Mitt Romney might be a nice guy and a “gentleman,” but he’s no conservative, at least according to Rush Limbaugh. “Romney is not a conservative. He’s not, folks,” the radio host said on Wednesday . What’s more, the argument that Romney’s presidential record would differ from his gubernatorial one just doesn’t…
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France’s biggest bank, BNP Paribas, unexpectedly downgraded by Standard & Poor’s A summit of G20 finance ministers in Paris on Saturday is expected to back moves by European leaders and the International Monetary Fund for a more substantial bailout fund to rescue indebted nations and prevent the eurozone’s collapse, according to sources close to the meeting. The IMF is expected to win support for an enhanced rescue facility, at the same time as eurozone nations move closer to adopting the so-called “big bazooka” of a huge insurance fund or wider guarantees to underwrite Greece and other ailing countries. As the finance ministers arrived in Paris, France’s biggest bank, BNP Paribas, was unexpectedly downgraded by Standard & Poor’s because of its weakening financial profile. BNP had been one of only three major global banks to be rated AA and the downgrade to AA minus came with an affirmation of ratings of other banks. The ratings agency now believes other banks are more likely to secure government support if they run into difficulty. While many analysts still expect Greece to default and repay only 40% to 50% of its debts, there is concern that a firewall will first have to be put in place to prevent a domino effect spreading to Portugal, Italy and Spain and banks holding large amounts of Greek debt. Speaking ahead of the G20 meeting, the chancellor, George Osborne, said he was confident that eurozone leaders, supported by the G20, would back more comprehensive measures to protect the currency union from breaking up. Osborne believes piecemeal reforms are likely to further undermine confidence and scupper efforts to end the crisis. Britain will also come under pressure from its European partners this weekend to lend its support to the financial transaction tax proposed by Brussels, and championed by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, the current chairman of the G20, as a way of taming speculation and raising funds from the financial sector. G20 leaders are expected to agree a set of measures to deal with the sovereign debt crisis at a meeting in Cannes next month. European Union leaders, including the prime minister, David Cameron, will assemble at an EU council meeting on 23 October. Many of the world’s largest investor groups have warned that failure to agree could trigger a run on the euro and the bankruptcy of several countries, possibly including Italy and Spain. The Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, narrowly survived a confidence vote on Friday , which he said would allow Rome to press ahead with budget cuts to bring about a balanced budget by 2013. Markets viewed the Italian vote and the mood of optimism in Paris as signals that progress was being made and that leaders would reach agreement on a coherent package in Cannes. The FTSE 100 climbed by 1.2% and the Dow Jones industrial average in New York opened up more than 1%. Osborne said: “The countdown to the Cannes summit of world leaders begins this weekend. The biggest boost to global and British growth would be a resolution to the eurozone crisis. “Momentum is now finally building towards that. We should use this weekend to keep up the pressure and step up the pace.” The eurozone has put in place a European financial stability facility (EFSF) worth €440bn (£382bn) to assure investors in European sovereign debt that their money is safe. Osborne believes that a €2tn fund is necessary to show that the bloc stands behind any country that gets into financial difficulties. In recent weeks EU officials have argued that the EFSF fund could be used as capital for a bank that needs to borrow further funds. Some officials have moved away from the idea, arguing that it amounts to the same highly leveraged institution that triggered the credit crunch. They argue that to save Italy and Spain from being locked out of international credit markets an insurance fund could be created that would guarantee the first 20% of private-sector losses on Spanish and Italian bonds, and perhaps 30% on those of more peripheral, weaker countries. The move would bypass the European Central Bank, which has fretted about using its balance sheet to issue huge guarantees or loans. Germany has made positive noises and Paris has indicated that an insurance scheme may be acceptable. European debt crisis Financial crisis Euro Currencies European monetary union Europe European Union Europe Phillip Inman David Gow Heather Stewart guardian.co.uk
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• First coalition Tory cabinet minister to resign • Relentless revelations about Adam Werritty to blame • Philip Hammond named as new defence secretary The prime minister lost his first Conservative cabinet minister on Friday when Liam Fox folded under the pressure of relentless revelations about a close friend and the access he gained to the heart of government. Performing a reluctant reshuffle, David Cameron made minimal moves to the frontbench from his constituency home in Oxfordshire, replacing Fox by phone with the transport secretary, Philip Hammond, who in turn was succeeded by Justine Greening. No 10 said Fox had crumpled under the weight of this week’s news stories and could not bear to contemplate another weekend of claims surrounding his friendship with his best man, Adam Werritty. Fox’s departure came only hours after Werritty had been back for a second interview with the cabinet secretary, Gus O’Donnell. He has been conducting an inquiry into claims that his friendship with Fox potentially jeopardised national security and raised issues around conflicts of interest. Sources said Werritty’s evidence had not impressed O’Donnell and that the cabinet secretary was concluding Fox had repeatedly broken the ministerial code. Downing Street insisted it did not push Fox and that the prime minister had been prepared to tough out the relentless coverage and wait for O’Donnell’s report to be concluded. However, senior figures began to question whether he could survive that long with new allegations that emerged on Friday. They showed that some of the businessmen who were funding Werritty’s trips abroad had an interest in influencing defence policy. The Guardian was poised to report that two of Werritty’s financial backers had defence interests. This put into question Fox’s repeated assertion that neither he