Naoto Kan says Fukushima crisis has convinced him to aim for a society not dependent on nuclear power Prime minister Naoto Kan said on Wednesday the Fukushima nuclear crisis had convinced him that Japan should aim at a society that does not depend on nuclear energy and eventually has no atomic plants. The unpopular leader denied he was considering calling a snap election over energy policy and sidestepped a question on when he would keep a promise to step down, saying he wanted to do his best to work on nuclear policy and rebuild the country from the devastating 11 March earthquake and tsunami that triggered the world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years. “Given the enormity of the risks associated with nuclear power generation, I have realised nuclear technology is not something that can be managed by conventional safety measures alone,” Kan told a news conference. “I believe we should aim for a society that is not dependent on nuclear power generation.” He said it was premature to set a timeframe for achieving that goal. Kan also said Japan would be able to avoid summer and winter power shortages because of energy conservation efforts and companies’ in-house power supplies, despite the large number of reactors now offline for inspections or other work. The unpopular prime minister has become increasingly sensitive to growing public concern about nuclear power, but whether he oversees an overhaul of energy policy is in doubt since he has promised to resign, although he has not said when. Nuclear energy accounted for about 30% of Japan’s power supply before the 11 March disasters crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co’s Fukushima plant 240km (150 miles) north of the capital. That ratio slipped to 18% in June. Nuclear power Energy Japan disaster Japan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …On PBS, Tavis Smiley Enjoys Frank Rich Trashing Romney as ‘The Most Transparent Phony…You Can Imagine’
July 13, 2011 No Comment
PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley welcomed former New York Times columnist and theatre critic Frank Rich to his show on July 7 to absolutely rip on Mitt Romney as a leveraged-buyout specialist who “threw American workers out of work” and “the most transparent phony…that you can imagine.” So why is the unemployment rate at 9.2 percent? Rich said the Wall Street types (the “Robert Rubin retinue”) inside Team Obama ruined the chance to have “a WPA-style jobs program.” Smiley has constantly agitated President Obama from the left, so Rich's first piece for New York magazine insisting Obama's too friendly with Wall Street was right up his alley: TAVIS SMILEY: Well, I am glad, as many others are, your fans, glad to have you back and looking forward to digging into what you have to say in the coming months and years inside New York magazine. Let me start with the obvious. Why this particular piece about Obama as your debut? FRANK RICH: I guess as I was looking at various subjects, what really grabbed me and pushed me in this direction was the fact that Mitt Romney, a guy who is associated with corporate America, whose career was mainly in leveraged buyouts that often threw American workers out of work , that he is getting way with presenting himself as sort of a working-class hero, appearing in front of deserted factories and as a sort of nouvelle FDR.I thought how could Romney, of all people, get away with this pose, and I realized a lot of it has to do with the vacuum that Barack Obama has left in terms of his economic record as president. SMILEY: Is there a parallel? I'll come back to Obama and Romney in a moment. Is there a parallel, though, to how George Bush got away with demonizing John Kerry when Kerry served and Bush didn't? RICH: That's the exact parallel, only in this particular case – in that case, Kerry, his record was exemplary. He had done nothing to deserve it. There's just enough that's wanting in the Obama record so far that he gave Romney a slight opening for his exaggerations and caricatures. This is PBS, where liberals can come and agree with each other in blissful peace that conservatives are horrible people. Obama, Rich said, is a fundamentally decent guy who just needs to wake up and avoid the “Republican turf” of deficit reduction: SMILEY: I’ve said many times on this program and elsewhere between McCain and Obama, respectfully, the word “poverty” never came up one time. We could talk about the middle class; poverty never came up. It’s a word he still doesn’t want to utter to this day, the poor or poverty in this country. But I’m just trying to figure out how a campaign, whether you like or loathe them, agree or disagree, a campaign that was so good on being focused, that was so good on staying on message, that was so good at messaging during the campaign could so badly miss the issue of jobs in this White House? RICH: I couldn’t agree with you more, and of course we don’t know the answer, but there are several theories. One is that he was to some extent too much in the grip of people that he appointed, the sort of Robert Rubin retinue led by Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers. That was not that focused on jobs as the main thing. So even in the stimulus, explicit plans to try to have a WPA jobs program, to put people directly to work, was, we now know, essentially shot down by the Geithner forces in the internal administration debate. This is an administration that took almost a year after Obama entered the White House to have any kind of even sort of pro-forma