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Saturday, September 1, 2012
Turkey demands Syria safe havens as UN meets
War-torn Syria's frustrated neighbor Turkey demanded that world powers set up refugee camps within the country to stem the massive outflow of refugees fleeing the fighting.
Syrian rebels, meanwhile, claimed to have downed a regime jet, underlining the mounting ferocity of the civil war as ministers met at the United Nations to seek ways to deal with a looming humanitarian catastrophe.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the UN Security Council to act "without delay" to set up safe havens, warning that 80,000 Syrians are already in camps in Turkey, with 4,000 crossing the border each day.
"How long are we going to sit and watch while an entire generation is being wiped out by random bombardment and deliberate mass targeting?" demanded Davutoglu, slamming the Security Council's failure to agree action on Syria.
"Let's not forget that if we do not act against such a crime against humanity happening in front of our eyes, we become accomplices to the crime."
The opposition Syrian National Council also renewed its call for the Security Council to impose no-fly zones on Syria to even the odds on the battlefield, where only the regime has access to air power.
But France and Britain warned that the envoys meeting at UN headquarters in New York were unlikely to reach an agreement on safe zones, as this would imply authorizing a highly controversial protective military operation.
Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague held a joint news conference with France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to warn that there are "considerable difficulties" with the idea of protected enclaves for civilians.
"We are excluding no option for the future. We do not know how this crisis will develop," Hague said. "It is steadily getting worse. We are ruling nothing out, we have contingency planning for a wide range of scenarios.
"But we also have to be clear that anything like a safe zone requires military intervention and that of course is something that has to be weighed very carefully."
UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson warned that the calls for humanitarian corridors "raise serious questions and require careful and critical consideration."
The Security Council remains bitterly divided over how to deal with the 17-month-old conflict, which has split the country into warring pro- and anti-regime camps and which rights groups say has left 25,000 dead.
But Russia and China have vetoed three separate draft resolutions which would have threatened sanctions to force the regime to the negotiating table, and would almost certainly block any outside intervention.
The conflict has also stirred tensions in the wider Middle East. Clashes have erupted in Lebanon between factions linked to Syrian groups, while Turkey and most Arab countries have lined up behind the rebels.
Iran, meanwhile, backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as does the Lebanese Hezbollah militia.
Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi caused a storm Thursday with a speech at a Non-Aligned Movement summit hosted by Syria's ally Tehran, slamming Damascus and urging support for the opposition.
"Our solidarity with the struggle of Syrians against an oppressive regime that has lost its legitimacy is an ethical duty, and a political and strategic necessity," the Egyptian leader said.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem accused Morsi of seeking to ignite further bloodshed, and ordered his delegation to walk out.
Meanwhile, a rebel Free Syrian Army chief for Idlib province, Colonel Afif Mahmoud Suleiman, told AFP: "A MiG was shot down this morning by our men using automatic weapons, shortly after taking off from Abu Zohur military airport."
The regime has acknowledged two previous aircraft crashes but put them down to mechanical failures. It made no immediate comment on the latest claim.
The director of the Tishrin military hospital in Damascus, meanwhile, said more than 8,000 members of the security forces have been killed since the uprising against Assad's rule broke out in March 2011.
"I estimate that at least 8,000 soldiers and members of the security forces have been killed since the beginning of the crisis," the director told AFP.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which says more than 25,000 people have been killed in the 17-month-old uprising, puts the figure of soldiers and members of the security forces killed at nearly 6,500.
Syrian activists have called for the usual Friday protests to be held this week under the banner of "Daraya, a flame which will not go out," after a massacre of hundreds of people in the town of Daraya last week.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-revolt-against-oppressive-regime-morsi-iran-084827214.html
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Pentagon threatens legal action over bin Laden book
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon warned on Thursday that it was considering legal action against a former U.S. Navy SEAL for material breach of non-disclosure agreements with his first-hand account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
In a letter obtained by Reuters, and subsequently released by the Pentagon, the Pentagon's top attorney said the Department of Defense was also considering legal action against anyone "acting in concert" with the author. It hinted that the book's royalties might be subject to government claims.
