with Lebanon. Syria had resisted the move, citing the countries' shared history and close ties. Syria and Lebanon were carved out of the Ottoman Empire by imperial powers France and Britain in the 20th century.
Syria has yet to meet international demands to formally demarcate its border with Lebanon.
Syria dominated politics in Lebanon until the Hariri assassination, which increased international pressure on Damascus to withdraw its troops from the country.
Anti-Syrian politicians have accused Syria of orchestrating the assassination of Hariri and other anti-Damascus figures. Syria has always denied the accusations.
About Syria's first ambassador to Lebanon
Education: BA in Arabic Language and Literature from the University of Damascus
Professional experience : Prior to moving to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he has worked in the print media , radio and television in Syria for more than twenty-five years , where he held various positions, including:
- Director of Broadcasting
- Director of Television
- General Manager and Chief Editor of Syrian Arab news agency (SANA)
At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs he held the following positions
2002 - 2003: Deputy Ambassador to the Syrian Embassy in Abu Dhabi.
2003 -2004: Charge d'affairesof the Syrian Embassy in Kuwait.
Since November 2004: Syrian ambassador in Kuwait.
Ali is a Political analyst and writer and poet and writes on politics and literature on an ongoing basis. In 1998 he issued his collection of poems under the title : "Invocations of a cold summer"
He is married with four children , 2 girls and 2 boys
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Russia to postpone talks with Ukraine after recent deal with EU
MOSCOW, Mar 24 (Prime-Tass) -- Russia will postpone talks with Ukraine because of a recent Ukrainian-E.U. energy agreement, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday at a meeting of the Security Council.
He said the intergovernmental talks had been previously scheduled for next week.
On Monday, Ukraine and the E.U. signed a declaration under which E.U. companies are expected to invest in the Ukrainian gas pipeline system and increase its capacity.
"The content of that declaration raises certain questions," Medvedev said.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said earlier on Monday he believed E.U.-Ukrainian talks on pipeline upgrades without Russia's participation were "not serious."
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko declared Tuesday that the declaration did not violate Russia's interests. She also said that Japanese companies could also invest in Ukraine's pipeline system.
Bogdan Sokolovsky, a spokesman for Ukraine's presidential executive office, said Ukraine was interested in Russia's participation in the pipeline system's modernization.
Commenting on the issue, Paolo Scaroni, CEO of Italian energy company Eni, said that his company, as well as Germany energy company E.ON and Gaz de France, believed an international consortium for running Ukrainian pipelines should be set up.
In 2003, Gazprom, Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy, and German energy company E.ON Ruhrgas concluded a preliminary agreement to run Ukraine's pipeline system. However, the agreement has not been finalized.
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China to cooperate with Russia against U.S. dollar
24.03.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru URL: http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/107287-China_Russia_dollar-0
China supported Russia’s initiative to develop a new global reserve currency as an alternative to the U.S. dollar saying that such a move is necessary in today’s world. Moreover China is ready to discuss this issue at the G20 summit in London, a vice governor of the country's Central Bank said on Monday.
On the one hand Russia should be glad to have such a strong ally; on the other hand there likely will be no actions from the Chinese side because today China holds about $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.
"We believe it is necessary to consider the IMF's role in this process and also define the possibility and the need to adopt measures allowing for Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to become an internationally recognized super-reserve currency," Russia's proposal read.
Hu Xiaolian said that China, which holds about $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, was prepared to debate the issue as "the dollar's dominance and U.S. economic woes could entail considerable currency fluctuations and affect the world financial situation."
At the same time, she said that discussion into a new global currency could be started but considering the dollar's status as the current primary currency, "we should focus more on enhancing control over the existing system."
The G20 summit, involving advanced and emerging economies and international financial institutions, will be held in London on April 2, aimed at finding ways to overcome the ongoing global financial crisis, RIA-Novosti reports.
On March 13, China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, said he was concerned about the safety of those assets, particularly because huge economic stimulus plans could lead to soaring deficits in the United States, which could sink the dollar’s value.