jobs council, which is just amazing, given the circumstances that you so accurately describe when he came in. Then there was the health care focus and then what I don’t understand – and this is really the hardest question to answer – is how Obama, after health care, sort of waltzed past jobs as a focus and segued into the Republican turf of deficit reduction, almost as if he was intimidated by the Tea Party, even though every poll by every major pollster from Inauguration Day to the present shows that jobs and unemployment is a much higher priority for most Americans than the deficit. SMILEY: I'm just trying to get a sense of why you remain hopeful after all the words you used in this article. RICH: Well, I may be just a fool to hold on to any hope. (Laughter) Tavis, I can't make – I don't have any great argument except a fundamental conviction, I guess, that this is a decent guy, much of whose record in history, including, by the way, as a community organizer, suggests that his overall passions are not the ones we're seeing presented and seeing so compromised in the past couple of years. I also feel he is somebody wh when his back is against the wall tends to wake up and smell the coffee. A third thing is in the press conference that he gave last week, where he was immediately, of course, insulted by the Republicans for being so out there and so angry when in fact all he did was fight a little and show some spine, and yet that even got him called a four-letter word on another network, that Obama, he's still there. Romney is the most transparent phony, and I think many Republicans would agree, that you can imagine . He’s rolling up his shirtsleeves, he’s letting a few pieces of hair fall out of place, a little bit less hair gel, and we’re supposed to believe he’s Tom Joad in “The Grapes of Wrath.” That’s how he’s presenting himself. Four years ago or three years ago he presented himself as a religious conservative. That didn’t work. So that’s really a paper tiger if Obama is going to be the real tiger. SMILEY: Frank Rich is back, and unapologetically. I am happy about that, as I’m sure many of you are.
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Evidence from al-Qaida leader’s compound suggests he was in contact with militants as London plots unfolded, say US officials The 7 July suicide bomb attacks on the London transport network in 2005 were the last successful operation Osama bin Laden played a role in, US government experts have concluded. They said there was strong evidence, including material collected from the Abbottabad compound in Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed, indicating that as the London-based plots unfolded he was in close contact with al-Qaida militants. Some of the confidence the US officials expressed about Bin Laden’s involvement in the attacks is based on analytical judgment rather than ironclad proof. Two of the officials said there was no “smoking gun” evidence proving that he orchestrated the plots. One official said Bin Laden was “immersed in operational details” of the group’s activities. “We believe he was aware of these plots ahead of time,” another of the officials said. Circumstantial evidence, including information gathered from the Abbottabad compound, also suggests the al-Qaida leader had advance knowledge of an unsuccessful London-based 2006 plot to simultaneously bomb US-bound flights, several US national security officials said. “Bin Laden was absolutely a detail guy. We have every reason to believe that he was aware of al-Qaida’s major plots during the planning phase, including the airline plot in 2006 and the London 7/7 attacks,” one of the officials told Reuters. Fifty-two civilians, and four suicide bombers, died in the 7/7 attacks on three London Underground trains and a bus. Hundreds were injured. It was “the last successful operation Osama bin Laden oversaw,” one US official said. Investigations by British authorities, with support from the US and other allies, established some time ago that elements of al-Qaida’s core leadership had played a role in the 2005 attacks. Investigators found evidence that Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the cell that carried out the bombings, and another cell member had travelled to Pakistan for paramilitary training before the attacks. One of the plots that US officials believe Bin Laden was at least aware of was a 2006 plot to bomb multiple US-bound flights from Britain using homemade liquid explosives. The plot was disrupted when police launched a major roundup of suspects. Flights to and from Britain were severely disrupted and tight new restrictions were placed on passenger carry-on items such as liquids and gels. The latest assessments from US and other western officials support assertions by the Obama administration that, despite years of apparent isolation in Abbottabad, Bin Laden still managed to keep in touch with activities – sometimes in considerable detail – of his followers around the world. By the same token, the cache of evidence found in Bin Laden’s compound does not offer new indications about any specific current plots he was involved in directed at US or other western targets. 7 July London attacks Osama bin Laden Pakistan United States UK security and terrorism Global terrorism guardian.co.uk