The letter, addressed to "Mark Owen," the pseudonym under which the book was written, identified two separate non-disclosure agreements he signed with the Navy that legally committed him to never divulge classified information, which is a crime.
"You are in material breach and violation of the non-disclosure agreements you signed," said the letter by Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon's General Counsel.
"The Department of Defense is considering pursuing against you, and all those acting in concert with you, all remedies legally available to us in light of this situation."
The author may have hoped to publish the book anonymously but his identity as Matt Bissonnette was quickly revealed and confirmed independently by Reuters. It was unclear how many others the Pentagon may consider legally culpable, given the broad language in Johnson's letter.
A spokeswoman at publisher Dutton, which is an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
NOT VETTED
U.S. officials have said they were surprised by his book, "No Easy Day," which was not vetted by government agencies before its publication to ensure that no secrets were revealed.
The letter noted that, under the terms of the non-disclosure agreements, the author had agreed to submit any manuscript for pre-publication security review and to obtain permission before publishing it.
The Pentagon pointed out that the disclosure of classified information was a crime and suggested that, under the terms of the non-disclosure agreement he signed, the U.S. government could be entitled to all "royalties, remunerations, and emoluments" from such a disclosure.
The letter did not say what classified information the book revealed but the book says an unarmed bin Laden was looking out from his bedroom door when he was shot in the head during the May 2011 raid on his hide-out in Pakistan.
The book has received widespread media coverage and the Pentagon letter noted that some copies have already been released, ahead of the book's formal release next week.
"Further public dissemination of your book will aggravate your breach and violation of your agreements," the letter warned.
Earlier this week, the author said in a statement from his publisher that the book was written "with respect for my fellow service members while adhering to my strict desire not to disclose confidential or sensitive information that would compromise national security in any way."
But many in the special operations community have privately expressed disappointment in recent days over the book and the publicity it has received.
The author now faces threats against his life. An official al Qaeda website last week posted a photograph and the real name of the former Navy commando, calling him "the dog who murdered the martyr Sheikh Osama bin Laden.
(Editing by Sandra Maler and Mohammad Zargham)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-pentagon-threatens-legal-action-over-bin-laden-001616025.html
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Chelsea owner Abramovich faces $6 billion court ruling
LONDON (Reuters) - Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich will find out on Friday whether he owes his former partner Boris Berezovsky as much as $6 billion (3.8 billion pounds) after a British court battle that has laid bare the post-Soviet carve-up of Russia's vast natural resources.
After a legal odyssey stretching from the gilded corridors of the Kremlin to the offshore enclaves favoured by Russia's richest tycoons, Judge Elizabeth Gloster will rule on whether Berezovsky was extorted out his business empire by Abramovich.
Berezovsky, a fast-talking former mathematician who became a Kremlin powerbroker under late President Boris Yeltsin only to fall foul of Vladimir Putin, says Abramovich used the threat of Kremlin retribution to intimidate him into selling out of Russia's fourth biggest oil company at a knockdown price.
Abramovich, the world's 68th richest man with a $12.1 billion fortune, denies that and says he merely paid Berezovsky money for political cover and protection - known in Russian bandit slang as "krysha" or "roof".
"I am a genetic optimist but I shall not say anything more until we see the verdict," Berezovsky told Reuters by telephone on Tuesday.
Judge Gloster will spend about an hour reading out a summary of the decision at the High Court's modern Rolls Building, starting at 10:30 a.m. on Friday. The final judgment will be published after September 17.
Abramovich spokesman John Mann declined to comment until the ruling was handed down, though either party could appeal in the case, which has cost tens of millions of pounds in legal fees.
Besides the personal drama of a public battle between two of Russia's most dazzling businessmen, one of the biggest private litigation cases in the world has detailed the treacherous business world of post-Soviet Russia:
Ownership means nothing, offshore cash is king and while Yeltsin granted favoured tycoons control over the oil and metals producers of a former superpower, President Putin can wrestle assets back from errant oligarchs no matter how powerful.
