Spain's finance minister insists no bailout needed - CBC
Spain's finance minister insisted again Wednesday that the country's government does not need a full-blown bailout, even as the country's sky-high borrowing costs remained at dangerous levels.
On Tuesday, the interest rate on the government's 12-month treasury bills rose to 5.07 per cent from 2.98 per cent at the last such auction on May 14. The rate on the 18-month bills soared to 5.10 per cent from 3.3 per cent.
By Wednesday, the interest rate, or yield, on the Spanish benchmark 10-year bond fell 22 basis points to 6.78 per cent, below the seven-per-cent level it has been hovering above since Monday. But such high rates are still considered by market-watchers to be unsustainable over the long term rate and eventually forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to ask for international financial help.
Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro told Parliament, however, that Spain's government won't need the same kind of assistance "because it does not need to be rescued."
After years of insisting its banks were among the healthiest in Europe, Spain did recently acknowledge its financial sector will need a rescue package to protect it from a property boom that went bust in 2008. But investors are now more concerned that the country itself may have to be bailed out and this could seriously test the strength of the entire European Union's finances.
Fears about high public debt
Worries about Spain's ability to repay its debt grew last week when the country agreed to accept a eurozone loan of up to $129 billion to shore up its ailing banks, which are sitting on massive amounts of soured real estate investments.
The big fear is that, as the money will count as a loan and raise Spain's overall debt load, the country's financing costs will suffocate the government as it tries to wade its way through a recession and a 24.4 percent jobless rate.
Because the government is ultimately responsible for repaying the banks' bailout money, the deal has increased fears about the size of public debt. If the government cannot get the bailout money back from the banks, it will be saddled with the losses.
Those losses could prove too much to handle for the government, which is already struggling with a second recession in three years and the highest jobless rate among the 17 countries that use the euro.
Independent audits on the state of Spain's banks are due Thursday and these will help Spain determine how much it needs from the $129-billion lifeline the 17-country eurozone has agreed to set up.Contraband dinosaur seized by U.S. Homeland Security - CBC
One of the more unusual arrest warrants in U.S. history was issued this week when a federal judge authorized the Department of Homeland Security to seize a dinosaur from an art-storage company in New York City. There's no need for handcuffs, though. It's been dead for 70 million years.
U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel, of the Southern District of New York, signed the warrant after finding there was "probable cause to believe" that the nearly complete Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton is subject to forfeiture under U.S. laws.
The U.S. filed a lawsuit against the skeletal property a day earlier, seeking to seize it for an eventual return to Mongolia.
It is typical in government seizure cases for the object to be seized to be named as a defendant. But it's not so common for an object to have an alias, in this instance "One Tyrannosaurus Bataar Skeleton" is also known as "LOT 49315 listed on Page 92 of The Heritage Auctions May 20, 2012 Natural History Auction Catalog."
Sold at auction for more than $1M US
The 2.4-metre tall, 7.3-metre long skeleton was described in the catalogue as being "a stupendous, museum-quality specimen of one of the most emblematic dinosaurs ever to have stalked this Earth." It is currently held at a Cadogan Tate Fine Art property in the New York City borough of Queens.
A message left with the company Tuesday was not immediately returned.
The lawsuit said the Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton was brought in March 2010 from Great Britain to Gainesville, Fla., with erroneous claims that it had originated in the U.K. and was worth only $15,000 US. It sold at auction on May 20, 2012, for more than $1 million, though the sale was contingent upon the outcome of court proceedings.
Jim Halperin, cofounder of Heritage Auctions, the dinosaur's Dallas-based custodian, has said a consignor bought the fossils in good faith and spent a year and considerable expense restoring them.
"We have co-operated in the investigation process for paleontologists to expeditiously examine the skeleton, and we will continue to co-operate with authorities in an ongoing effort to reach a fair and just resolution to this matter," Halperin said about the judge's order.