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Human Rights Watch says rebels ransacked medical facilities and torched houses of Gaddafi supporters Libyan rebel forces have looted shops, homes and medical facilities in some of the towns they seized in the country’s western mountains, Human Rights Watch has said. In several towns, the rebels torched homes believed to belong to supporters of Muammar Gaddafi, the New York-based group said on Wednesday. Since the uprising seeking to end Gaddafi’s 42-year rule broke out in mid-February, armed rebels have seized control of much of the country’s east and set up an administration in Benghazi. They control the coastal city of Misrata and much of the Nafusa mountain range south-west of Tripoli, where they have expanded their control with a string of victories in recent months. Human Rights Watch, which based its report on interviews with local fighters and residents, called on rebel commanders to hold their forces responsible for damaging civilian property. “Opposition forces have an obligation to protect civilians and their property in the areas they control so people feel they can return home safely and rebuild their lives,” said Joe Stork, the group’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director. Rebel commanders could not be immediately reached for comment. Human Rights Watch quoted one commander as acknowledging that abuses had taken place, but denying that such acts were policy. “If we hadn’t issued directives, people would have burned these towns down to the ground,” the group quoted Colonel El-Moktar Firnana as saying. Gaddafi’s forces in the area have been accused of indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas and laying land mines. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa guardian.co.uk
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Afghan leader urges Taliban to ‘stop destroying the country’ as police investigate the shooting of Ahmed Wali Karzai Ministers, parliamentarians and thousands of other people joined the Afghan president Hamid Karzai to bury his half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, a political strongman who was praised for his efforts to bring peace to the southern province of Kandahar. Ahmed Wali Karzai, dubbed the president of Kandahar, was killed on Tuesday at his home by his long-trusted security chief. Security was tight as the funeral procession set off from the Mandigak Palace, the governor of Kandahar’s residence, to a burial plot in the Karz district at 7am local time on Wednesday. Immediately after the ceremony Karzai placed a turban on the head of Shah Wali Khan, another of his half-brothers, but made no official announcement on who would become the new provincial council head. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for killing Ahmed Wali Karzai. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday Karzai said: “This is the life of the people of Afghanistan. Afghan families, every one of us, have suffered from it and we hope, God willing, for our suffering to be over. “Once again I call on the Taliban, my dears, my brothers and friends, come and join me in building the country. Stop destroying the country.” Karzai was joined at the funeral by Kandahar’s governor, Tooryalai Wesa, and the mayor of Kabul, Muhammad Yunus Nawandish. Islamic custom stipulates that a body must be buried within 24 hours. A memorial is scheduled for Thursday so more family members can travel to Kandahar. The brothers’ father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was assassinated in 1999. Ahmed Wali Karzai’s body was released to the family on Tuesday afternoon from the Mirwais hospital. Rumours circulated that the remains of Sardar Mohammad, Ahmed Wali Karzai’s assassin, were strung up at a city centre roundabout. Police chief General Abdul Razaq said an investigation had been launched into the assassination. Local media, citing officials, reported that a number of arrests had been made on Tuesday night in connection with the killing. Afghanistan Hamid Karzai Taliban guardian.co.uk
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Office for Budget Responsibility report suggests UK will continue to pay the price for an ageing population and declining tax levels Britain must brace itself for decades of austerity even after George Osborne’s spending squeeze, to pay the price for an ageing population, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) warned on Wednesday. The OBR, set up by the chancellor to produce independent projections of the public finances, says the rising cost of healthcare and pensions, and declining tax revenues from the North Sea, will mean future governments have to take action to prevent debt levels rising inexorably. Without fresh tax rises or spending cuts, the OBR says, the government’s debt will hit a trough of 60% in the mid 2020s, compared with less than 70% now, before rising rapidly to hit 107% of GDP by 2060-61. Although the deterioration in the public finances is more than a decade away, the OBR urges politicians to make long-term decisions now, to prevent the economy drifting into a debt crisis as the population ages. “Policymakers and would-be policymakers should certainly think carefully about the long-term consequences of any policies they introduce in the short term. And they should give thought too to the difficult choices that will confront this country once the challenge of the current consolidation has passed,” the study says. The OBR’s report coincides with the publication of new “whole of government accounts” from the Treasury, which include new – and much larger – estimates of the state’s long-term commitments, based on treating the government as though it were a business, with assets and liabilities. The “net present