RUSSIAN KRYSHA
Complete with blatant tax evasion, informal deals on billion-dollar assets and a fly-on-the-wall view from inside the adrenaline bubble of Russia's A-team of oligarchs, the case reveals the country's heady corruption.
Even the evidence reads like a John le Carre thriller: barristers bickered over handwritten notes from an offshore lawyer who died in a mysterious helicopter crash, a snatched conversation on tax avoidance recorded in secret at Le Bourget airport and a meeting at London's Dorchester Hotel to hash out the creation of the world's biggest aluminium company.
"The most interesting part of it is the light it sheds on the way in which Russian business was done at that very high level in the immediate post-Communist period: This culture of krysha and payments being paid back and forward," said Philippa Charles, a litigation partner at law firm Mayer Brown, which is not directly involved in the case.
"Meetings at heliports, alpine ski resorts - it is all rather James Bond but actually it shows this was the reality of how business was done at that time in Russia," Charles said.
The focus of the case was 1995 - the year Yeltsin sold off the assets of a former superpower to a handful of influential traders who became known as the oligarchs.
Rich beyond the dreams of their often modest Soviet childhoods, the barons of Siberia came to personify the corruption of post-Soviet Russia: brash, dangerous alpha-males who scorned the rules of mortals.
After meeting on a Caribbean yacht trip organised by fellow tycoon Pyotr Aven, Berezovsky and Abramovich, then a 28-year-old oil trader, came up with a simple idea: merge Russia's best refinery with some of the top oil and gas fields of Siberia.
But to pull it off, they would need Yeltsin's support.
OLIGARCH BATTLES
Berezovsky said Abramovich agreed to give him and partner Badri Patarkatsishvili, a chain-smoking Georgian who died in Britain in 2008, a half share of what would become Sibneft to secure state approval for its creation and privatisation.
Abramovich disputes that, saying he merely paid Berezovsky for providing political cover and protection culminating in a final payment of $1.3 billion via a sheikh in 2001. Abramovich said Berezovsky did nothing to develop Sibneft.
"Krysha was required. It was impossible to keep hold of the company without krysha. So we required both political and physical krysha," Abramovich told the court.
After fleeing Putin's Russia in 2000, Berezovsky claims Abramovich sought to curry favour with Putin by threatening him with expropriation unless he sold his Sibneft stake to him.
Russia's state gas monopoly Gazprom bought Sibneft from Abramovich for $13 billion in 2005. Abramovich denies any threats were made.
Berezovsky also claimed Abramovich sold his shares in RUSAL Plc, the world's top aluminium producer, without his permission. He is seeking over $5 billion for his claimed losses over Sibneft and over $564 million for RUSAL.
"There is no suggestion that anyone forced or pressured Mr Abramovich into acting for the Kremlin," Berezovsky told the court. "He was simply happy to act to the detriment of his friend and partner in order to curry favour with President Putin."
Abramovich's lawyers cast Berezovsky as an obsessive man angry at the success of Abramovich who he believed enjoyed a similar level of clout with Putin -- Russia's paramount leader since December 31, 1999 -- as Berezovsky enjoyed with Yeltsin.
If after digesting the intricacies of Russian business practise, the judge rules against Berezovsky, his reputation as a publicity seeking former oligarch will be cemented.
But if Berezovsky wins, Putin will be cast as Russia's alpha-dog ruler whom even billionaire oligarchs such as Abramovich are so keen to please that they will betray their former partners.
(Editing by Giles Elgood)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chelsea-owner-abramovich-faces-6-billion-court-ruling-003526698--business.html
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Fed can and will do more, Bernanke says
Ted S. Warren / AP
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, left, and Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel speak outside the symposium on Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
By PAUL WISEMAN, Assocaited Press
?JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. --?Chairman Ben Bernanke made clear Friday that the Federal Reserve will do more to boost the economy because of high U.S. unemployment and an economic recovery that remains "far from satisfactory."