Federal authorities say five experts viewed the fossil on June 5, agreeing unanimously that the skeleton was a Tyrannosaurus bataar and almost certainly originated in the Nemegt Basin in Mongolia.
Tyrannosaurus bataars were first discovered in 1946 during a joint Soviet-Mongolian expedition to the Gobi Desert in the Mongolian Omnogovi Province. Since 1924, Mongolia has enacted laws declaring fossils to be the property of the government of Mongolia and criminalizing their export from the country.
RSS backs Modi as Prime Minister, slams Nitish Kumar - Hindustan Times
According to media reports, Bhagwat said that Nitish was scared of calling himself a Hindu. He further added that India should have a PM who propounds Hindutva. Speaking at a public function in Latur, Maharashtra, Bhagwat said that Nitish Kumar is saying this to maintain his vote bank.
The RSS support for Modi comes a day after Bihar CM and JD(U) strongman Nitish Kumar said publicly that the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections should be "secular and liberal". This was seen in political circles as his rejection of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as a possible candidate for the PM’s post.
“The leader of the coalition should have secular credentials and a liberal frame of mind,” Kumar said in a media interview, ruling himself out of the race for prime ministership.
Kumar added that the NDA should declare its PM candidate well ahead of the Lok Sabha elections so that people get to know whom they would vote for. The candidate should be someone who feels for underdeveloped states like Bihar, he said.
Attacking Modi is being seen as Kumar’s attempt to establish his credentials among Bihar Muslims, once seen as a captive vote-bank of his now-fading rival Lalu Prasad.
It also projects him as the NDA's “secular” leader, apart from helping him maintain a calibrated distance from ally BJP in order to keep his options open closer to the general elections.
Bihar deputy CM Sushil Modi of the BJP promptly endorsed Kumar's views: “He (the PM candidate) should have a liberal image that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee enjoyed.” But a section of the state BJP disapproved of Kumar's utterances and labelled him as “pseudo-secular”.
RSS backs Narendra Modi as prime ministerial candidate - Daily Pioneer
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Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Chief Mohan Bhagwat Wednesday backed Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as a candidate for the prime minister's post and said that the country should have a PM who propounded Hindutva. "To keep alive the Hindutva ...Iran impasse to stir sanctions pressure, tensions - Reuters
MOSCOW/LONDON |
MOSCOW/LONDON (Reuters) - Western diplomatic efforts to curb Iran's nuclear program may not have breathed their last but the troubled process appears to be on life support after talks this week failed to resolve a row stirring regional tensions and unsettling oil markets.
Mindful of a possible Israel strike, both Iran and its negotiating partners are keen to pursue even a minimal level of contact to shore up the process despite the failure of the negotiations in Moscow on Monday and Tuesday.
A technical discussion is scheduled for July 3 in Istanbul, but no further political talks have been agreed. The West, suspicious Tehran is working towards a nuclear bomb, is due to introduce hard-hitting trade sanctions in the two weeks before that.
"Diplomacy in now on a respirator," said Cliff Kupchan of the Eurasia Group consultancy. "Both sides underestimated the difficulty of moving talks forward. How little progress was made underlines how far apart the sides are on substance."
U.S.-based Iran expert Trita Parsi said if a compromise was not vigorously pursued, "war will become far more likely."
"It really does seem like the Iranians just haven't made the decision to accept limits on their nuclear program," a Western diplomat said.
"If they haven't made that decision then all the talking in the world really isn't going to get us anywhere."
"Iran really pressed for this experts meeting and Russia wanted it so we agreed to do it. It doesn't feel to us like there is a lot of progress that is going to be made even there.
"(But) nobody is going to shut the door entirely."
The six powers - the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany - want Iran to scale back its nuclear work and, in particular, stop enriching uranium to levels that could bring it close to making an atom bomb.
Last month, and again in Moscow, the powers asked Tehran to shut down the Fordow underground facility where uranium is being enriched to the 20-percent level of fissile purity and ship any stockpile out of the country.