value” of paying public sector pension promises – a way of calculating the cost if they all had to be paid today – had already hit almost 79% of GDP, or £1.1trn, by March 2010, according to the Treasury’s calculations. The price of Labour’s Private Finance Initiative – Gordon Brown’s favoured method for building new schools, hospitals and infrastructure without the Treasury paying the whole bill up front – is put at £40bn. Meanwhile, the state’s other “contingent liabilities”, which the Treasury hopes it will never have to pay, such as guarantees to the crisis-hit banking sector, amount to more than £200bn. Set against the government’s assets, which the Treasury calculates to be worth £759bn, overall public sector liabilities now stand at £1.2trn, or 84.5% of GDP. Despite these eye-watering estimates, however, the OBR says the main reason taxpayers must get used to decades of austerity is the growing burden of an ageing population, with its inevitable knock-on effects in terms of pensions and healthcare. “Balance sheet measures look only at the impact of past government activity,” it says. “They do not include the present value of future spending that we know future governments will wish to undertake, for example maintaining health, education and pension provision. And, just as importantly, they exclude the public sector’s most valuable financial asset: its ability to levy future taxes.” They estimate that health spending will have to rise from 7.4% of national output in 2015-16 to almost 10% by 2060, while state pension costs will hit almost 8% of GDP over the same period, and social care costs increase to 2% of GDP. Despite the hefty estimate of the net present value of public sector pensions, the annual cost of paying retired public sector staff will actually decline over time, the OBR says, because of the chancellor’s decision to uprate them in line with the lower consumer price index measure of inflation, instead of the Retail Price Index. Government borrowing Tax and spending Economics Public finance Public sector cuts Economic growth (GDP) Pensions Healthcare industry George Osborne Heather Stewart guardian.co.uk
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Democratic Unionist MP denies violence was caused by loyalists’ insistence on marching past Catholic Ardoyne area North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds has blamed “militant republicans” opposed to the peace process for organising a sustained riot in the Ardoyne area that lasted into the early hours of Wednesday morning. The Democratic Unionist MP said the violence, which lasted for more than six hours, had nothing to do with an Orange Order march past the area. Dodds pointed out there had also been a peaceful protest against the parade. Police officers came under attack for the second night running, with petrol bombs and missiles thrown by youths from Ardoyne. There were also pockets of trouble elsewhere, with two cars hijacked and burned in the nationalist Market area of central Belfast. A riot in Derry’s Bogside led to seven arrests, including that of a 14-year-old boy. The violence at the Brompton Park and Estoril Gardens entrances to Ardoyne continued into the early hours of Wednesday morning. Several police officers were injured, as well as a press photographer who was hit with a plastic baton round. Police fired dozens of plastic bullets at rioters and repeatedly deployed water cannon after coming under attack from a crowd of up to 200 people. At one stage a petrol bomb exploded on an officer’s head as he stood on the Crumlin Road shortly after 10pm. Colleagues doused the flames with a fire extinguisher and the officer escaped unhurt. The rioters also set fire to water cannon with petrol bombs. The attackers kept up a constant barrage of stones, bottles and other missiles for several hours once a controversial Orange Order parade had passed the Ardoyne shops shortly after 7pm on Tuesday night. The disturbances took place on the most important day in the Ulster loyalist marching calendar, just a few hours after previous riots that had left 24 police officers injured. Most of the violence on Monday happened in the Broadway area of Belfast close to the Falls Road, where local republican youths fought running battles with riot squad officers who were blocking their way to a loyalist area across the M1 motorway. On Tuesday night the tension continued on the Crumlin Road as Orangemen were verbally absued by groups of nationalist women as they returned from a rally in the south of the city. The women sang the Irish national anthem and hurled verbal insults at the marchers. Ardoyne residents have consistently opposed the loyalist parade passing their area and last night a number tried to stage a counter march just before loyalists arrived back from the city centre. When nationalists were prevented from doing so the violence erupted. The latest disturbances also expose divisions in Ardoyne between mainstream republicans who support the peace process and those who back republican dissidents’ armed campaigns. One former member of the Irish National Liberation Army told the Guardian those who took part in the street disorder were future recruits for dissident republican organisations who oppose the power sharing settlement in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