nor Werritty had profited from the 40 occasions they had met over the last 16 months. Fox had been insisting up until Friday morning that he would tough out the crisis, telling aides that he believed the O’Donnell inquiry would exonerate him from serious wrongdoing. He had also believed that his apology on Monday would take the sting out of any criticism from O’Donnell. But that changed quickly when word began spreading around Whitehall that the investigation was going to draw some harsh conclusions: both about Fox’s personal conduct, and the mosaic of business arrangements that Werritty was involved in. “I don’t think the resignation was a done deal until early in the afternoon,” said one Whitehall official. But the mood music from the Cabinet Office was that the inquiry was going to be very damaging. It didn’t leave Liam very much choice. He didn’t get a chance to say too many goodbyes. He was in his car on the way home by the time the statement came out.” Fox will now join the backbenches, where he enjoys some popularity, but he has been so wounded by the last week that the chances of his being a standard bearer for rightwing discontent have waned. While he will receive considerable sympathy for falling out of a top-level job he had spent his life working towards, many Tory MPs believe the revelations week have damaged him beyond repair politically. The shadow defence secretary, Jim Murphy, said Fox had his “deepest sympathy”, though Labour’s reaction also contained criticism of Cameron for allowing Fox to survive through the week. A Downing Street source acknowledged there had been some ambiguity about whether the report now needed to be completed, though O’Donnell is likely to continue with his work. Fox sent a resignation letter to the prime minister at just after 4pm but actually resigned in a phone conversation with Cameron. In his resignation statement, he repeated a formulation he had used in his apology in the Commons on Monday when he and his supporters thought he could still ride out the issue. He said: “I mistakenly allowed the distinction between my personal interest and my government activities to become blurred. The consequences of this have become clearer in recent days. I am very sorry for this. I have also repeatedly said that the national interest must always come before personal interest. I now have to hold myself to my own standard.” Fox said he was “proud also to have played a part in helping to liberate the people of Libya, and I regret that I will not see through to its conclusion Britain’s role in Afghanistan, where so much progress has been made. Their bravery, dedication and professionalism are second to none.” In his return letter, the prime minister emphasised that Fox and his wife Jesme Baird have “always been good friends” and that Fox had been a “key” member of his team who had done a “superb job” over the last seventeen months. He said: “On Libya, you played a key role in the campaign to stop people being massacred by the Gaddafi regime and instead win their freedom. You can be proud of the difference you have made in your time in office, and in helping our party to return to government.” Fox was a well-liked secretary of state for defence for his part in overseeing a successful campaign in Libya, though he did disagree with the prime minister over funding cuts to the armed forces. But the welter of allegations about Werritty, 34, eventually forced him to take a decision he had resisted all week. “He was fighting on too many fronts to survive,” said one official. The Guardian was the first newspaper to highlight Werritty’s closeness to Fox, which had been privately causing alarm at the MoD for months. A key issue was whether Werritty could be shown to have benefited financially from the friendship; that key link appeared to emerge on Friday. The Times reported that a corporate intelligence company with a close interest in Sri Lanka, and a venture capitalist keen on strong ties were said to have funded him with donations totalling £147,000. The MoD insisted that Fox’s resignation would not change the department’s strategy of reform. “The department knows where is it going. We have established a clear direction of travel and everyone will support the new secretary of state,” said an official. “That won’t be a problem for people in the MoD. We have got used to change.” Greening’s promotion is well won with an increased tally of women in cabinet an unexpected boon for the prime minister in a situation otherwise distracting for Cameron. Greening, who held the post in opposition immediately before the election, is economically fluent and ahead of the growth review to be delivered on 29 November, she strengthens the economic voices in cabinet. Liam Fox Liam Fox and Adam Werritty links Adam Werritty Defence policy Conservatives Allegra Stratton Nick Hopkins Rupert Neate guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The Occupy Wall Street movement is growing beyond American borders : Tomorrow, protests are planned in Rome, London, Frankfurt , Auckland , and elsewhere. Italian police are bracing for crowds in the tens of thousands (1,655 have pledged to show up in Rome via Facebook ), though other cities expect fewer, Reuters…
Continue reading …Three thousand people have died in the seven-month protest campaign against President Bashar al-Assad, including at least 187 children, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has announced, urging international action to end Syria’s “ruthless repression” of its people. “The onus is on all members of the international community to…
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Advisory bodies and campaigners urge investors to oppose up to 13 of media firm’s 15 directors amid phone-hacking allegations Up to 25% of shareholders are expected to protest against Rupert, James and Lachlan Murdoch retaining their positions on the News Corporation board at the embattled media group’s annual meeting in Los Angeles next week. A string of advisory bodies and corporate governance campaigners have issued recommendations to vote against up to 13
Continue reading …A surfer off the Oregon coast briefly rode the waves on the back of a great white shark—and lived to tell the tale. Doug Niblack says he was on his longboard when he hit something hard and suddenly found himself standing on the back of a thrashing shark he…
Continue reading …A mysterious disease is killing seals along Alaska’s Arctic coast, and officials fear it might spread to other countries—and other species. Scores of dead or severely weakened ringed seals with telltale skin lesions and hair loss have been found along the coastline over the last few months, Reuters reports….