Should China lose its appetite for Treasuries, the United States’ borrowing costs could rise, making it more costly for Washington to carry out economic stimulus packages and for Americans to pay off their mortgages, nytimes.com reports.
Nicholas Lardy, an economist and China specialist at the Peterson Institute in Washington, said that through its proposal, China was indicating that the dollar’s long dominance was unfair, allowing the United States to run huge deficits by borrowing from abroad, and that the risks to holders of Treasuries were growing.
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Skypeが国際通話トラフィックでトップに
2009/03/25
通信関連の調査会社PriMetricは3月24日、国際通話サービスを提供する単一の事業者としてSkypeが世界最大となったとするレポートを発表した。調査したのはPriMetricの一部門、TeleGeography。
調査によれば国をまたいだ音声通話のトラフィックは2007年に14％、2008年に12％と伸びているという。通話料が下がっていることから、事業者の収入自体はほぼ横ばい。
堅調なトラフィックの伸びが見られる中でも際だって伸びているのがSkypeで、2008年に約41％増加している。総計4170億分の通話のうち、330億分がSkypeによるもので、これは全体の8％に相当。国際通話サービス事業者としてトップに立った。
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Syria uranium traces not conclusive, says IAEA
Source: BI-ME and Reuters , Author: BI-ME staff
Posted: 18-11-2008
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SYRIA. Traces of uranium found at a Syrian site bombed by Israel last year were not sufficient evidence of nuclear activity there, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said yesterday.
“We won’t be able to reach a quick conclusion unless we have credible information,” Mohamed ElBaradei told a news conference in Dubai. “There was uranium but it does not mean there was a reactor.”
Diplomats in Vienna told Reuters earlier this month that particles of processed uranium were found in samples taken by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors from the site in eastern Syria, and said the findings warranted further investigation before any conclusions were drawn.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has dismissed as politically motivated the disclosures about the uranium traces and said the uranium could have come from munitions used by Israel to bomb the site in September last year.
ElBaradei said a report on Syria’s alleged covert atomic activity which the IAEA will release later this week will also not be conclusive.
“The report will say that there is still a lot of work to do. [There will be] no conclusion on whether there was a reactor or not,” he said.
Both Syria and Israel should co-operate with the IAEA’s investigation of Syria’s alleged covert programme, he said.
“We need co-operation from Syria; we need co-operation from Israel,” he said. “I would still like more transparency from the Syrians,” he added.
Washington, Israel’s chief ally, says the site was a secret nuclear reactor that was almost complete when it was bombed by Israel, which embarked on indirect peace talks with Syria months later.
Syria says the target of the Israeli attack was a disused military building, denies it was a plutonium-making reactor under construction, and it says the US intelligence was fabricated.
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元親方「兄弟子らで終了できた」…力士暴行死で
大相撲時津風部屋の序ノ口力士、時太山＝当時（１７）、本名斉藤俊さん＝暴行死事件で、傷害致死罪に問われた元親方、山本順一被告（５９）の公判が２５日、名古屋地裁（芦沢政治裁判長）で開かれた。山本被告は被告人質問で「兄弟子らの判断でぶつかりげいこを終わらせることができた」と述べた。
山本被告は、検察側から入門間もない斉藤さんに約３０分間にわたるぶつかりげいこをさせたのは異常ではないかと問われると「そうは思わなかった」と答えた。兄弟子らがこれまでの公判で「元親方の指示なく、終了できなかった」と証言した点について「斉藤さんが力を出し切って当たれば、わたしの指示がなくても終わらせることができた」と反論した。
ZAKZAK 2009/03/25
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Czech MPs oust government over economic crisis
By Jan Cienski in Warsaw and Nikki Tait in Brussels
Published: March 25 2009 02:00 | Last updated: March 25 2009 02:00
The Czech government collapsed last night after losing a vote of confidence over its handling of the economic crisis.
The 101-96 vote marks the end of the coalition government of Mirek Topolanek, the centre-right prime minister, as well as the effective conclusion of the already bumpy and crisis-ridden Czech presidency of the European Union, which formally expires on June 30. The vote comes ahead of a visit to Prague next month by Barack Obama, US president.