He also argued that the Fed's moves so far to keep interest rates at record lows and encourage borrowing and spending have helped bolster the economy.
Bernanke stopped short of committing the Fed to any specific move, such as another round of bond purchases to lower long-term rates. But in a speech at an annual Fed conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Bernanke said that even with rates at super-lows, the Fed can do more.
After Bernanke's comments were released at 10 a.m. Eastern time, stocks initially gave up most of their earlier gains. But as investors digested the speech, stocks bounced back. By late morning, the Dow Jones industrial average was up more than 100 points. Broader stock indexes also surged.
Bernanke noted that further action carries risks but says the Fed can manage them. The Fed "should not rule out" new policies to improve the job market, he said.
The most dramatic step the Fed could take would be another round of bond buying. This is known as quantitative easing, or QE. In two rounds of QE, the Fed bought more than $2 trillion of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities. Many investors have been hoping for a third round ? QE3? to be unveiled as soon as the Fed's next policy meeting in September.
In light of Bernanke's comments Friday, some analysts said that might be a stronger possibility now.
"Bernanke has taken a further step along the path to more policy stimulus, most likely a third round of asset purchases (QE3) to be announced at the mid-September FOMC meeting," said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
At the same time, the Fed chairman avoided hinting of any one policy move or any timetable.
"This is really all he could say," says Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities. "He is not at liberty to promise anything without the (policy) committee's approval, and there seems to be various opinions on the committee about the best way forward."
In his speech, Bernanke cited studies showing that the Fed's first two rounds of bond purchases created at least 2 million jobs.
"It is important to achieve further progress, particularly in the labor market," Bernanke said. "The Federal Reserve will provide additional policy accommodation as needed."
That remark echoed what the Fed had said in a statement after its most recent policy meeting, July 31-Aug. 1. Since then, somewhat stronger economic news had led some analysts to say the Fed might now feel less urgency to act. But Bernanke's reiteration Friday of the Fed's readiness to provide more help suggested that his economic outlook remains dim.
The U.S. economy is still struggling to grow. It expanded at a tepid 1.7 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter, the government estimated Wednesday.
The minutes of the Fed's July 31-Aug. 1 policy meeting showed that officials spoke with increased urgency about the need to provide more help for the U.S. economy.
The policy committee decided that action "would likely be warranted fairly soon" unless it saw evidence of "a substantial and sustainable strengthening" of the economy. After it meets in mid-September, the Fed's policy committee will meet once more, in late October, before the November elections.
QE3 isn't the Fed's only option. It already plans to keep short-term interest rates near zero through late 2014 unless the economy improves. It could settle for extending that pledge into 2015.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, is among those who think the Fed will extend its timetable for record-low rates into 2015 at the September policy meeting. And unless the economy improves, Zandi expects the Fed to launch another round of bond purchases after the election.
Bernanke's comments Friday made clear that the economy has a long way back to full health.
"Unless the economy begins to grow more quickly than it has recently, the unemployment rate is likely to remain far above levels consistent with maximum employment for some time," he said.
At the end of every August, economists and central bankers convene in the Rocky Mountains at a symposium organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. They present papers and argue about economic issues. But mostly, they wait to see what the Fed chairman has to say.
In August 2010, Bernanke hinted during his remarks at Jackson Hole that the Fed might begin a second round of bond purchases, a policy called quantitative easing, or QE2. The Fed started buying bonds three months later.
Many analysts think a third round of bond purchases ? QE3 ? would include both Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities.?
Below, a CNBC panel discusses how markets may react to the speech and if Bernanke is laying the ground for more activism from the Fed.
More money and business news:
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iPhone_Italia: IFA 2012: #Aiptek, proiettori con #batteria per iPhone e iPad: Aiptek ha presentato la nuova? http://t.co/BtrOg1p1
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JustJubilee: Anyone in Canada/Europe/Australia/outer space wanna get married?
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