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Robert Booth at the high court and Paul Owen at the Guardian office bring you full coverage of the second day of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s battle to avoid being sent to Sweden to face rape and sexual assault allegations • Read more about Julian Assange • Read more about WikiLeaks • Read our live blog of yesterday’s session 10.12am: Mark Summers, who is acting for Julian Assange, says the WikiLeaks founder is suspected “with probable cause” in Sweden but this comes before any charges – so he is not “accused”, so the European arrest warrant is not valid 10.00am: Assange is in good spirits in court four: kisses on both cheeks for his lawyer Gareth Peirce. But the QC for Sweden, Clare Montgomery, is limbering up. 9.55am: Julian Assange has arrived at the high court. As yesterday, he said nothing but smiled and nodded to his applauding supporters. Robert Booth took a picture . 9.31am: John Pilger, the campaigning leftwing journalist and Assange ally, got a round of applause as he arrived at the court this morning. He did not look amused at his role as warm-up act. 9.28am: Robert Booth is at the Royal Courts of Justice, where the usual posse of news cameramen have gathered to record Assange’s court entrance. A few more protesters against the legal proceedings have also turned up. One placard reads: “Julian Assange dacks the rich and powerful”, Australian slang for pulling down their trousers. 9.23am: Julian Assange appeared at the high court in London yesterday for the first day of the latest stage of his fight against extradition to Sweden over sex allegations. The WikiLeaks founder will be back in court this morning for what is expected to be the final day of the hearing. Clare Montgomery QC , speaking for the Swedish authorities, is expected to argue that the decision to allow Assange to be extradited at the last stage of this legal process was correct. They will contend that the European arrest warrant under which Assange was arrested is nothing less than fair, accurate and proper and there is no justification for an inquiry into the validity or accuracy of the statements it contains, as Assange’s legal team suggested yesterday. Judgment is expected to be reserved, so a ruling might not be made public for days or weeks. If he loses, Assange could take his case to the supreme court, although permission to appeal to the supreme court would only be granted on a point of law considered to be of general public interest. Here are the key points from yesterday’s hearing : • Assange is claiming that the European arrest warrant that led to this hearing contained “fundamental misstatements” of what occurred in Stockholm last August. It falsely claims he used violence and “acted in a manner to violate sexual integrity”, Assange’s legal team said. • The WikiLeaks founder’s team claimed that his encounters with two women who made complaints against him involved consensual sex and would not be considered crimes in England. Ben Emmerson QC, his barrister, admitted that the women involved may have found Assange’s behaviour “disreputable, discourteous, disturbing, or even pushing towards the boundaries of what they were comfortable with” – discussing, for example, Assange’s initiating sex with one woman while she was asleep – but maintained that no crime had been committed under UK law. • Emmerson also claimed that the use of the European warrant was “disproportionate”, as there were other means available to obtain Assange’s assistance in the Swedish investigation. You can read all our coverage of yesterday’s hearing as it happened here , while, in the Guardian today, Robert Booth sums up the day’s events . Assange’s barrister set out the accusations against Assange in graphic detail yesterday, but as Robert points out Assange’s case against extradition does not hinge on whether he accepts these versions of events and testimonies relating to other incidents because there are no charges against him, Emmerson said. Rather, the barrister said, it was a question of whether the arrest warrant in connection with the allegations is valid on “strict and narrow” legal grounds. Julian Assange Crime Sweden WikiLeaks Rape Paul Owen Robert Booth guardian.co.uk
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Intelligence services had exploited ‘closed material procedures’ to conceal evidence relating to Guantánamo detainees The supreme court has outlawed intelligence services’ use of secret evidence in court to conceal allegations that detainees were tortured. The decision will be seen as a significant victory for open justice, but the panel of nine judges pointed out that parliament could change the law to permit such “closed material procedures” in future. The appeal was brought by lawyers for MI5 seeking to overturn an earlier appeal court ruling that prevented the service from suppressing accusations British suspects had been ill-treated at Guantánamo Bay and other foreign holding centres. The case arose originally out of claims by Bisher al-Rawi, Binyam Mohamed, Jamil el-Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes and Martin Mubanga that MI5 and MI6 aided and abetted their unlawful imprisonment and extraordinary rendition. The five – who deny involvement in terrorism – launched actions for compensation for abuse and wrongful imprisonment. The Guardian, on behalf of a number of media organisations, had intervened in the case to argue in favour of open justice. In the judgment, which runs to nearly 120 pages, all of the judges rejected the security service’s main submission that a court has a common law power to order a closed material procedure as an alternative to the more conventional public interest immunity (PII) certificate. Such a