"How can a government which has no support in the country be able to lead the European Union?" said Jiri Pehe, a Prague-based political scientist.
Mr Topolanek said he planned to resign after returning from a trip to Brussels. Jiri Paroubek, the leader of the opposition Social Democrats, has said that he will only push for fresh elections after the Czech Republic's current presidency of the European Union expires.
The EU tried to put the best face possible on the embarrassing failure of the government leading the Union, issuing a statement that said: "It is for the Czech Republic's democratic process under the constitution to resolve the domestic political issues; the Commission is confident that this is done in a way which ensures the full functioning of the council presidency."
The unexpected fall of Mr Topolanek's government adds strength to the French argument that the presidency of a 27-member union which forms the world's largest economy is unsuited for smaller and ill-prepared countries.
Mr Topolanek, facing the fifth vote of confidence in his third year as prime minister, was unable to win over enough independent MPs to save his government.
The initiative now passes to Vaclav Klaus, the euro-sceptic Czech president, who will have to name a caretaker administration to govern the country. If three attempts to form a new government fail, then new elections are called.
The difficulty in forcing new elections raises the possibility that a technocratic government will limp along in power until the next election, set for June 2010.
The opposition Social Democrats currently lead Mr Topolanek's Civic Democrats (ODS) in opinion polls.
That would leave Prague ill-prepared to deal with the fall-out from the economic downturn, which is hitting the export-orientated Czech economy with increasing force. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Zdenek Tuma, the governor of the Czech central bank, said the economy could shrink by as much as 2 per cent this year if the situation did not improve in western Europe.
Mr Topolanek had resisted calls to increase spending, arguing that the government did not have the wherewithal to bail the country out of the recession. However, that approach was unpopular with the left-leaning Social Democrats, and helped galvanise opposition.
The final straw was a domestic political scandal relating to accusations of inappropriate pressure to force a television station to stop a story criticising an opposition MP who had joined the government side.
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住友化学、世界最大級のプラント稼働へ 国内再編機運高まる
2009.3.25 21:35