IRAN SEEKS SANCTIONS RELIEF
In return, they have offered fuel to keep Iran's medical isotope reactor running, assistance in nuclear safety and an end to a ban on spare parts for Iran's ageing civilian aircraft.
Iran denies its work has any military purpose and says the powers should offer it relief from sanctions and acknowledge its right to enriching uranium before it meets their demands.
New U.S. and European sanctions are due to come into effect in the next two weeks. In addition to totally banning Iranian oil imports, the EU measures prohibit European insurers from covering Iranian oil exports anywhere in the world, which would leave importers exposed to personal injury and pollution claims.
Western officials are suggesting that even further punitive measures may now be in prospect.
After the Moscow discussions broke up, a senior U.S. administration official said the talks would not go on indefinitely and Tehran should expect more sanctions if it fails to address international suspicions over the nature of its work.
"Sanctions will be increasing. We have told the Iranians there will be more pressure coming if this (lack of progress) proceeds forward," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
There was no immediate world from Israeli officials on the failure of the Moscow talks.
PRESSURE WILL RATCHET UP
But on June 4, a U.S. official was quoted as saying the United States was conferring with Israel about new sanctions planned against Iran should the Moscow talks fail.
"If we don't get a breakthrough in Moscow there is no question we will continue to ratchet up the pressure," said David Cohen, U.S. Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Haaretz newspaper reported.
The comment offered a strong hint that Washington is continuing to apply the brakes on any plan by Israel to attack Iranian nuclear facilities preemptively.
In Paris, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France would continue to strengthen sanctions against Iran. Some analysts say they suspect U.S. President Barack Obama, seeking a second term in November elections, cannot afford politically to make concessions to Tehran right now.
TALKS SEEN AVERTING ISRAELI STRIKE RISK
The Democratic White House has strongly rejected a Republican charge that Obama, who sought to ease 30 years of enmity with Iran after he came to power in early 2009, has shown a lack of resolve abroad.
Bijan Khajehpour, an Iranian and managing partner of Atieh International, a Vienna-based consultancy on the Middle East, told Reuters there were two reasons why the two sides were prepared to engage without a clear result.
One of them was that the continuation of such contacts, both sides calculated, reduced the risk of an Israeli strike.
The other reason was that either side suspected time would change the strategic situation in their favor.
"Western governments think the sanctions will bite further, Iran will come to its knee and then it will be more willing to compromise," he said. "From the Iranian perspective, the Americans have an election and it is not clear whether Obama will win 'so let's just wait and see what happens'."
Meir Javedanfar, lecturer on Iranian politics at Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, said that despite the failure of the Moscow gathering diplomacy was not dead.
Neither side would want to show that it was not interested in diplomacy as the costs at home and abroad would be high, he said. "It just means that for this route to succeed, more time and effort will be needed. Until then, both sides will try to use their own leverages to pressure the other side to compromise at the next round, whenever that may be."
(Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Vienna, Marcus George in Dubai and Yeganeh Torbati, Thomas Grove and Tim Heritage in Moscow)
RSS flays Nitish's remark on 'secular PM candidate - timesnow.tv
"Nitish Kumar has said NDA's Prime Ministerial candidate for 2014 elections should be secular. He has made the statement so that his vote bank remains intact," Bhagwat told a meeting of RSS volunteers in Latur.
According to those present in the meeting which was out of bounds for the media, Bhagwat also described Hinduism as an "all-inclusive" religion and wondered why a "Hinduwadi" should not become the Prime Minister.
"Hinduism is the religion of humanism. You are right and we are also right, Hinduism follows this broad philosophy," he was quoted as having said.
To keep alive the Hindu ideology, the Hindu 'samaaj' should come together and the country should have a prime minister who believes in that ideology or propounds that view, he is reported to have said.