power, they argued, would contravene fundamental and long-established principles of open and natural justice. The court was divided on the security service’s secondary submission that a court has a common law power to order a closed material procedure as an add-on to a conventional PII in certain exceptional cases. Giving his judgment, Lord Dyson said: “There are certain features of a common law trial which are fundamental to our system of justice, both criminal and civil. “First, subject to certain established and limited exceptions, trials should conducted and judgments given in public. The importance of the open justice principle emphasised many times. “The open justice principle is not a mere procedural rule. It is a fundamental law principle. “Secondly, trials are conducted on the principle of natural justice.” To allow a “closed procedure” in such an ill-defined way could, he warned, “be the thin end of the wedge”. “This would be a big step for the law to take in view of the fundamental principles at stake. In my view this is a matter for the courts and not for parliament.” In similarly forthright terms, Lord Hope dismissed the intelligence agencies’ request for legal concealment. “There comes a point,” he said, “where the line must be drawn between procedural choices which are regulatory only and procedural choices that affect the very substance of the notion of a fair trial. “Choices that cut across absolutely fundamental principles – such as the right to be confronted by one’s accusers and the right to know the reasons for the outcome – are entirely different. The court has for centuries held the line as the guardian of these fundamental principles.” The Guardian’s submissions on open justice were acknowledged by the court. The government has, however, promised to produce a green paper on the use of intelligence material in closed court hearings. The detainees’ claims for compensation have, in the meantime, been settled. Last November the government agreed to pay out millions of pounds to former Guantánamo Bay inmates. The payments followed years of denial by the government of Britain’s role in the secret transfer of terror suspects to prisons where they risked being tortured – the CIA practice of “extraordinary rendition”. Torture MI5 MI6 Human rights Owen Bowcott guardian.co.uk
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EU commissioner Michel Barnier takes on the big three credit ratings agencies: Standard & Poor, Moody’s and Fitch Ireland yesterday became the third eurozone country to have its credit rating downgraded to junk status as Europe slid into a war it may struggle to win with international credit ratings agencies. It followed a week in which the agencies partly forced a shift in the EU response to the Greek sovereign debt crisis. A week after slashing Portugal’s status, Moody’s cut Ireland’s credit rating to junk and warned that the country would be likely to require a second bailout. The Irish government, which wants to return to debt markets in 2013 when its current EU-IMF bailout runs out, said the development was completely at odds with the recent views of other ratings agencies. “We are doing all that we can to put our house in order and the progress that we are making is there for all to see,” the department of finance said in a statement. The commissioner in charge of the EU’s single market, French politician Michel Barnier, alternately sneered and threatened the three big agencies who dominate 90% of the ratings industry: Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch. His remarks followed a broadside on Monday from fellow commissioner Viviane Reding, who said the ratings agencies’ “cartel” should be “smashed up” as they were seeking to determine the fate of Europe and its single currency. “We were surprised that the agencies would downgrade a country without any warning,” Barnier said of last week’s verdict from Moody’s on Portugal, branding its debt junk and predicting the country was the new Greece. “You don’t rate a country the same way you rate a company or a product. That’s an issue. We’re examining that issue.” Barnier said he would announce “stiff measures” in November aimed at taming the power of the agencies. They would be forced to justify their decisions by revealing the details of their analyses and criteria. Whether they were properly registered in Europe would also be scrutinised. “I want to have transparency regarding their methods, especially when they are rating countries,” he said. S&P concluded last week that Greece would be found to be in a form of default on its sovereign debt if its private creditors were involved in a new EU bailout, as is planned. That verdict helped to trigger the rescue rethink announced over the past 48 hours in Brussels. Christine Lagarde, the new IMF chief, when French finance minister, suggested that the agencies be banned from delivering ratings decisions on the eurozone countries being bailed out: Greece, Portugal and Ireland. “It’s just an idea,” Barnier addedHe said he would ask the Poles on Monday, who are chairing the EU, to put a ban on the agenda of EU finance ministers. Jacek Rostowski, the British-born Polish finance minister and former Tory party member, will be chairing the meetings of EU finance ministers for the next six months. He looks an unlikely convert to the Barnier ban. Ratings agencies European monetary union Euro Currencies Europe European Union Financial sector Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
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