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Transport project follows congresswoman’s petition over high incidence of sexual harassment of women in Guatemala City Guatemala City has introduced women-only buses aimed at reducing instances of harassment and violence against women on public transport across the Guatemalan capital. The project came about after a congresswoman, Zury Rios Montt, started a petition to draw attention to the fact that hundreds of women were sexually harassed on buses every year. According to the Association of Transport Users in Guatemala, of the 1,500 complaints received annually about passenger abuse, more than a third of them involve the sexual harassment of women and girls. “Women have the right to travel in safety, as demanded by law,” said Luis Gómez, vice-president of the city’s bus service, Transurbano. “It’s a shame we had to introduce this system, but people weren’t respecting women on mixed buses.” Roughly half of Guatemala City’s 3.5
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Court rules that police are allowed to detain immigrants who are suspected of being in the US illegally A federal appeals court issued a ruling Friday that temporarily blocked parts of an Alabama law requiring schools to check the immigration status of students but let stand a provision that allows police to detain immigrants that are suspected of being in the country illegally. The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals issued the order after the Justice Department challenged what is considered the toughest immigration law in the nation. The opinion also blocked a part of the law that makes it a crime for immigrants to not have proper documentation. A final decision on the law won’t be made for months to allow time for more arguments. Since a federal judge upheld much of the law in late September, many frightened Hispanics have been driven away from Alabama, fearing they could be arrested or targeted by police. Construction workers, landscapers and field hands have stopped showing up for work, and large numbers of Hispanic students have been absent from public schools. To cope with the labor shortage, Alabama agriculture commissioner John McMillan at one point suggested farmers should consider hiring inmates in the state’s work-release program. It’s not clear exactly how many Hispanics have fled the state. Earlier this week, many skipped work to protest the law, shuttering or scaling back operations at chicken plants, Mexican restaurants and other businesses. Immigration has become a hot-button issue in Alabama over the past decade as the Hispanic population has grown by 145% to about 185,600 people, most of them of Mexican origin. The Hispanic population represents about 4% of the state’s 4.7m people, but some counties in north Alabama have large Spanish-speaking communities and schools where most of the students are Hispanic. In addition to the Obama administration, a coalition of advocacy groups also filed a separate appeal of the law, claiming it has thrown Alabama into “chaos.” Alabama’s law was considered by both opponents and supporters to be stricter than similar laws enacted in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia. Federal judges in those states have blocked all or parts of those measures. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer earlier this year asked the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the legal fight over her state’s tough immigration law. The Justice Department has called the Alabama law a “sweeping new state regime” and urged the appeals court to forbid states from creating a patchwork of immigration policies. The agency also said the law could strain diplomatic relations with Latin American countries, who have warned the law could impact millions of workers, tourists and students in the U.S. The law, it said, turns illegal immigrants into a “unique class who cannot lawfully obtain housing, enforce a contract, or send their children to school without fear that enrollment will be used as a tool to seek to detain and remove them and their family members.” “Other states and their citizens are poorly served by the Alabama policy, which seeks to drive aliens from Alabama rather than achieve cooperation with the federal government to resolve a national problem,” the attorneys have said in court documents. State Republicans have long sought to clamp down on illegal immigration and passed the law earlier this year after gaining control of the Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signed the measure, saying it was crucial to protect the jobs of legal residents amid the tough economy and high unemployment. US immigration Alabama United States guardian.co.uk
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