住友化学がサウジアラビアの国営企業サウジ・アラムコと合弁で進める世界最大級の石油化学コンビナートが３月末にも本格稼働する。総投資額が１兆円にのぼる巨大事業で、住化では現地で生産した石油化学製品をアジア地域で４月から販売する計画だ。ただ、世界的な景気低迷下での新規の設備稼働となるため、赤字操業が続く日本の化学メーカーにとって市況面で打撃となる事態も予想される。すでに化学業界では競争激化に備え、一部製品の生産から撤退する動きも出ており、新たな再編の引き金になる可能性もある。
同社の米倉弘昌社長は、今回のサウジ合弁事業の意義について「当社が石油化学事業を始めて以来の大きな存在になる」と期待をかける。産油国で石化製品を現地生産するため、原料となるナフサ（粗製ガソリン）を輸入品の１０分の１から２０分の１という低価格で調達でき、コスト競争力が飛躍的に高まるからだ。
また、このプラントは生産規模でも世界最大級であり、石化製品の基礎原料であるエチレンについては国内工場の約３・５倍となる年１３０万トン、プロピレンも年９０万トンそれぞれ生産する計画で、生産拡大に伴うコスト削減も見込める。
住化では「早期の高稼働率の確保が可能」（野崎邦夫執行役員）とみており、本格稼働に合わせて中国をはじめとするアジア諸国に製品を供給する。
ただ、昨年後半からの世界的な景気悪化を受け、ナフサ原料となる原油価格は急落している。。住化関係者は「原油価格が１バレル＝２５ドルになっても採算は取れる」と強気の構えだが、この石化合弁は、中東地域で今後相次いで誕生する大型コンビナートとの競争にもさらされる。
一方、国内の化学各社に与える影響も大きい。旧式のエチレン設備を使用する国内各社の生産能力は平均年５０万トン規模に過ぎない。需要減に伴って減産も続いており、各社とも赤字操業を強いられているのが現状だ。
このため、三井化学では中東産の石化製品の流入を懸念し、ポリエステル繊維原料の生産を今年１１月に一部停止する。三菱化学も「日本のエチレン生産能力の３分の１が過剰になる可能性がある」とみており、茨城県の鹿島、岡山県の水島にあるエチレンプラントをめぐり、石油元売り各社も巻き込んだ形で統廃合を模索している。（飯田耕司）
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正社員一部は賃下げし契約社員を全員正社員化、広島電鉄（1/2ページ）
2009年3月25日
広島市内などで路面電車や路線バスを運行している広島電鉄（本社・広島市）の労働組合「私鉄中国地方労働組合広島電鉄支部」は２５日、契約社員を全員正社員化し、賃金も引き上げて正社員と一本化することで会社側と合意したと発表した。組合員の同意を得て０９年度の早い時期からの実施を目指す。一部の正社員は賃下げになる。同社のような千人規模の企業でのこうした取り組みは珍しく、雇用形態による労働条件の格差を解消するモデルケースとして注目されそうだ。
同支部によると、同社は０１年以降、バス、電車の運転士や車掌の採用を、１年ごとに更新する契約社員に限っており、現在約１５０人が在籍している。月額賃金は運転士２３万１千円、車掌１９万６５００円で、何年勤めても昇給はない。また、約１０４０人いる正社員のうち１５０人は、契約社員から正社員に登用された「正社員２」という雇用形態で、労働条件は契約社員と同じ。昇給のある正社員と比べると賃金は平均で月額５万円程度低かった。
新しい制度では、年功と能力を加味して昇給する賃金制度に一本化し、定年も５年延長して６５歳とする。一方で、以前から正社員として勤務している３００人弱のベテラン社員は賃金が月額５万～６万円下がるため、調整給を支給しながら１０年間でゆるやかに減額する。
同支部は契約社員も労組員として正式加盟しており、０６年から契約社員の正社員化と賃金制度の統一を求めて会社側と交渉を始めた。しかし、給与の原資は限られ、賃金の一本化でベテラン正社員の賃金が下がるケースが出てくることから交渉は難航。今回、組合員の収入減が緩和されたことや、会社側も乗務員の勤労意欲が高まり、より安全な運行が確保できるメリットがあることから合意に至った。
佐古正明委員長は「（契約社員としてだけ採用する状況を）放置しておけば、ほとんどの乗務員が低い賃金水準になってしまう。統一によって賃金が下がる正社員の組合員からは厳しい意見も予想されるが、大局的にご理解をいただきたい」と話している。
全国のバス、鉄道など２３１労組が加盟する私鉄総連によると、私鉄業界で非正規社員を正社員にして賃金制度を統一するケースは珍しい。私鉄総連は０３年、非正規社員を３年で正社員にすることを運動方針に掲げ、各労組に呼びかけてきた。藤井一也書記長は「契約社員が労組に入っていない会社が多い。各企業の経営体力の問題もあり、進んでいないのが現状だ」と話している。
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〈脇田滋・龍谷大教授（労働法）の話〉 労働者全体の利益を考えて、一番弱い非正社員の労働条件を引き上げた広島電鉄労組の取り組みは、労働運動のあるべき方向性を示す事例だ。非正社員を守れなければ結局は正社員も守れないことを認識し、賃金格差を是正した点を評価したい。ただ、欧州諸国では、派遣社員を含めて企業の枠を超えた「同一労働、同一賃金」の原則が貫かれている。日本でも産業全体の連帯を考えていく必要がある。
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〈非正規労働者の問題に詳しい村田浩治弁護士の話〉 労働者の少ない小規模企業では、非正規社員を正社員化し、その分、正社員の賃金レベルを下げる取り組みが少しずつ出始めているが、広島電鉄のような規模の企業では珍しい。
ただ、こうした動きを経営者側が主導すると「実質的な一律賃金カットだ」との反発を労働者から受ける可能性もある。会社としても容易に進められる話ではないだけに、今回、労組が合意に応じた点に大きな意味があると思う。
雇用が流動化し、不況が深刻化する中で、労組の役割も変化している。既存の正社員だけで利益を分け合う従来の姿勢から脱し、正社員の「いす」自体を増やす方向にかじを切る必要があり、そうした動きを主導すべきだ。
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