In Delhi, RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav said that Hindutva is the "true synonym" for secularism and is liberal as it embraces all other religions.
"To portray it (Hindutva) as anti-secular is not correct and narrow minded. Hindutva is the true synonym for secularism... We have always felt that Hindutva is the ideological anchor of RSS and it is liberal, all embracing and a secular idea," he told reporters.
He also said that what its chief Mohan Bhagwat said while addressing its swayamsevaks should not be viewed in the context of the present political situation in the country.
"It is uncalled for to link his view to day-to-day happenings on the political front and statements of certain leaders," Madhav said.
Without naming Nitish Kumar for terming Hindutva as not being secular, Madhav said everyone has the right to put forth their views in democracy, but maintained that secularism and Hindutva are not opposed to each other.
Kumar had said yesterday that the NDA's Prime Ministerial candidate should be somebody with "secular credentials", in an apparent bid to give a thumbs down to his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi who is being touted as the first choice of the BJP for the PM's post.
The Bihar Chief Minister has yesterday stressed that the NDA should declare its Prime Ministerial candidate in advance saying, "this leader should be acceptable to every constituent of the alliance. To me, the leader of the coalition should have secular credentials."
Kumar has made known his unease with Narendra Modi a number of times earlier because of which the Gujarat Chief Minister was kept away from campaigning in Bihar during the last Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
RSS justifies chief’s statement on prime ministerial candidate (Lead) - Thaindian.com
“We always held that Hindutva, the ideological anchor of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) is a liberal, all-embracing and secular idea,” Ram Madhav told reporters here.
“To portray it as anti-secular or narrow-minded is not correct. Hindutva in reality is a true synonym for secularism,” the RSS spokesman maintained.
“This is our ideological position which we have been articulating from time immemorial and the chief of RSS (Mohan Bhagwat) has only reiterated that position,” Madhav said.
“It is totally, utterly uncalled for to link the views expressed before the swayamsevaks to day-to-day political happenings in the country, to individuals or leaders. This is uncalled for and not appropriate,” he said.
Earlier in the day, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had told reporters: “To keep alive the Hindutva ideology, the Hindu ’samaaj’ (society) should come together. And the country should have a prime minister who believes in that ideology or propounds that view.”
Bhagwat’s comments come a day after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led opposition National Democratic Alliance should announce a secular prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Bhagwat had hit out at Kumar too, saying he was scared to call himself a Hindu and questioned his right to decide what sort of person would make a good prime minister.
What is wrong if a Hindutva leader becomes PM: RSS Chief - SamayLive
Speaking at a function of Swayamsevaks in Latur Mr Bhagwat asked “what is the problem if a political leader with Hindutva leanings becomes Prime Minister of the country.”
He also questioned Nitish rights to decide who is secular and who is not. Bhagwat wondered if in Nitish Kumar’s imagination, former prime ministers of India were not seculars.
Obviously, Nitish words on Narendra Modi has not gone down well not only with the BJP but also with RSS.
In an interview given to a business daily on Tuesday Nitish Kumar has categorically said that any body wishing to occupy highest post should have impeccable secular credentials.
A political leader whose vision is narrow and frame of mind pigmy would not fit the bill, he is reported to have said.
His other declaration that NDA must announce its Prime Ministerial candidate before the 2014 election also led to heated political exchange.
Two Ministers of BJP in Bihar, Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi and Giriraj Singh are speaking at tangent. Modi was quick to obliquely endorse Nitish Kumar with the words “ a leader should have the secular credentials similar to that of Atal Behari Bajapai.
Giriraj Singh, another minister was quick to add that “ no body could be more secular than Narendra Modi.
Sushil Modi is held to be close to Nitish to the extent that he risks his relation in his own party, said political watchers in Bihar.
The fight within the BJP and the fight with allies like JDU are bound to worsen over a period of time.
The matter may come to a head when NDA meets on Wednesday to arrive at a consensus for Prez candidature which has eluded it so far.
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